As predicted, November has been a hectic month. Just as it feels as though things should settle down towards the end of the calendar year and the festive break, so it gets busier and more frantic! I seem to have been away alot in November, both for teaching, attending external exam boards as external examiner and presenting research work at conference. I have again, this month, been supporting part-time, open-learning undergraduate students with final dissertation work, including individual tutorial support and group-led taught sessions. I have also been working with teaching colleagues to share some of my learning and experience of using the NVivo qualitative data analysis software for my research work. I participated in two external events during the month; with REACH network colleagues I presented some or our work at a workshop at the annual SEDA (Staff Educational Development Association) conference at the Aston Conference Centre in Birmingham; then I attended a SRHE (Society for Research into Higher Education) event at Edinburgh exploring ‘policy discourse and local enactments’. I also took part in a very interactive day at the University of LIncoln exploring our Learning Landscapes agenda further, ‘Working in partnership, working with partner colleges’. Between all of this, I completed first good drafts of chapters 1, 2 and 3 of my thesis and have started planning the next chapters for a new year on-slaught! Therefore, I have not had much space to do any work on furthering this website, but it remains written large on my ‘to do’ list!
Family life was also somewhat difficult this month with a very sad and unexpected family bereavement putting us all in a bit of turmoil. However, on a more cheery note, family pulled together and we are now all looking forward to the festive break and some time to ‘gather strength’. December will be a busy time workwise, but with some precious family time built-in.
