Speedy video edits

Been doing loads of video editing this week. Getting quicker which is good.

The data collection phase of my research project is nearly completed although it's been really difficult to get enough respondents. Here's an edit of some exit interviews from some of the participants - they were even more emphatic than we expected:-

A surprising result was the emphasis on 'rate my lecture/seminar'. We identified 'rating/voting' as sticky content on commercial websites so I included a rate my lecture concept in the model sticky site. It got by far the most attention from the students.

Some of the lecturers I have spoken with are horrified at the thought and but I'd like to give it a try on my modules next academic year. Rob mentioned there was an outcry about the 'rate my professor' website but I think this is very different - don't see the difference between this and leaving post it notes for comments at the end of a session. It's not an open forum - just another means for a student to give feedback.

I was thinking this is like Customer Relationship Management.... Student Relationship Management?

Panopto / mentor observation

Having a little trouble getting my required observations for PGCTHE completed as my mentor is unfortunately ill at the moment. Decided to record a session on Panopto and give my mentor access so she could do her observations that way.

I was giving a guest lecture for Kathy's comms class - as it is in the big lecture theatre where the kit is, also the subject was quite interesting, I decided to use that one. I have also asked Kathy to do an observation on the same session. Actually I'm quite apprehensive about that as I think we have such different styles I'm expecting it to be quite critical. Not enough application of theory I expect.

I recorded another lecture the same day on Panopto just testing it - the subject was a bit dry - visualising data. Could use that I suppose but it wasn't very interactive. Got my feedback sheets done on that module and got all 4's and 5's and some lovely comments - will have to post some :)

I think I will also send the long version of the graze seminar video to my mentor for observation as it was a different type of session - a seminar.

Sadness

MKT1002 presentations again this week.

Only one group presented. They did a pretty poor job. They disregarded the repeated direction they had been given about using cue cards. Their analysis was so unclear I couldn't tell if it was past analysis or future proposal. The idea was unclear, had illogical objectives (which actually only became apparent at all in the questions session) and was uncreative. Even the presentation was awful with loads of words on each slide, video which had not relevance. Even in the Q&A they admitted that some of the things they had said they didn't know why they said them.

I gave them a D+

As I left the room I thought maybe since the grade was so poor I should explain myself. As it happens, I forgot a sheet of paper (with all the group grades so far... it wasn't a secret but probably fuelled the fire as they'd be able to tell theirs was second bottom so far).

I went back to the room. The group was in a huddle and clearly very pissed off. I offered to explain my grade. They felt I had been unfair. Their peers had given them generous grades (as usual).

I went through my reasons item by item to justify the grade. It meant I had to be very specific in my criticism so it was upsetting for individuals this time not just the group. Some team members had done a particularly poor job.

By the end, I still don't think they agreed with me. I reasoned that they had been through a stressful experience, felt disappointed, and maybe needed some time to reflect on the whole thing and my feedback. I offered to speak to them again in a week.

I also explained that my grade alone made only a small difference to their overall portfolio grade.

I have gone back over it and still feel that their presentation really was bad ... but the kind of bad where there's been quite a lot of effort put in. I'm wondering if I should have given a C- rather than a D+ which probably would have made all the difference to how they felt about it. Did I need to knock them down so far. Is there any way I can make sure I haven't ruined them for presenting forever!! Must discuss this with Sally.

Rude rude rude

On Thursday I arranged a guest speaker to come in from CACI and give a presentation to MKT2003 about Acorn geodemographic profiling. This group had asked for industry speakers on their feedback forms last term.

I wasn't sure how Mark would be in the lecture theatre (can be a bit intimidating) but actually he did really well. His talk was accessible and interesting I thought, and drew in a lot of the strands we had been talking about. He did an interactive session which got a fair amount of student participation.

I was sitting in the audience at the front on the left had side of the theatre. At around the half way mark I noticed two students sitting in the middle of the seating. One, Inderdeep was texting or emailing on his phone. Irenose sitting next to him was leaning on his shoulder and appeared to be asleep. I was horrified. I continued to observe them, and they both continued their sleeping/texting right to the end of the lecture. I was hoping to catch Inderdeep's eye so I could glare at him and get him to wake Irenose. Unfortunately he didn't look up from his phone at any point. I figured that getting up and dealing with them would be more disturbance / embarrassment for the speaker. By the end, other students had noticed and were giggling about it.

