My Senior Fellowship experience

I have been awarded Senior Fellow status of Advance HE. While I started writing and thinking about Senior Fellowship just over a year ago, my Senior Fellowship experience began, although unknowingly at the time, at the Aurora programme I attended in 2016. At Aurora I defined my values, my strengths and my skills. This in turn led me to changing roles from an Academic Librarian to a Lecturer in Higher Education. This move allowed me to be less constrained by budget limitations and make more of an impact on teaching and learning development. In my interview for the role, I was asked to present my approach to helping staff develop their practices and it was here I first chose to define my coaching approach. It was this coaching approach I developed into my Senior Fellow application.

My reasons for applying

Primarily, it was a pre-requisite of my probation in my new role. however, having previously completed my Fellowship application in 2015 I was aware of the value of the process. This value is what I reiterate to those who have also been told they must achieve it - yes, there are boxes to be ticked, but the space and time to reflect and discover can, unfortunately, be a rare thing. This process provides that space and time.

My process

I started by looking at the criteria and considering my case studies. I had been on maternity leave just prior to writing it so was acutely aware that some of my experience may seem out of date. As part of my role at the University, I sit on panels where people who apply for Senior Fellowship are routinely referred as they don't fit specific criteria. This meant I was able to pick up tips, which helped. I  advise, coach and train others to achieve accreditation; however, taking your own advice, as so often in life, can be challenging. I also had a different format to follow as I applied directly to Advance HE to avoid any ethical conflicts. Advance HE currently requires two case studies, one reflective account, and two references which may be different to those who go through their University's accreditation schemes. 

While I had a loose plan, I actually took a different approach to usual and used Julia Cameron's morning pages method of just writing and writing, and writing some more without worrying about making sense - to the point that when I looked again at the word count I was shocked to discover I had double the total wordcount! I'm not sure I'd recommend this approach. While I found it to be quite cathartic, I really did feel like I was then killing my darlings as I omitted whole sections when editing.


Drafts, drafts, drafts - don't necessarily mean perfection

So many drafts to the point I was fed up of it and wanted to hand the whole thing in. I would strongly recommend getting other people's eyes on it; however, I'd advise not having too many. I received conflicting advice and at one point began to question my own judgment which added to the challenges. Ultimately, I am grateful for the people who took time out of their routines to read and offer their opinions and I gained from each of the interactions. My final draft was given to one of my references who told me that, yes, while small tweaks could be made, it was suitable for submission. My old self would have jumped on that comment and 'corrected' those areas; however, done is better than perfect, so I sent it in.

Waiting to hear

I knew it would be a long time to hear back, so I had almost forgotten about it until a fellow Auroran announced she'd received hers. I was hoping I had passed as I don't like revisiting and redrafting something once I have emotionally and psychologically said goodbye to it. I was relieved indeed to receive an email soon after which announced I could now use the SFHEA post nominals.

Going forwards

I continue to keep my teaching notebook for jotting down a few thoughts after my classes. I continue to be interested in how using a coaching approach in higher education can improve both practice and wellbeing simultaneously. I will shortly be speaking at both the Accredited Programme Leader's Network and the Advance HE learning and Teaching Conference on various aspects of this topic. I also have a few writing projects in the pipeline. Paying it forwards, I would be absolutely delighted to help, coach or mentor anyone whose goal it is to achieve FHEA or SFHEA accreditation.

And, just for my mum, - my full post-nominals are BA (Hons), MA (Lond) MCLIP SFHEA.

Which Advance HE accreditation is right for you?

"Fellowship provides individuals with recognition of their practice, impact and leadership of teaching and learning, against the descriptors of the Professional Standards Framework (PSF)." (Advance HE 2019)

Advance HE Fellowship descriptors/categories are not hierarchical! A statement I make in every single workshop and conversation I have after someone states they are going to work their way up the levels.

You would be forgiven for thinking they are: the terminology would suggest it - Associate, Fellow, Senior and Principal.

Associate Fellow (AFHEA) is for you if:
Teaching and/or supporting learners is a part of your job but not the main focus. For example, you may be an information professional or a Graduate Teaching Assistant who doesn't design or assess learners but may support them on an enquiry desk or in a lab alongside a lecturer.

Fellowship (FHEA) is for you if:
You can show evidence of designing, assessing and teaching learners. You will probably spend a significant proportion of your time teaching. You will be interested in developing professionally, reflecting on your practice and, if you're newly employed at a University, successful completion may be part of your probationary requirements.

