Categories
Academic Life(style)

Coaching in Higher Education? Yes Please…

Corporate coaching has spread rapidly from the US across the world, with the business sector happy to buy in such support for employees they are grooming to be high flyers. The higher education sector, in contrast, would appear to offer a less obviously lucrative, and perhaps more sceptical, market. Yet coaches in the US, and to a lesser extent in the UK, are working with an increasing number of academics, helping them to confront not only the challenges they share with many other professionals (notably the sheer lack of hours in the day) but also the pressures specific to the sector.

Nathalie Houston, associate professor of English at the University of Houston, has just begun to offer coaching to academics outside her own institution. In addition to her full-time tenured job teaching and researching Victorian literature, literary theory and the history of the book, since 2009 Houston has been involved in the ProfHacker blog, where a team of more than a dozen writers offer “tips about teaching, technology and productivity”.

“I write about time management and work-life balance,” she says, “topics I’ve been interested in for a long time.”

Recognising that she often provided informal coaching to colleagues, friends and students, Houston decided to gain a formal qualification and set up a practice that she hopes to extend to about 15 clients.

She “meets” them, either for 30 minutes three times a month or 45 minutes twice a month, by phone or by Skype – mostly, she says, “on Fridays, when I don’t teach or have university meetings, and on Saturdays, so it’s compacted into a certain section of my week”.

The basic principles are simple. “While therapy tends to look to the roots of the problem, to trace it back to some dynamic or trauma,” explains Houston, “coaching is about what you can do now to change the situation.

“As one well-known coach said, if a stick in a river gets stuck, you don’t ask what made it stuck – it just needs a nudge to go on floating down the river. Coaching focuses on the nudge. It’s action-oriented, and present- and future-directed.

Read full story, and I’m ahead on this one, thanks to The Kerslake Company! We have been in discussions recently within the LTDU at the University of Winchester, re bringing together a group of people who are interested in coaching, which you can see from my PGCLTHE assignment, I am.

Categories
Event Life(style)

A great talk hosted by @psychologiesmag, with @lucyberesford and Sadie Jones, hosted by @louisechunn

Wednesday evening, I popped along from working on The Big Bible Project, to check out the first event of its kind held by Psychologies Magazine.  Aside from snapping my calf muscle en route (2nd time in 2 weeks), I turned up in time for wine (sure it’s a great pain killer!), and had a chance to chat to some of the team from Psychologies mag – always nice to know more about the people who are writing what you’re reading! I’ve got every edition of Psychologies, although I’ve not necessarily read them all (yet!), and it was great at the end of the event to chat to some more of the team, and there may be an opportunity to write some materials! So, I guess… watch this space… I guess it depends how much I procrastinate about it 🙂

I would go to the bottom of these images and read up…:

Categories
Life(style)

Check out @CamillaKerslake singing on ‘Sing if You Can’

Yesterday, for the first time in ages, I turned on ITV, and caught the re-run of ‘Sing if You Can‘ (a crazy show in which people have to carry on singing whatever is thrown at them…), just as Keith Lemon was talking to Camilla Kerslake (looking stunning in a lovely dress… chosen for her by the ITV producers, in case you’re wondering…). I undertook my coaching training with Camilla’s mum at The Kerslake Company (then known as Serenergise; which has strongly influenced the way I approach my life… still decluttering, several years later)… and you can see the way she has influenced Camilla to keep going through anything in this video (in aid of the Teenage Cancer Trust):

Not too late to sign up for The Kerslake Company’s next coaching course, starting 15th May!

Categories
Academic Life(style)

PGCLTHE: Coaching Assignment

Below is the introduction to an essay I have just had returned from the module “Examining Professional Practice” for the PGCLTHE. The presentation, which I didn’t really have enough time to prepare for, gained me 55%, and the COACHING in Higher Education Essay 66%.

“Since the 1990s the field of coaching has grown in professionalism, and now affects most business sectors. As Parsloe and Leedham outline in their first chapter, coaching and mentoring have moved ‘From Marginal to Mainstream’ for anyone interested in people development. As the profession continues to evolve, professional bodies are emerging, including The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and the International Coach Federation (ICF).[1] Having taught in Higher Education (HE) since 1998, I encountered professional coaching at a CIPD event,[2] and trained as a life coach in early 2009.[3] This assignment offers a reflective consideration of implementing coaching practices within learning and teaching practices in HE. With a particular interest in facilitating group work in seminars, the presentation considered how exploiting learning and personality styles, and offering encouragement, improves student engagement with the process. (Read the entire essay in Word.doc.


