What’s the background to the Consolidation Week?
This week (21st-25th October) is the first ‘Consolidation Week’ in the University’s new Structure of the Academic Year.
Part of the ‘headline’ here is the change in terminology from ‘Reading Week’ to ‘Consolidation Week’. From the University messaging on this, the ‘new name intends to recognise that there are many more activities than ‘reading’ which students may find important during this week’.
Everyone learns in their own individual way and so the flexibility to ‘make solid’ learning and understanding is a welcome one.
So, what things might be happening in Consolidation Week?
Firstly, there is some permitted teaching and assessment which may be taking place in these week as outlined in the SAY guide. How this works is arranged at a local level, however, there is an invitation to consider how to ‘change the pace’ of normal teaching weeks and consider the opportunities to ‘avoid long periods of teaching activity’.
In terms of consolidation the guide suggests that there are some ‘possibilities’. These include:
- suspending the regular teaching timetable students will typically have, with recommended reading or other directed preparation tasks to complete during the week which prepare students for teaching in the remainder of the Teaching Block, or to make progress towards assessment tasks.
- teaching and learning activities which are not normally timetabled including field trips, concentrated workshops, intensive teaching delivery, student conferences (including for assessment), or activities which connect the teaching across different units.
- extracurricular activities with a disciplinary focus
- Organising individual or small group tutorials in these weeks, in place of regular timetabled classes.
- Organising extracurricular activities
Looking back or looking forward? Both?
At this point in a teaching and learning sequence it can be really tempting (as a student) to focus on what has come before, reaffirm key ideas and insights and start anticipating or pre-empting assessments at the end of the unit.
This is generally what I did as a student – it’s a ‘battening-down the hatches’ sort of approach.
It did tend to place less emphasis on the teaching and learning opportunities which preceded the assessment. Partly this was down to assessment design issues which didn’t allow more of a ‘snowballing approach’ to assessment content and skills.
It’s also as I had relatively few planned formative assessments by the first half of a teaching block to draw on. Again, as an English graduate, I fell into the thought-trap of just seeing written feedback comments as being the feedback.
Two different thinking models which I’ve seen and used since in a professional capacity have been helpful in moving away from ‘battening down the hatches’ approach. (I would also add that as a teacher as well, I have been as culpable in the past of ‘battening down the hatches’ in order to create a sense of consolidating and, to be honest, compacting knowledge in the form of recall activities).
Boud, Keogh and Walker’s book ‘Reflection: Turning Experience into Learning’ (1985) offers some valuable insights into this aspect of learning.
What first comes to mind is in placing the reflective process at the heart of continual learning experiences. Attending to feelings, re-evaluating key moments and ideas which have struck a chord, or been found dissonant are necessary and productive parts of reflection and consolidation.
Noticing and intervening is, to me, about considering the adjustments to be made and what opportunities there are for this. These are aspects of critical reflectiveness at a very instinctual level, but can often be the start of making small interventions or adjustments which have significant benefits.
Engaging in this way as a teacher and communicating and articulating this process is often the most likely way to inculcate this approach in students. The hardest part to me is often to move from the reflective process stage into outcomes and Boud, Keogh and Walker conclude a section of their chapter with both the salutary reminder and call to action that:
‘Generally speaking, the role of those who assist the learner is to provide a context and a space to learn, give support and encouragement, listen to the learner and provide access to particular devices which may be of use. They may also at times act as a sounding board and help the learner clarify intentions and set goals. Of course, all this must be within the context of the learner’s needs and interests [….] Perhaps one of their most important roles is to alert people to the nature of reflection in the learning process and provide ways whereby others can assist it at its various stages.’ (1985, 38)
The second approach which would probably have benefited me as an undergraduate student would have been something like the instructional model proposed by de Kleijn (2021).
| Target Process | Prompt |
| Orienting | What new content knowledge can I gain from this feedback information about this specific task? What new content knowledge can I gain from this feedback that overarches this specific task? |
| Elaborating | How can I use the new content knowledge in this specific task? How can I use the new content knowledge in other tasks? |
| Comparing | How does this feedback information compare to my self-assessment, to earlier feedback information and to other comparable works? What can I learn from these comparisons? |
| Identifying strengths and weaknesses | What does this feedback information tell me about the strengths of my work? What does this feedback information tell me about points from improvement? |
| Identifying unclarities | What feedback information remains unclear to me? |
| Using dialogue as an amplifier | Who can I discuss this feedback information with? |
Having the opportunity of time and space to think about these questions would certainly have prompted me to think back across the course so far and anticipate what I would need to consider for the next stage of my learning; it would have been even better to have been able to find time and willingness from a member of academic staff or peer to discuss some of these question prompts.
‘Changing the pace’
For those whose consolidation weeks ostensibly represent a ‘change of pace’ or a break in the routine, this can be very welcome but also a little unnerving. There’s often a particular rhythm to teaching/studying and adjusting to this different rhythm of a week can affect the way we may engage or approach teaching/studying. Stepping back and accepting that reflection or consolidation might feel different is important to seeing some of the opportunities it offers.
(I’ve always been reassured as a very amateur impressionist painter that if I just keep walking further and further back from my painting, somehow it just keeps getting better and better).
Consolidation of the Consolidation Week?
The SAY project Team are keen to hear of any insights from staff and students about their experiences of this week. You can contact them here, but also feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.
With another Consolidation Week later this academic year (17th – 21st February 2025), maybe something which you’ve heard of around the University might prompt a new idea or possibility for that, or maybe you have already started to think ahead to bigger changes for next academic year?
References
Boud, D., Keogh, R.J., & Walker, D. (1985). Reflection, turning experience into learning. Routledge: London.
de Kleijn, R. A. M. (2021). Supporting student and teacher feedback literacy: an instructional model for student feedback processes. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher
Education, 48(2), 186–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2021.1967283
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