The week following Workshop 2

I can’t actually believe I’m writing yet another blog post already, this week was over so quickly, we had our second PGCert workshop, It’s been a very busy week course leading, and I’ve truly enjoyed trying to balance all the tasks and workload- It’s been a bit of a juggling act, but now it’s Saturday I don’t feel so overwhelmed at the amount of tasks left to do.

The material selected for reading this week was much more enjoyable and manageable than the previous week, I chose the reading below – My notes from reading for Workshop 2
Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal, Karen Harris
Embracing the silence: introverted learning and the online classroom – 2022
In the rapid move to online education in 2020, the initial goal was to mimic in-person teaching. However, it’s now evident that the virtual classroom isn’t just a replica; it’s challenging established notions of participation and engagement. This shift presents opportunities for a transformative and more relaxed teaching approach, particularly recognizing the historically overlooked needs of introverted learners.
• Example Karen Harris- Back in 1991, in my first term at university, our tutor set a strict ground rule for seminar discussions. “You don’t leave this room,” she told us, “until you’ve said something”.
Questions from the reading…
1. Might the pressure to actively participate actually be counter-productive?
2. Do we need to recalibrate the notion of “active participation”? When it comes to learning, is “active/passive” a false dichotomy? (should we re-look at how we teach online?)
3. What advantages might the online classroom offer for nurturing a pro-found, transformative silence?
This statement asks about the potential benefits of online classrooms in fos-tering a deep and transformative sense of silence. It implies that the online learning environment could provide unique advantages for creating a mean-ingful and reflective calmness, which may lead to profound learning experi-ences or personal transformations. The focus is on exploring the positive as-pects of silence in the context of online education.
The reading gave me food for thought and over the week I kept referring back to it to re-read and ponder over a few sentences. Although I don’t teach online very often these days (Students prefer in-person teaching following their time in the pandemic according to our feedback) It did make me think about the silence space that’s possible in an online teaching environment. It made me realise why we always have the silence time during our PGCert sessions. As a tutor I always ask if students have questions, but have never thought of giving them more time to digest the material and come to their own conclusions in a quiet zone.
The second reading material “The charismatic lecturer” was more to do with management and how to tackle feedback to a fellow colleague, I learnt a lot from fellow group PGCerters in this section of the workshop. As a relatively new manager I think my inexperience would have been highlighted here, although I would have tried to approach the discussion as diplomatically as possible, James had some really great suggestions, see our feedback below. (I felt I learnt from how he suggested he would tackle the situation.)
1. What format might an alternative feedback exchange between Stephanie and Max take? – Ask Max how he thought it went? What went well, and what he thinks he could improve. Differentiate between content and delivery. Formal vs informal approaches.

2. Can you generate some ideas for how the conversation might proceed in a positive, colle-giate way? – Could he introduce his own view as well as others and use that to for students to debate. Give Praise for his delivery and student engagement. Actively listen. Describe.

Next week we have a lecture, and I’m excited to see how this will be structured, I also need to start planning out my first case study based on “Knowing and responding to student’s diverse needs”. I started mind mapping ideas for this study, but I’m a bit confused about where to start, I’ll read the examples case study to hopefully help with this.