Mother of Invention

Yet again, necessity forces me to venture into new territory.

My MKT2003 lecture clashes with all 3 preparatory briefings ahead of the very important Periodic Subject Review. I was concerned that as a newbie, missing all of the dress rehearsals was a bad idea. Peter agreed and instructed me to find a plan to get out of the lecture next week.

I had already planned to have these students (finally) do some practical activity. The feedback from last week illustrated that they are tiring of theory - and I don't blame them. I pulled this forward a week and also managed to get hold of the Marketing Director of Retail Eyes again - we spoke briefly in the summer.

Since I hadn't heard from him, I thought he wasn't interested, and was hoping to just get copies of some research assignments for my students to have a go with. I was delighted when he offered to come and do a talk as well.

So now, not only do I have a field activity for the students to do on the week I need to be at the PSR event, but also have a guest speaker to boot. A result!

Mile wide, inch thick

Just a reflection that the observation made by Di at the last PGCTHE session that you can teach material a mile wide and only an inch thick, or cover less ground in more depth has stayed with me. I must have the confidence to cover less, but be more thorough.

Feeling the love for MKT3017

The Lecture

So I have spent most of the last week planning strategies for dealing with the whisperers in my multinational MKT3017 and generally feeling a bit crap about the job I've been doing on that module.

I had my plan - printed out the mugshots and greeted a few of the 'talkers' by name on the way in. I had run out of time a bit prepping the lecture and didn't put as much interaction in as I hoped, but I did find a couple of short video clips, and also did the thing where I asked them to show their lecture notes to their neighbour (challenging how much they were writing down).

Last week a student asked me something about the GE Model for Business Strategy - I didn't know the answer. This week I had checked it out and I went through that first. I think they were surprised.

It was really different this week. I don't know whether my delivery was better or they were still mindful of the bollocking I gave them last week

but they were with me the whole time and actually it went very well. The four French friends did start up talking at one point but I pounced on them, asked them if there was a problem, and they said not, and shut up. James and Eugene sat up on the back row and I expected them to mess about but they didn't.

Feedback

So all this week I've been getting the students to give anonymous feedback on post-it notes. Before the Friday lecture I almost didn't do it with

them - am SOOO glad I did. I couldn't believe the feedback they gave me, particularly in view of how I was feeling about the module.

The feedback reinforced the issue we'd had the previous week with talkers... but otherwise, just way better than I expected, even from the international students.

Yay!

I noted that several of the students said how much they liked participating in the virtual seminar... which reminded me to check the discussion boards....

Virtual Seminar

I set up the virtual discussion boards in Nile last week. When I checked them on Tuesday there was hardly any activity and what was there was a bit crap. I was disappointed, but sent out a note telling them that if they didn't have a go we wouldn't be doing it again. I kind of forgot about it.

After the feedback I went and had a look - and actually there was loads of new activity - from international students as well. Not many people appeared to have read the book but there was certainly some intelligent debate and analysis. I was so pleased! I went through and made positive comments on a lot of the posts this afternoon. I'll feed back on it in lecture next week. This group has gone from my zeros to my heroes in one day!

Post-it notes of joy

I collected feedback from a couple more seminar groups today and my big 2nd year lecture. It was a bit scary but very very helpful.

I got some great feedback feedback - specifically about the slide designs, pace, clarity and the entertaining nature of the activities. Games and videos in particular were big hits. Areas for improvement included dealing with people talking in class with more authority, speaking louder, and giving more thinking time.

Feedback & PGCTHE 2

Seminar Feedback

I ran a seminar for Tomorrow's Consumer today - I had adapted spooky bingo to be a revision game, which worked really well - although it didn't really last long enough.

At the end of the session I asked for some informal feedback - said that since I wouldn't be seeing them again until next term I wanted them to tell me what to start doing, stop doing etc.

Some helpful feedback here - some nice positive comments, but also a couple I can use to improve - speaking louder in the lecture theatre and dealing with people talking... something I'm reviewing as a critical incident at the moment.

Think I will repeat this in the other seminars & lectures this week. It's a bit scary though.

A student also came up to me at the end and asked why I no longer took his Thursday afternoon MKT1001 seminar. He said he didn't want to be mean, but the new lecturer didn't seem to have a handle on it. I explained how I'd been allocated different hours now, and that he should give her a chance as she was new. I was secretly flattered though.

PGCTHE 2

Had an enjoyable second PGCTHE session. We sat in the same groups as last time so I feel like I'm starting to get to know the others a bit. We covered assessment, levels of learning and understanding.

