My reflections
Today’s activity with my confirmed tutor Rahul Patel was really good. Firstly I logged in at 9.30am when the class started at 9am, but raced back from dropping the kids to school, Rahul, has a very calming aura so I felt at ease straight away, he was equally very empathetic. As I entered the collaborate room Abigail my colleague was in full presentation mode. ‘wow’ I thought, her slides and information, graphics, layout citations are really good. Then started the almost instant comparison to mine…’oh mine doesn’t look like hers, oh mine is text heavy’. Well it too late now to change so buckle up!
Each member of my tutor group had to present their first task: presenting a five minute talk with slides to support about our teaching context, introducing ourselves and sharing something we’d learnt about the pedagogy / pedagogic research and any questions it raised for us. I was very nervous, but executed brilliantly, although my reflections taken from my chosen article, ‘Why choice of teaching method is essential to academic freedom: a dialogue with Stephan Finn. Finn highlights the ‘professor’s freedom to teach’ and the ‘pedagogic self-governance meaning that the academic profession should enjoy autonomy with respect to the choice of teaching method and development of curriculum’.
This resonated with me as I lend to a more creative output of messaging to students. I’m hoping through this course i’am able to develop a better way of moving past simply expelling information, fielding curious questions and entertaining anecdotes and become more academic in my approach that fuses holistically the creative. The freedom to speak on topics that are unfavourable.
Rahul made a valuable point upon listening to one of the students, ‘it’s not a one way transmission in terms of what we do, and the students are a key to our learning’. Rahul, spent time understanding our ethnic backgrounds, detailing his and then each one of us, our names, pro-nouns which was nice as I believe he was being culturally sensitive of the room. Rahul then proceeded to ask us why we thought he did this?
Miss Robin Red Breast over here, automatically responded by stating, ‘you wanted us to feel safe and connected?’. He nodded, ..’this exercise’ he said ‘was done to give a sense of belonging and compassion’. Which harkens back to the pedagogy of belonging.
He then posed the question; ‘how do you ensure students are part of the institution on first encounter/meeting?’ As for students who have travelled to study in London, London can be alien to them and for those born and raised in London it can be extremely tough.
Rahul went on to explain that traditionally within academia there is zero discussion of where students were from but now its the connections that are important within teaching and learning.
Rahul then went on to provide us with the course schedule and overview with key dates, and areas of focus for our pending assignments, tutorials, classes etc.
As our session drew close to its end, we reflected collectively as a class on our presentations. Abigail confirmed my sentiment of being nervous when presenting. I commented in the chat that I too was nervous and spoke really fast – my coping mechanism as this impacted on the five minute time we were allocated per presentation. I actually stuck to it via Rahul’s prompting..’er one minute left Ruth’. Phillippa, also stated like me she too produced a lot of content to mask her nerves.
Rahul, posed the last question, as Torisheju presented without slides, did we need slides to present? A very varied response from the class. Torisheju mentioned to substantiate my point within my own presentation that she looks for social ques from the recipients of the information to gage the success of a presentation.
Rahul’s final feedback to close our first session today
From watching, listening and talking to each of us post our presentations we provided too much information, and the need to over compensate for our skillsets, career trajectory et al is often the reason why we do this. He went on to say, pausing and silence is good during presentations as it allows for thought and less is more.
Lastly, he informed us all that there’s no definitive way to produce a presentation, but to remember less is more and leave the listening/viewing audience with a question. I have a question Rahul, will you pass me on this course?