I was very angry. At the end of the lecture I got up quickly and marched the two students out of the lecture theatre. I didn't have much time as there was a class waiting to go into the lecture theatre and my guest needed escorting out. All of the rooms down the corridor were full (I had hoped to speak to them in private). In the end this wasn't possible so I had to speak to them with the class filing past. I spoke in a low voice and told them how embarrassed and angry I was about their rude behaviour when our guest had given up his afternoon to come and speak to them. They muttered apologies and Irenose said that she had a headache. I told her that in that case she shouldn't have come and then stomped off to sort out the guest & lecture theatre.

Luckily Mark (observant as ever) appeared not to have noticed - I find this rather hard to believe but he may have been focusing on his presentation.

Sally told me Inderdeep didn't go to his afternoon seminar on MKT2020 (which I sometimes teach). I discussed it with some colleagues, all of whom agreed the students' behaviour was appalling and they deserved the bollocking.

All the same I was a bit upset as my relationship with both of these students was previously good. They both have their exhibition on Monday for MKT2020. I will be assessing them. They are likely to be apprehensive about this. I don't want to let them off the hook - ideally they should be thinking about apologising for their behaviour. However I don't want it to screw up their assessment. I have to film them for a video while they are setting up their exhibitions - will be friendly and break the ice with them. See if they mention it.

Peer Assessment Pressure

This week I've been watching the group presentations for MKT1002. Have watched 6 so far and interestingly, so far each time there has been one good one, and one poor one.

The 3pm session on Tuesday was most interesting. The group who went first did an excellent job - I scored them an A grade. The second one was pretty bad (one individual in particular, who had come panicking to me an hour before his presentation begging to be allowed to use cue cards). We had specified no cue cards - but actually it wouldn't have helped him - not only did he not know his material, also you could tell from the bullet points that he also hadn't covered the right material. I graded that group a C-.

The students were asked to grade each other, and grade themselves. It was fascinating. First of all, they were in pieces having to grade the group who hadn't done well. "But they'll see it!" one girl wailed. Others I caught sight of gave the group a B.... It was astonishing. Even though one group's presentation was so emphatically worse than the other, they could not bring themselves to mark the group down.

The student who had been worst asked if he could give a split grade - A for his group, F for himself. Clearly some level of understanding there then - I doubt he'll want to be in that position again. He's normally quite talkative, turns up but doesn't seem to study or take it very seriously. He will have had a confidence knock. Need to try and get him on his own and discuss it with him - important that he's had a sharp shock not been put off for life!

I'm looking forward to seeing this written up in their portfolios. What will they make of their peer assessment I wonder?

One student, who rarely shows up and is frequently challenging (but not in a good way) turned up late and noisily. Also started talking during one of the presentations - until I stared at him daggers - and had to be told to put his phone away. He came up and asked when his presentation session is. At this stage not to know when you're presenting... does not bode well. Impending doom on that one.

BA Advertising Validation

While I think about it I should make some notes about my involvement in the BA validation last week as it's part of our quality assurance.

I wasn't involved in the whole event, but was called in with some of my colleagues part way through to defend both the inclusion of two of my research modules as compulsory elements in the BA Advertising course. I am also potentially part of the team teaching on the new 40 credit modules which will provide 3 hour teaching blocks. These will give greater opportunities and also challenges in terms of teaching content.

In the end the panel had no questions about the necessity of including my module, nor about the differentiation between the first and second years which I had prepared for.

There were two main ways in which I contributed; we provided each member of the panel with a sample graze box at the start of the day (providing an element of intrigue - they had been anticipating us talking about it the whole time I gather). I described how we deconstructed the boxes using the theories the students had studied, and went on to look at the viral and online content and the entrepreneurial story. I also talked about how the sessions were videoed and fed back to the industry contact with a view to further entanglement. This was an example of what a 3 hour teaching block could accomplish in the new module (we had to do it over two weeks).