Senior Fellowship is for you if:
You have a thorough knowledge of effective practices and a sustained record of supporting others to improve their teaching and learning activities. Perhaps you mentor academics. Maybe you provide programmes of support to lecturers so they can improve their information literacy to the benefit of their students.

Principal Fellow (PFHEA) is for you if :

You work in a strategic leadership role and can show a sustained record of effectiveness of academic practice and development. Perhaps you are a Director of an Academic Practice department or a Vice Provost for Education.

Not hierarchical - RawPixels.com

The confusion arises because the categories are aligned to people's roles and these roles often change and develop over time. As new academics become firmly established they are sometimes given the responsibilities of mentoring others or supporting their colleagues; for example, with course design. You may be a Reader or Professor and have little to do supporting others so an Associate or Fellow category would be more suitable. Alternatively, you may be a newly employed educational developer whose sole role is to do this.

Have you decided yet? Now that Term 1 is coming closer to an end perhaps it's something you wish to consider for 2020. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

Related posts:

Using the GROW coaching model to help someone reach SFHEA status
FHEA progress to date: Reflective Assessment Portfolio

What's a teaching philosophy, and why does it matter?

Why do you teach the way you do? How do your personal and professional values align with what's going on in your teaching practice? How can you tell?

Teaching philosophies are commonplace in primary and secondary education and are becoming more so in higher education. I've even started to hear about them being used as part of the job interview process.

Participants on the postgraduate certificate course, graduate teaching assistant course and for those applying for a Fellowship of Advance HE via the open route at my institution are required to write one.

@omgitsyeshi - Unsplash.com

Why write one?

• It helps us to make decisions about our behaviour, the tools and activities we use and the way we interact with those we teach
• It helps us be consistent in those decisions and choices
• Being self-aware and being able to articulate our reasons provides us with confidence
• Confidence will provide authority 
• Cognitive dissonance and the resulting burnout will reduce as what we believe and what we do will be in alignment
• It will help us make career choices - are our values and philosophies supported or hindered by our environment, colleagues and institution

What goes in a teaching philosophy?

Ask yourself questions such as:

• What do I mean by teaching?
• What do I mean by learning?
• What drives me and keeps me motivated?
• What are my personal and professional values?
• how do they show up in my practice?
• What actually happens in my classroom?

My own teaching philosophy is centred around my belief that everyone should have the opportunity to develop their potential and that if people could improve what they do, even if just by 10%, then this would improve the world we live in. I create space for the honing of skills such as critical thinking, independent learning and teamwork. This space helps to form connections; connections between ideas and social connections between peers. I give my time to students: I am prepared and enthusiastic; I am the first one in the door welcoming my students and the last one out saying goodbye. My materials and activities are carefully thought out and planned. This shows I take myself and my students seriously and value their precious time. 

What does yours look like? I'd love to know so feel free to leave a comment.

How I stay organised.

There has recently been lots of discussion on LinkedIn and Twitter about how to stay organised. I suspect it is because of the perfect storm that September brings: a new and busy term; new students; new modules and, possibly, new stationery.

Some people buy new clothes in September or a new pencil case. As I’m conscious of the environment and try to lead a fairly uncluttered existence (apart from my books, which is a different story – pun not intended), the only new item I purchase is a Leuchtterm 1917 dotted hardback journal* in a bright colour. This year’s is yellow.

I used to be all about the tech. I still am to some extent (I have a hybrid approach) but then I discovered the Bullet Journal. I’ve been using this method for about four years now since I returned to work after my first maternity leave. I don’t know if this was a coincidence or I just felt the need to physically write more.

The process: 

I started with an old Moleskine* I’d picked up from a conference to try out the method. You don’t need to go out and buy something new – I suspect many of you have many, many notebooks lying around. I’ve tried various habit trackers and layouts and have decided that simple is best. No beautiful, intricate drawings of weather formations for me sadly. Purely utilitarian with the occasional hint of washi tape when I’m feeling fancy. I think that’s why I like the bright colours as a compromise.

