Just a short blog for this month as it is a quiet month, work-wise and I have some annual leave to finish off the academic year. Having done a good bit of travelling already in recent months, I am using my time off to spend some time at home, do some decorating and be with my family. I am also planning to tidy my office, both the office on campus and the office at home, ready for a fresh start for the new academic year in September.
I am writing this blog in October, as September seems to have disappeared before my eyes! I thought, though, that I should write something here to capture some of the main activities through the month, as far as I can remember them now!
I do remember having a wonderful short break to Krakow in Poland with all of the family early in the month. It was the first time I have been to Poland, we had good weather and stayed in the old part of Krakow, which was lovely. Here are a couple of pictures…
I also participated in the iPED 2009, 4th International Inquiring Pedagogies Conference, where I presented a paper and chaired a session. Directly afterwards heading for London for an interesting meeting with publishers Learning Matters, to discuss, in part, some more writing that I am involved with. Teaching was also back underway this month, with many new students, the delivery of a new module on social work theories and methods, and preparing for an exciting opportunity to work with some new doctoral students on the professional taught doctorate in education. As I read back over what I have written here, I can see that it is little wonder that the month seemed to zoom passed without me noticing!
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.
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