You lookin' at me?

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While I was thinking about what I would do for my students I also had to think about how it would be done, as my students are mainly distance learners and we only have 8 days a year face to face teaching. I think when we do see students we pack heaps into the block courses, but with the best will in the world they are often keen to get home at night and on the last day it's a mass exodus for flights so usually ends up being more like three and a half days.

The second block course is also very heavily weighted towards assessments that students have studied between the two courses and need to show competence in.

So what am I going to do about helping these students who get little face to face contact but still need to show competence in a very complicated subject?

Firstly I'm going to make the videos I've already mentioned so that's a given, secondly as a school we have made some big decisions about how we are going to improve student contact with lecturers and give the students much more support.

For the past couple of years students have contacted program coordinators if they have issues with anything related to their course, this can be a big ask for coordinators, as we have 200 students and only 2 coordinators. As well as being a big ask, these staff also lecture and mark, also not every lecturer is up to speed on every subject (we can't know everything about everything it's not practical), so sometimes students get passed along to staff who have an answer, not the best system, and probably frustrating for students.

So from next year we will be responsible for units within our courses which we have an interest in and knowledge about, so I will be looking after the dogs, diagnostic samples, anatomy and zoonoses, what will happen now is students call in or email about an issue or for help and they are directed to the person with the best chance of helping them, I think this will really improve the satisfaction rate for students and be less frustrating for staff who sometimes struggle to help. Great!

Instead of giving face to face time we now have a system where students get the best information and help for them, so even though it isn't in real time (it will be by email and moodle) there may be an opportunity to make staff available on skype, as long as we are aware of the impact on staff of being accessible  9-5.

I feel really excited that I can be seen as the 'expert' for my units and this gives me a real boost in confidence which I am bound to pass on to my students.

Great how the little things (like more work) make us feel valued!