My notebook contains:

• A contents list 
• A future log (a layout of the 12 calendar months across two pages) 
• Numbered pages (Moleskine didn’t have these and there is no way I am going to number all the pages)

Each month has: 

• A gratitude list – I list one thing I’m grateful for each day (proven to improve happiness) 
• An overarching big to-do list
• A week plan which I create every Friday afternoon
• An end of month reflection where I ask myself questions such as – what was the most memorable part of this month, what were the three biggest lessons, how am I different this month compared to last, what am I grateful for and three things to improve (these questions were taken from the Passion Planner* pdf)

Each week has: 

• My overarching roles and goals so I can ensure I do something, no matter how small, towards them each week (this idea was taken from Stephen Covey’s 7 habits of effective people*) 
• My meetings transferred from Outlook 
• The tasks I want to work on 
• My favourite thing this week (this definitely helps when I think I’ve had a rubbish week)

At the end of the week, I will review it and plan the next one. I won’t plan any further than that if I can help it. Although recurring appointments do go in my Outlook. Longer term plans go on a separate page or in the Future Log. I use pages as I go along to take notes in meetings or collect ideas around a particular topic and make sure I log them all in the contents page. That’s what I like about the bullet journal – it’s so much more flexible and personal than any other type.





Some other organisation tools I use:

Evernote (I’ve gone down to the basic option now I use my bullet journal).
I use this to draft blog posts and capture the odd random thought that I have when I don’t have my bullet journal with me

Twitter Likes/Favourites 

If I see something I might come back to then I will ‘like’ it. It will be sent by IFTTT to Evernote where I will go through them periodically and categorise them.

Feedly

I’m signed up to blog posts on education, yoga, coaching and smallholding and can catch up with most of the posts in one place. As more people move towards sending newsletters this has become trickier and I find I am using it less.

LinkedIn and Facebook saved articles

I occasionally see something here and save it but often forget about it. Luckily it will often pop up somewhere else too!

iPhone calendar

I’ve just set up a shared calendar with my husband now that my eldest has started school. This lets us share when appointments are happening, when I am working from home so I can pick him up or vice versa, and general events happening. It means we don’t need to talk to each other as much. Just kidding, sort of!


Dropbox

This is great for when I’m working from home. It also means that when the laptop dies everything is still available from whatever device I am using. It’s also been useful in the past for sharing documents but I don’t need to do this very often now.

Trello

Inspired by Cathy Mazak, the Academic Writing Coach, I have started to log my Performance Development goals as projects. I hope to use it to help me write more too. I’ll let you know how it goes.

This currently works for me. When or if it stops I will gravitate towards something else. Just because something works for one person doesn't mean it will necessarily work for you but there's no harm in giving it a go.

How do you stay organised?

*affiliate link to keep me in chocolate and to see if this whole coaching academics and writing about it might bring new opportunities. I only recommend what I use and like.

My two year anniversary as an Academic Practice lecturer

It’s my two year anniversary as an Academic Practice lecturer. The first year whizzed by as I was on maternity leave. Yes, I started the job two weeks before I left to have a baby. Foolhardy or brave?  On whose part - mine or my employers?

I’ve learned a lot this following year. Working with new academics has been a pleasure. I’ve seen them flourish as they gain confidence. I’ve cried as they revealed the history behind their teaching philosophies. I’ve been grateful for the positive feedback they left me. 

Working with more established academics to gain accreditation has been eye opening. I’ve worked with them previously for years but in a different context. Who knew that some would be as challenged by time management as the students they complain about?! They are also the ones who tend to be the most appreciative of the time I spend with them.

The new PhD students I teach on their Introduction to Teaching days are so ambitious but are one of the most at risk groups of being exploited. They are often lost and confused when I meet them as they most often have never taught before and are trying to gain experience. Providing some reassurance is often the most helpful thing I can do for these people.

Introductions & expectations

Getting ready to discuss values

And the people I have been coaching while getting my qualification, as well as my new clients? It’s an absolute honour, as well as quite a responsibility, to be part of their journey and growth. I’ve enjoyed every moment of it.

What next?

Restructures have meant more work as well as increased opportunities, as I’m able to put my own stamp on things. Balancing it with childcare, domestic tribulations and school logistics is challenging to say the least. I am intending to submit my Senior Fellowship application very soon and there are some interesting projects based around Equality and Wellbeing on the horizon. I will be building up my coaching experience alongside this.

Oh, and I’ve just found out I’ve passed my probation. 

Happy anniversary! 

Learning and Teaching Symposium: Collaboration, Active Learning and Identities

It's that time of year when all that can be heard is tapping of keyboards, the clink of a teacup absent-mindedly being laid to rest on whatever is to hand and the groan as stiff shoulders are rolled back from being hunched over a keyboard for too long. It's marking season!

