It’s now the day after the closing of the LTEA (Learning Through Enquiry Alliance) conference 2008, and my head is beginning to clear. I attempted to write about my experience of this event last night, but I was “all conferenced out” as fellow student ambassador Barbara put it – my mind was just a sea of tags:
It was an intense week. In the days leading up to the event’s opening on Wednesday, I worked with the CILASS core team to help prepare the conference Wiki, a virtual space in which delegates could share, discuss and reflect upon their experiences of Inquiry-based learning. Aside from passive use of Wikipedia, I had no prior experience of working with Wikis, and thus found myself engaging in an intense IBL activity on my computer. Once I’d familiarised myself with the basic structure, I was surprised by how easy it was to manipulate; this has encouraged me to contemplate how I might include a wiki within my own website (another project to add to the IBL-inspired list!).
In addition to co-ordinating the wiki, my duties (most of which were of course shared with my amazing friends in the Student Ambassador Network) included: taking photos (that was a self-assigned role! Thanks for indulging me, CILASS), processing and uploading them to Flickr throughout the conference; ensuring that the technology was working for those presenting; uploading powerpoints to Slideshare (still a lot to do there); facilitating sessions; being available for delegates should they have any problems; watching over the luggage, drinking coffee, and eating chocolate.
Thinking about it all now, a few episodes come to mind. I’d like to share those with you.
It’s Wednesday morning, 9am. As the other Student Ambassadors arrive there’s a feeling of great excitement and happiness in the office: the months of preparation are over, and it’s too late to worry about anything. We’re blowing up balloons to tie to lamp-posts in order that delegates don’t get lost on their way to the Keynote in Firth Hall. Turns out that Jamie is a Balloon-mungster, and prior to joining the CILASS team was at the forefront of a new movement which campaigned to promote the simultaneous blowing up of multiple balloons. Jamie’s love of balloons spreads across the office, and before long the balloon bath is the hottest attraction in Sheffield.
11am, and the delegates are now arriving. They are greeted by the blue T-shirts and big smiles of the Student Ambassadors – a welcome sign of the kind of atmosphere that will embody the entire three-day conference.
It’s now Wednesday afternoon and I’m facilitating a presentation by four members of Sheffield Hallam University’s CETL. They’ve all been using Inquiry-based technologies to help enhance the learning and teaching experience. As I sit there hearing about their successes I find myself getting tremendously excited and inspired – the work that these tutors are putting in to help students become autonomous learners really is something to be shouted about. When bringing the session to a close, I think it might be appropriate to offer a quick bit of feedback as the only student in the room:
“I’m very happy to have just completed a four-year degree, and am looking forward to moving on into the workplace. But I tell you, hearing what you’re doing with IBL inspires me to such an extent that I’m thinking I’d like to start another undergraduate degree!”
And I meant it. I am so impressed by the effort that is being put in by IBL-orientated staff to help students engage with their subjects, and by the positive results they are achieving. People must be told about IBL! It should become a norm for prospective graduates attending university open days to ask, “Could you tell me what inquiry-based learning techniques are employed within the department?”
We’re now between sessions, the busiest time for me and my USB stick. Myself, Pam from the CILASS core team and Pepe the penguin have to make sure that the presenters in all five of the simultaneous sessions hosted in various spaces around the IC have their presentations/videos lined up and are ready to roll. Remarkably, there’s not a single problem with the technology at any point during the conference – it all goes like clockwork.
The next parallel session has begun, and I’m back in the office processing photos and slides. We’re all buzzing – things are going really well. I’m starting to think about what a great team we make, students working with the core CILASS staff. I reckon we could be hired out (at great expense, of course) to dazzle and amaze conference delegates around the world!
Conference GCHQ:
Tom, Barbara and Nat point delegates in the right direction:
It’s nearing 7pm – time for the conference dinner at Whirlebrook Hall. Myself, Nat and Sabine have a true Inquiry-based learning journey to the venue as we don’t know where it is: we stop at two pubs and a private house to Inquire as to where we might find it. Finally we locate it, and we’re actually almost the first to arrive (further proof of the effectiveness of IBL)! Champagne in hand we move out to the terrace, where I soon whip out my camera once again to try and capture the atmosphere. Dinner is then served: a melon slice creation, soup and then a main dish of goats cheese wotsit on rice. Delicious. Finished off with a dessert, and more wine. I must come to these conferences more often… I’m really happy to have the chance to talk with Pam and Sabine. I learn about giving birth, and breastfeeding, things I feel I ought to know about in preparation for the birth of our children in 2010 / 2011.
Nat, the new CILASS Student Co-ordinator for the Student Ambassador Network
Tom, and Laura: Clearly the stress of being the outgoing SAN co-ordinator is getting to her
Day two of the conference, and we’re on the coffee. It’s going to be a long one, but with a timetable in my pocket detailing what needs doing when, it’s actually pretty relaxing. It offers reassurance that things are going to happen as planned anyway, just do your bit: the power of teamwork.
