The day got off to a very positive start with sunshine streaming through the window, meaning I could leave the waterproofs at home for my cycle to Great George Street – always a relief!
There was a lovely buzz as usual in the office at GGS, as the whole BILT team works on campus on Wednesdays, so it’s a great opportunity to catch up with colleagues in person. It was also my first day back at BILT after the Easter break, so we swapped holiday stories, some more exotic than others, from adventures in Thailand to tales of soggy hikes in the Scottish Highlands.
After a quick check of Teams messages, I looked ahead to next week’s PGCAP workshop about Academic Personal Tutoring (APT) and made sure that all the materials were updated with the correct Padlet links and QR codes before uploading to Blackboard. I particularly enjoy running this session, which aims to help colleagues build confidence with all aspects of this role by exploring the expectations and boundaries. Through discussions and interactive tasks, we consider how APTs can develop meaningful relationships with their tutees, e.g., by sharing their disciplinary expertise and helping them achieve their academic goals. I’m very much looking forward to building on these previous conversations with our current PGCAP participants next week.
After a quick tea break, I had a one-to-one with my line manager, Louise, from the CREATE team, who always inspires me with her level of knowledge and enthusiasm for all things related to academic development.
We managed to squeeze a lot into our catch up, starting with a recap of the marking procedures for the HEA portfolios which have just been submitted. Despite the heavy marking load, these reflective accounts are a privilege to read and tell us so much about innovative teaching and assessment practices happening across the university.
We then discussed a project I’m working on to decolonise the reading lists on the CREATE courses we run so that we can diversify the evidence base by adding more non-Western sources related to teaching and learning. This led onto an interesting discussion about what defines quality and excellence in HE and whether international accreditation, which can overlook local educational context, in fact, just imposes a colonised view of education on institutions from other parts of the world – as it was nearly lunchtime, we decided to continue this conversation at a later date!
Before the end of our catch up, we had time for a brief look at the draft programme for the annual BILT conference on Student Voice and Choice, thinking about how the presentations can be grouped together by certain themes: inclusive assessment, empowering international students and students as partners. I’m looking forward to attending and presenting at this conference, which is always a wonderful opportunity for colleagues from across the university to share findings from pedagogical research projects and showcase effective teaching practice.
My next appointment of the day was with my friend and colleague Liang-Fong Wong, Associate PVC for Internationalisation, to compare notes from different initiatives that we’re involved in about enhancing the international student experience. We discussed ways to help these students fulfil their academic potential and show them how much Bristol values the diversity and global perspectives that they bring to the University community. I suggested we meet for an early lunch at Pret so I could grab my favourite halloumi and falafel wrap, which is my go-to Wednesday lunchtime treat. I think Liang agreed that it was a winning combination!
I walked back to the office through the park, enjoying the feeling of Spring in the air, hoping it would last for my commute home. Back at my desk, I typed up this blog (wishing I’d taken more photos of my day) and then started looking at some sources for the decolonisation project.
I also found time to give feedback to the Head of Create on a document she’d circulated about proposed changes to the PGCAP units when we go through reaccreditation with Advance HE and move over to the new Professional Standards Framework 2023. Although this will involve many hours of work, we all agree that reaccreditation provides an excellent opportunity to review existing courses and make positive changes for the future, such as offering participants a choice of formats for their summative assessments (possibly narrated PPTs or posters). This task provided an interesting link back to my earlier conversation with Louise about quality assurance in HE and left me pondering how international accreditation schemes can be used as an accurate method of evaluation when HE contexts vary so much around the globe.
The last meeting of the day was a BILT monthly update meeting, which focused mainly on the new BILT plan for managing wellbeing and stress in the workplace. It was actually a lot more fun than it sounds, especially when someone handed around a box of Heroes, and we had fruitful discussions about how to improve our working environment and develop positive working relationships within the immediate team and the wider division. The meeting ended with a fun active learning activity where we had to describe our current feelings in four words starting with the letters B-I-L-T. I’ll leave you to guess which words I chose, or you can come up with your own!
After the meeting, I sent a couple of emails about the BILT Associate project I’m working on (Researching the International Student Experience) before finishing off the blogpost ready for the BILT briefing on Friday. Luckily, the rain held off for my journey home so there were no regrets about leaving those waterproofs behind this morning!
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