Useful resources for teaching time management and workload planning

This term I’ve taught a new study skills workshop at SOAS on planning and managing workloads at Masters’ level. It’s not a traditional time management workshop – those are taught by one of my Learning and Teaching Team colleagues. However, when talking to postgraduates about managing workloads, issues of managing time inevitably arise, especially for part-time students who may be juggling a wide range of different responsibilities and demands. And it’s a topic where it is particularly useful to get students doing practical exercises which focus on their own planning and use of time.

Fortunately, there are lots of open resources available for use with students (undergraduate and postgraduate). What follows are a few examples of what I’ve come across. Encouraging students to consider their time use seems like an important first step so keeping a time log often seems to be recommended as a way of encouraging students to examine in detail how they actually spend their time over the course of a week. They can do this quite simply in a note book, of course but there are a range of templates available too. An example time log is one of a number of OERs developed on time management by Rimmer and Corfield and downloadable from Jorum. These authors have also created scenarios for students to work through so that they can generate their own tips and ideas on monitoring use of time and planning. A resource which the SOAS students seemed to find particularly helpful was one developed on self-management by Quince and Carl and available on Humbox. This is specifically for postgraduate research students (and so I adapted it for Masters) and it focuses on where our time goes. Students used the template to count up the number of hours they spend on all their different activities and commitments during the week and then to see how many hours are left for study after eating, sleeping, catching the tube, being distracted by technology etc. They seemed to find this a genuinely interesting exercise.

There are also some useful open resources from Learn Higher, which include dealing with distractions (with tips from students), getting organised, planning schedules and lots more.

All this has encouraged me to reflect on my own planning and time management skills as I often find that managing two places of work brings its own challenges. So I’ve been following up with some more in-depth reading of my own. I am not particularly interested in advice which would result in a rigidly organised style of working – that wouldn’t suit me – but I have been dipping in and out of a few books which have included some helpful suggestions. In What the most successful people do before breakfast, Vanderkam focuses on the importance of mornings and so I have been trying to shift an hour of my working day from afternoon to morning – so far so good – there is no doubt that for me, mornings are more conducive to getting stuff done than afternoons! Also, some of the very practical suggestions of Ian Cooper in How to be a time master look useful so I’ll see how I get on and whether I can generate some new activities for my next student workshop.

 

Statistics for Humanities

Statistics for Humanities is a new open resource developed by my former University of Southampton colleague, John Canning. The content has been created to help Humanities undergraduates get to grips with some of the basics of understanding and using statistics in their work. It also provides detailed support around collecting, managing and analysing quantitative data. John has used lots of examples for Humanities subjects to illustrate particular points.

Statistics for Humanities is a really helpful, readable resource and I would recommend it to any Humanities academic who is looking for an introduction to quantitative work.

Researching transition and the student experience at Masters’ level – a few reflections on what’s out there

I have recently been reviewing the research literature on transition to postgraduate taught study and, more broadly, the student experience of Masters students. Having previously carried out a research study on transition to university in Modern Languages with my colleague, John Canning, I have been surprised to find that in contrast to the substantial body of research at undergraduate level, there is relatively little literature on the transition and experiences of postgraduates (especially at Masters’ level). What there is makes for interesting reading.

Almost all publications refer to the paucity of research and comment on the way in which postgraduates are neglected at policy level in comparison with undergraduates (e.g. Bowman, 2005; Wakeling & Kyriacou, 2010)

Concerns about access to postgraduate study, funding and the low numbers of UK students embarking on Masters and doctoral courses have received attention in several recent reports. These include The Postgraduate Crisis from the 1994 Group, The Higher Education Commission’s Inquiry into postgraduate education, Alan Milburn’s University Challenge report on social mobility, The Sutton Trust’s Postgraduate Premium report  (which considers the increasing need for postgraduate qualifications in the workplace) and the British Academy position statement, Postgraduate Funding: the neglected dimension (which focuses on funding for Arts & Humanities).

A particularly interesting piece of recent research was conducted by Wakeling & Hampden-Thompson on behalf of the Higher Education Academy, Transition to higher degrees across the UK an analysis of national, institutional and individual factors – this covers patterns of progression to PG study across the 4 UK nations and highlights the low rates of participation among UK students (compared with EU students) as well as the under-representation on Masters and doctoral courses of women, students from lower socio-economic groups and some ethnic groups.

The diversity of the student body and its implications has received attention in a number of studies (e.g. Bowman, 2005; Morgan & Jones, 2012). This is a particular issue at Masters level where a large proportion of students are part time and/or returning to education after a period of time away.

Students’ motivations for embarking on Masters’ courses have been considered in several research studies (e.g. Stuart et al, 2008) and have also emerged in the Postgraduate Taught Experience Surveys (PTES) (for doctoral students see the Postgraduate Research Experience Surveys). Findings of the PTES surveys indicate that Masters students are largely positive about their experiences of teaching and learning and that they perceive themselves to have developed a range of useful skills on their courses. Other existing studies have reported that students benefit from smaller seminar groups and greater opportunities for discussion (e.g. Stuart et al, 2008).