The second thing I talked about was in the area of employability - talking about the MKT2020 work we did over a period of weeks with Gratterpalm (see earlier posts). This was a bit controversial as one of the panel members was from Leeds Met, and Gratterpalm are based in Leeds and some of her students are currently there on placement.... I also spoke about the adoption of visual cvs - and one of the panel members who teaches Law asked to meet with me to discuss the concept for application in her school which was gratifying.

I was interested to observe that one of the main areas for debate while I was in the room was about the assessment methods. In particular the use of group assessment, and the near absence of examinations. It seems that exams are still seen as desirable and more rigorous in some areas - although I had always seen the opinion from colleagues that we should strive to be more inventive and inclusive in our assessment methods. Maybe we are more progressive than we realise...

On the whole it was a very positive experience, the panel were very supportive and complimentary about the plans, and the degree got it's validation with only a minor recommendation about clarity on the use of the word 'creative' which it was felt was being used too liberally in the course materials when in the advertising industry it has a very narrow meaning.

Reflecting on reflection

PCGTHE core session today. It was good to see everyone, but as usual it had that 'one step forward, two steps back' effect on me.

We discussed reflection at length - in particular the use of various models for reflection. Oh no - I've been doing it all wrong! Well actually I think I've been using the key components and managing to achieve a fair depth of reflection albeit accidentally.

For the portfolio it will be necessary to both choose and argue the case for my choice of a particular model.

Interestingly it seems that specific models are quite embedded in the practice of some of the other schools - e.g. School of Health uses Gibbs Model of Reflection (1988) - in fact this also features in the NUPAD area for personal development. Weird because we do reflection in the portfolios on MKT1002 but have not given the students any theoretical model to follow.

So here's Gibbs' model - looks very straightforward and would fit well with what I've been doing organically.

Other models to compare with seem to be Johns' Model of Reflection (1994), Kolb's Learning Cycle (1984) and Atkins & Murphy's Model of Reflection (1994), Greenaway's Do-Plan-Review, Baud's Model and Schon's Reflection-in-action and Reflection-on-action.

The other key message today in this area was something that I already realised but have not done yet - basically the reflection won't get good grades without direct reference to the academic theory. This I will need to reverse engineer as I know I can't commit to starting my reading until May at the earliest.

We also had a look at some portfolio exemplars - what a variety! It was reassuring actually. The key thing I derived from this was the importance of very clear signposting of content. I'll have to pay even more attention to this with the e-portfolio. With a physical file, you start at one end and work your way to the back. How can I make sure my reader visits every page I want them to... or does that matter - do they navigate using quick links to the assessment items? Food for thought. Di has also given my name to some contacts in the School of Health to talk about E-Portfolios.... so I'd better make it good.

More graze news...

... got an email today from Ben at graze. He said that the comments in the video had given him a couple of ideas for developing the communications...

Fed it back to the seminar group this afternoon and it had quite an impact. Just need to watch out to see if I can spot where the manifest themselves. My guess is it's something to do with picnics, more little notes in boxes, or increasing interest in the design on the base....

Well worth the effort of doing the video. I will reel graze in...

Video from the Graze session

I finally got around to editing that video down the goldfish bowl seminars a couple of weeks ago. God I hate how I sound and look on video... but anyway.

Watching back the footage was helpful. I realised I didn't push them hard enough on the theory they were meant to be using, and I didn't make them use the right language - let them get away with dumbing down too much.

On the flip side, everyone contributed in a thoughtful way and they did have some great ideas in the deconstruction of the piece. There was also a good rapport in the seminar I think, and I had everyone's full attention (this group has a gang of lads in it, they can be a bit of a handful).

This video will be sent to graze, to thank them and hopefully keep them engaged in the relationship with us. I will also give it to some of the students who missed the seminar (so they can still do 2 portfolio entries even if they failed to attend). I am also considering giving the uncut footage to a colleague to get her to do an observation.

I'm really pleased to be involved with this - I got hold of the materials and wrote the case study, but Sally really ran with the idea and proposed the goldfish bowl method. This methodology was a bit alien to Gary and Kathy who also delivered some of these seminars. It's the validation for the BA in Advertising tomorrow and one of the materials they will be showcasing is this 2 week graze deconstruction. Kathy is running the validation proposal so I'm really pleased she liked it enough to want to put it in the validation.