We then reviewed the critical incidents we had prepared. I worked in a group with Francis and Mike and a psychology lecturer whose name I didn't know. I shared the French Whispering situation (since it is unresolved) I really got a lot out of it - Francis was particularly insightful, and I think everyone agreed that I needed to speak to them and try and understand why the were talking - high likelihood that language may be at the heart of it. I now feel more confident in my strategy for Friday.

We also had a look at a couple of portfolios. I didn't think they were presented in a way that was particularly easy to understand. Di clarified some important points about the relationship between the literature and the incidents. Mike also mentioned that he's also doing an e-portfolio, and is using the learning outcomes to direct the content of his critical incidents. This seemed like something worth considering - as a checklist if not as content headings. Christine and Damien were interested in getting some help with E-Portfolios - I have set up a session to show them Googlesite.

Narrow Escape

Nearly had a nightmare scenario today teaching the 5-6pm seminar on MKT1001

This seminar is timetabled for Room 204 in the Senate building - which has only recently been turned into a classroom. For the first few weeks the activity was a game, discussion or case study and instead of using the classroom, we used the comfortable seating area outside - a relaxed yet private space for discussion.

For the last 3 weeks though, I needed to use the PC/Projector. The first week there was a mobile projector and laptop, projecting onto a damaged whiteboard, and the projector had lost it's red pin so showed everything with a green hue. The second week, someone had also written on the whiteboard and not cleaned it (there was no eraser, I had to go and get toilet paper to try and clean it up) the projector still shone green, I rang IT support beforehand... they couldn't fix the colour problem.

This week I was due to run a mock test ahead of this group's Multi Choice Test next week. I had a powerpoint presentation with just the answers on, and also a folder with the register, and the question paper.

I arrived 15 minutes early. When I walked in I saw that the laptop was unplugged and there was a spaghetti of cables on the table, also the projector and OHP were jumbled up at the front - looked like a dumping ground. I also noted that an IAW had been installed. As it was nearly 5pm and IT finishes at 5, I called the helpdesk, concerned that it was not connected. The Tech arrived and we established that the new lectern had not been networked in, so I could not get at the test (on the central directory). At this point I also noticed that I had picked up the wrong file and did not have the register or the test with me!

This was a really bad situation. The students were all waiting. If they didn't get their mock test they might be disadvantaged in their MCT. If I went back to Cottesbrooke I would have wasted another 20 minutes.. I called Gil and Grant to try and get them to email the test to my iPhone, hoping I could read the questions off it.

Luckily the Tech managed wire up the lectern, I managed to log on, and figured out I could hack my Uni mail account via the internet. I managed to open the document and quickly save a version without the answers showing and used this with the students.

They never knew how close they were to a screw up and the session went well.

Lessons learned: - when traipsing over to Senate or the Mobiles be ABSOLUTELY SURE that I have the right materials with me, also hard copies and any vital files on memory stick.

Upside: so relieved I was able to think straight enough to log on to the email over internet.

Storytelling & bad manners

I reviewed my lecture slides ahead of MKT1013 Tomorrow's Consumer - my second big guest lecture on this module. This week's topic: Marketing and Morality.

I remembered that last week, my slides had run out and I'd had to spin it out a bit. I also noted from reading Phil Race last week that I shouldn't rely on stand & deliver just because it was a lecture. I spent 40 minutes YouTubing and googling for something to show or a 'moral maze' type activity. Nothing sprang out.

In the end I decided to go with an anecdote from working at Carlson - the story about how the Carlson family forbade trade with firms trading alcohol, cigarettes or gambling... and how we knowingly traded with Diageo and Party Poker and changed the names on the accounts.

I asked them to vote on a) the family's right to set rules about ethics b) the MD's decision to do trade with Diageo c) the account handlers agreement to work on the account d) whether they would have rung the ethics hotline and blown the whistle.

The whole audience was really engaged during this section, really good participation and attention. I felt very relaxed telling the story - knew it inside out and was able to go quite slowly as they hung on my words. Reminded me of the power of a story well told. No slides for that bit!

I finished after 45 minutes but the session felt really well balanced.

This week I had cleared the back row that caused me problems - actually the ones that had been so disruptive last week sat on the second last row this week and were talking again for some of the lecture. I stared them out a couple of times. If I was taking this class again I would speak to them individually - it's infuriating that you can have 150 people listening intently to what you are saying and 4 people talking among themselves. This indicates to me that it CAN'T be my content or my delivery, otherwise I'd have more of an issue. Just so rude...