[1] Parsloe, E. & Leedham, M. Coaching and Mentoring: Practical Conversations to Improve Learning 2009 (2nd Ed), pp. 3-11

[2] Minter, T. ‘Personal Effectiveness’, CIPD, 2007

[3] Kerslake, D., Boyce, R., O’Donnell, A., Fogarty, C., Professional Coaching Certification Programme, ICF Accredited, The Kerslake Company, 2008-9″

Categories
Academic

Postgraduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education

Enthusiastic Study GroupWell, you know me, I like to collect qualifications, but this one is pretty much compulsory nowadays within Universities, to become a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. I started the course in February 2009, and have found all of the taught sessions really interesting, particularly once we start hitting “how do students learn”?, but in teaching so much, am not getting a huge amount of time to read around the subjects I’m doing, or complete my assignments (too busy marking other peoples!). So, what do I need to achieve, and by when, to become a FHEA?!

The Practice of Teaching in Higher Education
I attended all the courses on this last semester, arranged my mentor, kept a reflective journal and was observed in 3 teaching sessions (now that’s an interesting experience!). So now I “just” need to complete the 4000 word portfolio of practice! If I can do it for 5th March 2010, I could finish the entire course this year, otherwise it’ll be 25th September 2010!

The Practice of Teaching in HE
Learning and Teaching Portfolio (4000 words), organised/indexed for reader, with appendices
Initial Needs Analysis & Contextual Overview (1000 rough words, to reduce to 500)How current teaching position relates to:

  • Previous Experience
  • Qualifications
  • Aspirations
  • Skills
  • Developmental Needs
  • Rationale for 3 observed sessions
  • Plan for completing PGCLTHE
Evaluation & Reflection on Teaching (1200 words)

  • Evaluation/reflection on programmes of teaching in which involved.
  • Critical reflection on 3 observed teaching sessions.
  • Reflections: external comments, emerging understanding of effective teaching & how students learn, using generic/subject specific pedagogic lit.
  • Own judgement (expectations of competence/points for action): peer feedback, student feedback/module evaluations, literature.
  • Appendices:
    • Detailed session plans
    • Resource material from observed sessions
    • Comments by external observers
    • Student evaluations
Description, Analysis & Evaluation of Assessment Activities (600 words)

  • D, A, E of AA have participated in
  • How contributed to provision of feedback to assist student learning
  • Assessment results (formal/informal) – aid evaluation of effectiveness as a teacher.
  • ANALYSE/EVALUATE more than DESCRIBE, demonstrating understanding of assessment design & operation.
  • Broad overview of focus on one specific element
    • Student feedback
    • Pedagogic literature
  • Appendices can include:
    • Limited examples of assessments you have set.
    • Module results sheets
    • Examples of feedback on marking
Small Scale Learning & Teaching Project (1200 words)

  • Design/carry out small scale project, developing a specific aspect of teaching.
  • Theoretical understanding/practical implementation.
  • Identify project through discussions with tutor/mentor.
    • Developmental as an individual
    • Direct practical application to subject area.
    • Convincing rationale for need to change/develop practice
    • Underpinned by theory/literature
  • Evidence:
    • Student/College feedback
    • Literature (subject/pedagogy)
Agreed with Yaz: Focus in the area of CHOICE, affecting motivation, affecting CHOICE in engaging with seminars, etc. as a project!
Reflection on Learning and Development Activities (500 words)

  • Personal reflection on:
    • Own learning on the unit
    • Other developmental activities undertaken to support teaching whilst on the programme
  • Action Plan for CPD beyond the PG
  • Appendices can include:
    • Review & Development Meeting plan.

Examining Professional Practice

For February 2010, I need to have completed:

Part 1: Oral/Poster presentation, relevant professional enquiry, at small L&T event with others on course. (60%)

Part 2: Critical reflection on the feedback from other colleagues/tutors. 1500 words (40%)

No Assignment yet agreed

Using IT for Innovation in Learning

For April 2010, I need to complete:

Resource package, electronic or text, “suitable to meet the learning needs of an identified group of students, and a report justifying its design in relation to theoretical understandings of student learning”.  Contextualise how understanding/skills have developed, and demonstrate how utility of the resource will be judged. Report 2-4k

See p.18 for Guidelines/Criteria

Agreed with David: Evaluation of SkillsNet Project, including sessions with staff/students for feedback of the website.

I am also sitting in on “Context”, which has a lot to do with curriculum design, but don’t see the need to add another assignment to my list.