A welcome break from all of that is the annual event which takes place (every year, surprisingly) at Brunel - the Learning and Teaching Symposium. They're always informative, engaging and I tend to leave with lots of ideas buzzing round my head. This year was no exception.

Professor Fiona Denney, Director of Brunel Educational Excellence Centre

The focus of this year's event was on engaging students actively in their learning. The Vice Chancellor opened the day by giving attendees some history regarding the change in class-sizes and reduction in small-group teaching and the impact this had on student-staff relationships. Her theory being that this was related to the increase in student mental health issues. Going forwards, campuses are designing new buildings with flexible spaces in mind which are designed to get some of this connectivity back.

Engaging keynotes from Dr Ian Turner and Dr Hannah Critchlow built on this aspect of student wellbeing and also the idea of students coming to university to see the lecturer perform and be engaging - a lecture as pantomime.. This ties in with the work we do in our Academic Practice team on teacher identities, philosophies and values.

Dr Hannah Critchlow

Dr Ian Turner

Fortunately, rather than just hearing all about students being active, I was able to experience some of this for myself so I've picked out a few highlights and themes below:

Games

In a workshop with Dr Ian Turner, we worked in teams to develop games for our students. I don't normally like the idea of games as evidence suggests it can remove intrinsic motivation already in place (Hanus & Fox, 2015). However, having a clear idea of the player/audience, their ultimate goal, and some structure to achieving that goal works for me as it connects to coaching methods as well as aligning learning objectives with activities. Seems obvious but you should never assume!


Teams:

The team-based learning workshop with Dr Simon Tweddell continued this theme of small groups, collaboration and interactivity. Individuals would assess their own knowledge then work as a group to come up with the right answers, while developing skills of negotiation and communication. Part of this activity included speaking up and defending their choices to the rest of the class so involved the use of critical thinking and the development of confidence in public speaking - all useful life skills.

Technologies and identities:

My favourite session involved the use of Padlet and lots of cutting and sticking. I'm not sure that our PgCAP students would appreciate what may seem like an old-school and childish activity or what it says about me that I enjoyed it so much! We created collages individually, upscaled them into a larger group piece and then shared them via Padlet with the rest of our class. I can see this working really well with distance-learning students or very large groups. I particularly like the idea of using it in a workshop on teaching identities and values for our HEA workshops.

Padlet

These sessions showcased how individual student expression could be combined with teamwork and collegiality. This was summed up perfectly by the panel at the end of the day discussing what educators could learn from comedy. From identifying disconnects, reducing stress and promoting risk-taking to improving dialogic learning  and critical thinking skills - comedy has many uses in the classroom. Plus, it can make learning fun!

Comedy in the Classroom

How do you encourage collaboration amongst those you teach? How do you engage them actively? Leave a comment below; I'd love to hear from you!

Hanus, Michael D. and Fox, Jesse (2015) 'Assessing the effects of gamification in the classroom: A longitudinal study on intrinsic motivation, social comparison, satisfaction, effort, and academic performance'. Computers & Education, Volume 80, pp 152-161.

Spring is here and the grass has grown - marking/coaching/weeding

I find April an uplifting month. Spring is underway: bluebells, forget-me-nots and daffodils have all emerged and are doing their best to beautify the landscape. The showers are short and promote growth.

Growth is happening at work and at home too. At work the focus is on marking, preparing my Senior Fellowship application and reflecting on the previous term's teaching activities. At home it is on preparing the garden. Not the ideal time for the latter but the safest time to get the little ones involved.

What I've been up to this month:

Coaching:

I've handed in my second assignment and received very positive comments about it. I've completed thirteen hours of coaching, plus lots of practising within the workshops and have attended several coaching supervision sessions. The latter have been very helpful in allowing me to unpick and receive advice on some of the trickier areas - keeping it all anonymous of course. I have one assignment to go which I hope to complete very shortly and then that's it - I'll be a qualified coach! Then the work really starts...

Academic Practice:

Lots and lots of marking of draft portfolios. We asked for drafts and we've got them! These are mainly from our PgCAP programme but some are also from older programmes which we no longer run or from our open route to accreditation. I'm trying to fit them in around meetings but most productive marking takes place when I can block off several days and do little else but concentrate on this area. Easier said than done but I'm working on it.