However, students have also been found to experience a variety of problems. Taught postgraduates often feel isolated from the university community – in line with their part-time status (Tobbell, O’Donnell & Zammit, 2008). Important skills such as essay writing, critical thinking and technological skills can be problematic as can the discourse of independent learning (Tobbell, O’Donnell & Zammit, 2010; O’Donnell, 2009). The interdisciplinary nature of many courses can, additionally, leave students feeling that they don’t have a departmental home (Tobbell, O’Donnell & Zammit, 2008).

Despite the relative lack of research and the seeming marginalisation of postgraduate concerns in the UK, there is a small and interesting literature highlighting these issues and calling for more research and development in specific areas. The recent policy focus from the 1994 Group, British Academy, Sutton Trust etc. should also help to concentrate some attention on this group of students.

Further reading

Bowman, H. (2005) ‘It’s a year and then that’s me:’ masters’ students’ decision-making, Journal of Further and Higher Education 29 (3), 233-249.

Higher Education Policy Institute & British Library (2010) Postgraduate Education in the UK

Mistry, J., White, F. & Berardi, A. (2009) Skills at Masters Level in Geography Higher Education: Teaching, Learning and Applying. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 33 (1), 123-148.

Taylor, J. (2002) Changes in teaching and learning in the period to 2005: The case of postgraduate higher education in the UK. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 24 (1), 53-73.

Tobbell, J., O’Donnell, V. & Zammit, M. (2010) Exploring transition to postgraduate study: shifting identities in interaction with communities, practice and participation, British Educational Research Journal 36 (2), 262-278.

Reflections on Storyville: exploring narratives of teaching and learning

This last week I spent two days at the Higher Education Academy’s Arts & Humanities Conference, Storyville: exploring narratives of teaching and learning in a rather damp and murky Brighton.

I was presenting a paper with my colleague, Kate Borthwick on a research study that we carried out recently which looked at language teacher professional development. Below are a few highlights of sessions I attended:

1              The tall tales we tell about teaching (Vicky Gunn, University of Glasgow)

Vicky used her background as a medievalist to examine how collective memories about teaching and learning are made. For me, most interesting was how Vicky encouraged us to think about how we bring our memories to our teaching. She also talked about some recent research with humanities academics who have reported themselves to be very suspicious of the HE buzzword concepts of entrepreneurialism, work-related learning and global citizenship.

2              Write here Write now (Jac Cattaneo, Northbrook College and University of Chichester)

This workshop introduced a project which set out to encourage Art, Design and Media Studies students to engage with academic writing through the use of creative writing practices. After the preliminaries, Jac got us all writing using a series of visual prompts – in one example we drew a map to represent a childhood place of personal significance and another one of a place in the here and now. We were then asked to do a piece of free writing and to link the two maps. This was a really enjoyable and thought-provoking session. I could imagine using some of the ideas here in professional development workshops for teachers.

3              Narratives of the future self: a narrative method for researching language learners’ self-concepts (Angela Goddard & Alistair Henry, West University, Sweden)

Angela and Alistair reported on a language learning motivation study in Sweden. This was of particular interest to me as motivation is my main research area. They used a narrative approach to investigate students’ L2 identities at key transition points in an English-mediated university programme (using the concepts of possible and future selves). This is a longitudinal study so they will have more to report as it develops.

4              The OpenLIVES OER oral history experience: rebalancing methodologies, values and identities in Arts & Humanities in HE (Antonio Martinez-Arboleda, University of Leeds)

The OpenLIVES Project collected the oral histories of people who left Spain during the Civil War. Antonio described how the materials gathered during OpenLIVES were developed into a student module at the University of Leeds and how the skills developed by the students during the module form part of an ‘empowerability’ rather than ‘employability’ agenda. All the OpenLIVES materials are openly available in the Humbox

5              Student-led peer mentoring (Gabriele Neher, University of Nottingham)

Gabriele described an initiative at Nottingham where students are invited to apply (through a formal application process) to become mentors to new students. It’s an opt-in scheme for mentees and project activities involve extensive use of social media. The scheme has helped to bridge the transition gap for incoming students.

Other useful presentations included Students as partners: sharing stories (Jenny Lewin, University of Worcester), Academic staff perceptions of I.T. in the Humanities (Pritpal Sembi, University of Wolverhampton) and Pioneers on the frontiers of learning? A narrative inquiry approach to new pedagogical practices using technology in Arts and Humanities learning and teaching (Rosemary Stott, Ravensbourne, Sarah Cousins, University of Bedfordshire & Dounia Bissar, University of Essex)

Overall, an enjoyable couple of days although I would have liked to have seen a greater languages presence on the conference programme.