Field Pathway Meeting Minutes Tuesday 2nd May 2006
Present: Ken Allen, Lisa Munton, Maureen Slack
Strengths from the Second Semester
The module guidance materials and hotseats have been very helpful. The resources have gotten(sic!) better over the three years of the degree.
Having the module leaders active in First Class on specific modules and knowing clearly who they are has helped clarify module specific issues.
Learning Sets have been beneficial in terms of there being a small number of members and a more manageable amount of researcher work to help look at. It has also helped some people develop and gain confidence.
Issues from the Second Semester
Learning Sets
It would have been better to have started learning sets in the second year of the degree. Some people would like to see them self selecting. Later cohorts are starting learning sets earlier. Self selection has not worked in many instances. There is a tendency for the first few self selected groups to work well but later groups do not function as well or have the range of people to select from. Peer reviewing can be an added pressure especially knowing how much material to look at and review.
Recommendation 1
Clearer boundaries need to be set on the quantities of peer review materials being looked at by researchers.
Assignments
There has been some confusion on the issue of what needs to be included in year three assignments because of the nature of four assignments spanning one piece of research. The issue of repetition has been particularly worrying to researchers.
Recommendation 2
Reinforce the necessity for assignments to stand alone when being assessed and give further guidance on when repetition is allowed because of this.
Online Discussions/Conversation
Where these are given in module guidelines some people have used them when useful other people have slavishly done them all sometimes after the assignments have been completed. When the latter has happened the usefulness of the discussion has been limited.
Recommendation 3
Emphasise the use of these when appropriate for the needs of the researchers and not as a blanket requirement.
Facilitation
Some researchers have been confused by the changing nature of facilitation as the year has progressed.
Recommendation 4
Make clearer at the start of the year the increasingly independent expectations being placed on researchers as they progress and the implications this has in terms of a changing style of facilitation.
Sheesh - what can I say?