Becoming embroiled in the 'finding a school for my darling' process:

This should have been easy as we have one very close to us but unfortunately it wasn't suitable so we've had to look elsewhere. We found out this month that we have got our first choice, which is a huge relief.

Getting the raised beds ready for sowing:

They are in a mess after not being used for a couple of years. It has also been challenging to do this with a full-time job and two small children; however, I have bought them their own spades and I'm hoping we can finish this with a team effort!

Giving blood:

I have a rare donor blood type so I get regular letters and phone-calls encouraging me to donate again. I was a regular until pregnancy, breastfeeding and a severe lack of sleep became part of my life. While I probably am too tired for it to be sensible, at least I know there will be some blood available if I have an accident! I also think that if you are willing to accept it then, if you are able, you should be willing to donate it.

Give blood.

What I've been reading:

I've not been reading so much recently due to marking, hospital visits and focussing on assignments but here's some of the main pieces:

Chimp Paradox and My Hidden Chimp by Professor Steve Peters . I bought the former after having heard it recommended by three different people in one month. It's already making a difference to my approach and it ties in with some of the mindfulness practices I use. My four year old loves the latter. It is a little bit old for him but we go through a chapter most weekends.

Reframing Professional Development Through Understanding Authentic Professional Learning by Ann Webster-Wright.Read as part of our team's continuing professional development.

Biggs and Tang, (2011) Teaching For Quality Learning At University A core textbook for the students on the PgCAP course and I've finally finished the entire thing!

Fellowshipat4 - A twitter hashtag used by the Trent Institute for Learning and Teaching. I'm currently putting together my Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy portfolio and this was immensely helpful.

Recommended site:

Give blood. Do it! You will feel incredibly virtuous afterwards!

How's your spring shaping up? What plans do you have? Let me know in the comments below!

Using my voice to promote positive mental health.

One in four students are suffering from mental health problems. 64% of PhD candidates are feeling lonely at work. Academic staff feeling overworked is nothing new. This can either seem like an overwhelming problem or, even worse, just the price people are expected to pay for having the privilege of working or studying in academia.

As this year’s University Mental Health Day is all about the power of using your voice, I’d like to tell you about two things I’ve been doing to use mine to help others...

Coaching:

Firstly, I’ve been using my voice to ask questions as part of my coaching practice. I have been practicing my coaching skills on university staff who for various reasons are finding stress in their lives ranging from communication problems and procrastination around deadlines to frustrations with a lack of work-life balance. Throughout the course, I have been learning about the different models and tools I can use to help. These have included: visualising what success might look like, writing meaningful and emotion-laden goals utilising Carol Wilson’s EXACT model, and encouraging the understanding of other’s perspectives via the 51% rule and Perceptual Positioning. By training to be part of the University’s coaching community I get to keep learning, which is something I always love doing, staff achieve progress towards their chosen goal and the University gets happier employees. It’s a win for everyone! 

Mindfulness:

Secondly, I have recently become involved in the University’s wellbeing group again (I took a break from it due to maternity leave). It is a group of volunteers who provide meditation and mindfulness practices – drawing on each individual’s experience with yoga, tai chi, Qigong, Hindu or Buddhist teachings once a week, every Wednesday 12noon-12.30 in the Meeting House (a multi-faith and none space on campus). Towards the end of last month, I led a session in Mindfulness. Mindfulness has been proven to reduce stress and has become quite popular over the last few years.

There were 15 people in attendance: a mixture of staff and students, male and female with a range of different faiths and nationalities. I started with a brief breathing exercise to encourage people to settle down and feel calm. This was from a book called Happy Teacher’s Change the World which I refer to regularly in my role as an Academic Practice lecturer. I then spent the majority of the 30 minutes going through a detailed body scan taken from Jon Kabatt-Zinn’s book – Wherever you go, there you are.

Towards the end I remembered why I enjoyed doing these sessions so much – the participants seemed so calm and still and this was verified by the comments they made afterwards. We finished with a Loving Kindness meditation which encourages us to put aside our inner judgmental voice and be kind to ourselves, our friends, and those who we may not hold so dearly.

Each week these sessions change in teacher and content and it is a nice space to take time out for one’s self, to regroup and to connect with others in the same environment without having to have a conversation. 