Now and then someone will come into the office raving about this AMAZING session that they’d just been to – onto the award winning CILASS student blog it goes.
The delegates are happy. The keynote address, given by the President of the University of Miami, is both relevant and thought-provoking. As the day moves on so notifications of changes to the Wiki increase in number – it’s being used as hoped!
Thursday evening sees us take a coach from the IC to The Edge, the new student village where the delegates are staying. I’m happy, relaxing with friends, eating olives and parsnip crisps, chatting with a member of Sheffield Hallam’s CETL. We’re then ushered through to a large room adjoining the bar: time for a bit of entertainment and reflection with Playback Theatre (York).
Playback Theatre are quite remarkable. Consisting of teachers, counsellors and actors, they literally play back to the audience thoughts and feelings that have arisen from the conference. An academic might express her feeling of fear that arises from embarking upon new adventures in IBL, and the joy of then seeing students come into their own through the new module. The actors listen to the story, and then spontaneously create a short performance that sums it up. There’s little in the way of ‘lines’ as such,rather, movement and sounds take centre stage. I was delighted, amused and entertained by their production. Others in the audience were deeply touched; tears were shed. For me, it highlighted just how much passion the delegates had for what they were doing, how, at the end of the day it’s about doing the best one can to make a difference, and finding satisfaction though helping others.
The closing plenary saw us once again in Firth Hall, summing up the questions and ideas that had arisen through the conference. Thanks were then given, with special mention made of the CILASS core team, and the Student Ambassadors. My mind flicked back through the previous few days, and indeed us SA’s really had had a positive impact upon the entire conference. By participating to the extent that we did, we were able to not only paint the place with bright happy blue t-shirts, but also to provide the student point-of-view in many of the discussions – this of course is vital as students are half of the equation when it comes to Learning and Teaching.
I feel that this conference was a model for what a conference should be, and I hope that everyone who attended from other universities goes home and sets up their own Student Network!
Me, demonstrating the brand new CILASS student website – made BY students, FOR students
Photo: Sabine Little
Photo: James Gould
There was very much a feeling of partnership between students, staff and visiting delegates throughout, with little sign of hierarchy. I felt very much valued and appreciated as a student: this makes me feel incredibly positive about the future of higher education in the UK, and I won’t hesitate in moving back to the UK from Japan 10 or 15 years down the line in order that my own (as yet to be conceived!) children are able to benefit from it.
Long Live IBL!
If you do a Wiki for your site, I think it could be very useful and interesting depending on the focus.
I notice you mention eating chocolate a lot. Enjoy all that yummy British chocolate while you can (I love British chocolate and biscuits (or, as we call them, cookies) much more than that in the U.S. or Japan). It’ll soon be a hard to find commodity once you move back here!
Thanks for your comment orchid64 🙂
Yes, having a look round at other wikis I see that focus is the key. It will require some thinking.
Of course I can’t help but agree about the chocolate and cookies! Even though one of the better-known British chocolates, Cadbury’s, is sold in Japan, it’s just not the same.
What I would love to see is Green and Black’s fantastic organic chocolate reach Japan. Maybe that’s another project for me – become their japanese marketing manager. They could pay me in chocolate!
Fantastic stuff. I can only imagine Joseph that you’d be one of the most enthusiastic SAN members. It’s rare enough to come across people with your level of enthusiasm for anything!
Have to say I’m actually worried about my extra-curricular stuff more than my subjects next year. I’ll be trying to do SAN plus JSOC plus a couple of other things I want to do with the Enterprise Zone, and I’m worried that in the end not one of them will be done right :s Part of the reason I’m heading home so early is that I feel I need to get preparing for it all. But you give me hope that although it’ll be a lot of work it’ll at least be bags of fun too 🙂 All the best for your next big event!
Thanks for the comment Doubi!
I’ve found that my degree hasn’t really suffered as a result of all this. Only slightly, but that’s OK, it was a sacrifice worth making, and all the experience of doing all this stuff has been super groovy and very beneficial.
There are now 4 people in the CILASS web group including the new person whose studied coding etc, so there wouldn’t be a lot of responsibility there. the idea is that the SAN provide the material and you (the web group) just paste it in to the site and click on ‘upload’.
The Tech group is looking strong too – and you can put as much or as little time into it as you want.
I really don’t think you need to worry. Everything will work out, and you can say no to anyone any time, it’s your life and people will respect you should you decide to focus more on one thing than another.
yeah, enterprise is well groovy – I’m meeting Will ina few hours to devise our presentation for the final of the White Rose comp next week. Fingers crossed.
But yeah, don’t worry about it. Just do what you feel is manageable, and don’t feel obliged to do anything you don’t want to do even if you have initially said yes. There are plenty of students at Sheffield!
(although somewhat ironically, today I was asked to take over japan soc emails during the summer…!)