There is increasing evidence of the success coaching in an educational setting can bring and universities are increasing their provision of wellbeing activities. While they won’t solve all life’s ills (or problems related to decreasing budgets, bureaucracy and restructures), they can certainly help towards dealing with them. I’d strongly recommend seeking them out.

Related posts:

• Mindfulness workshops in higher education


• Using yoga and mindfulness to improve student employability

For further help with looking after mental health as a student - https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/student-mental-health/

Over to you! I’d love to know what you do to promote good mental health. Leave a comment below.

Using the GROW coaching model to help someone reach SFHEA status

As part of my interview for my new role as Lecturer in Higher Education, I was asked to deliver a ten minute presentation prior to the questions. This is fairly common in the education sector and makes sense in any sort of teaching role as you are showing that you can present knowledgably and engagingly, even when incredibly nervous, as well keep to time (a very important and often underused skill).

The topic was:

“My approach to supporting an experienced and senior academic begin to apply for Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy”

I have never helped anyone gain Senior Fellowship before; however, I have had many conversations with experienced and senior academics and, while I still have some of the wounds, I believe I've learned a lot from them. As many of you know, I'm a great believer in the power of coaching and think it can be enormously beneficial, so I decided to take this approach and use the GROW model to demonstrate it.

GROW is a coaching model acronym which stands for Goal, Reality, Options and Will.

I talked about how finding out what the Goal was for the academic - why were they trying to achieve SFHEA status? Had they been told to do it? Was it something they knew the value of? If I knew their motivations I would be able to better support them.

I then moved onto Reality. Did they meet the criteria of the UKPSF Framework? The accreditations for the Higher Education Academy are not hierarchical; for example, a highly established researcher may be very eminent in her field but if she doesn't support the teaching of others then she will not meet the criteria for Senior Fellowship and would be better going for Fellowship instead.

Options included how I could support the academic: through different types of workshops, through a mentor programme, through providing templates and so on.

With Will, I discussed investigating the level of motivation and commitment of the academic. Ultimately, the process was up to them and it's important they understand this.

In a bid for extra authenticity, alongside my explanations of how I could enable a person to grow and flourish, I was able to include lots of pictures of gardening, seeds and vegetables (another area of life I'm passionate about). It felt very apt!

My new role will involve much more mentoring and coaching so I am really looking forward to putting this into practice and I hope in future to be able to complete a coaching qualification to cement and add credibility to my work.

The end of Fellowship?

This is the final part of my series of blog posts on gaining Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy.

If you’ve already read last week’s post you’ll know that I have completed my FHEA accreditation portfolio. I am very happy about this. Students and other staff may not know or care about it but it is a process I have found valuable and if it is accepted (I find out in February) then I will get a few extra letters after my name.

At the beginning of 2016, I decided to look into what gaining accreditation for my teaching involved. As my confidence had taken a nose-dive after various personal issues, I felt I needed to ‘prove’ myself again.

Rather than repeat everything I’ve done for it, here are a few links to the process I went through:

• Embarking on Fellowship: More reasons as to why I started the process, an outline of the different types of accreditation the Higher Education Academy provides and the various route my institution provides to gain the award.

• I used Pebble-Pad for the first time to collate and submit my portfolio 

• Choosing an FHEA mentor: I was required to have a mentor who was absolutely marvellous. This post covers what traits are required in a mentor and how I chose mine.

• FHEA progress to date: Reflective Assessment Portfolio. I was required to write and collate a portfolio. This post contains information about what that consisted of and a more detailed look at the core knowledge and professional values I needed to demonstrate across the five small and two large case studies, as well as the professional development plan.

• Technologies, peer-assisted learning, FHEA case studies...with a touch of Frost. This post goes into more detail about the two larger case studies submitted in the portfolio. The workshops were observed by academics at my institution, one of whom was my mentor. They offered feedback on improvements and used them to inform the references they provided – another requirement of the accreditation.

While it’s felt like quite a long process, I actually completed it ahead of my deadline by three months. As I took the Open route the deadline is chosen by the participant rather than the institution so there was no need to set this particular time – although it does feel nice to have submitted before Christmas.

So, these are the advantages I've found in doing this:

Mindfulness workshops in higher education

I’ve been involved in some mindfulness workshops at work recently and, as several people have expressed an interest and because it's Mental Health Awareness Week, I thought I would blog about them.

Some context

I’d been very stressed: I’d recently returned from a short maternity leave, too many deadlines and too little sleep had led to a small car accident, and I knew that I had to find some time for self-care or I was going to combust. My workplace has a well-being programme which includes meditation, mindfulness and relaxation. I’ve been interested in this area for quite a few years, having received mindfulness-based CBT for PTSD in the past, taught customer service/mindfulness sessions as part of staff-development at a previous workplace, as well as being a keen (amateur) yogi. I decided to pay them a visit.

How I got involved

The classes were, and still are, great and really help me cope with the tantrums and negativity, and not just those from the little one. One of the team was leaving and, knowing some of my background, I was asked by the organiser if I wanted to step in. I jumped at the opportunity – it would be a chance to pass on some of what I’d learned and hopefully help them benefit in the same way I had.

What I do

By the end of the academic term, I will have delivered three workshops. They are on mindfulness and how it can be used in everyday situations. At several of the workshops I have attended I’d noted that people say this was their ‘me time’ and their time away from the stress of the office or studies. As it’s not always possible to attend workshops I wanted to see if there was a way I could help people carry their practice with them.

The workshops last thirty minutes and are attended by students and staff. The numbers can vary between five and twenty. I’ve themed my three workshops into Eating, Noticing the Environment, and Communication. Each one includes two guided activities, a discussion after each one, followed by some optional homework.

Eating

As this was my first one, I explained my background and that I am very much a learner as is everyone else. The first exercise was quite a well-known one and can be found easily online. It features a raisin and participants are guided to view it as if for the first time, taking time to really see and feel the shapes and textures , to smell it and, finally, to taste it. The second was very similar and featured dark chocolate.

Flowers for the 'noticing' meditation exercise

Noticing

This theme was about noticing what’s happening both internally and externally to ourselves. The first exercise, focused on awareness and the labelling of thoughts. Awareness is not the same as thought – it’s more like a vessel which can hold and contain our thinking, helping us to see our thoughts. Jon Kabat- Zinn, founder of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction course, describes it as a soup pot holding all the chopped vegetables. The second exercise was designed to connect us that little bit more with the natural environment and involved the flowers in the picture above – each person chose one and focused on the texture, the colours and the smell.

Communication

The next workshop will focus on observing rather than being controlled by our emotions, especially when communicating with others. They are not about self-censorship but instead focus on using emotional intelligence and choosing the most appropriate response for the situation. The exercises will concentrate on how to listen and speak with compassion, kindness and awareness in a bid to transform and strengthen our relationships.

What next?

So far the feedback has been great and participants have told me they have benefited. I don't know yet whether I'll be asked back next academic term; however, it's been an enlightening and interesting experience and I feel like I've learned a lot too. I'm currently reading The Mindful Librarian by Richard Moniz and am looking forward to finding out how I can combine this with teaching in higher education.

From the road less travelled to the information super highway...

On 31st January, I made my way to the British Library to attend the free conference, From the road less travelled to the information super highway: information literacy in the 21st Century, organised jointly by the M25  and the CILIP Information Literacy Group. The conference had sold out within two hours so I was feeling lucky to have received a place and was expecting good things. All the topics on the day, as you’d expect, focused on information literacy, and ranged from the broad and theoretical, e.g. Emma Coonan’s and Jane Secker’s impassioned lecture on ANCIL to the very specific and practical, e.g. games in libraries.

The conference opened with a look at the Research Information and Digital Literacies Coalition. I hadn’t heard of this before and it seemed that neither had many people in the room. We found out that it is a HEFCE funded project and is an informal network of librarians, pedagogists, career experts and similar whose aim is to take information literacy out of the higher education library and into the workplace. They do this by investigating the gap between higher education and employment by speaking to careers advisers, unions, organisations etc.

Obama announced October to be
 National Information Literacy Month in 2009.
 Found on FlickrCC.net

Their remit for 2014 is to help staff formulate and develop courses and to discover how information literacy skills can increase students’ employability. Since the rise in tuition fees, I have found students to be increasingly nervous about finding employment after university and becoming much more vocal about the costs of their courses so this seems like a sensible step to take. Part of their plans also involve increasing their international outreach; the US National Forum on Information Literacy was provided as a positive example of a group who have successfully put information literacy on the government agenda leading to President Obama implementing an information literacy month.

A project I found interesting due to the impact it had at University as well as Library level was Project DigitISE: Digital information skills for employability, which was undertaken at University of Westminster. This was a JISC funded exercise which studied the links between student attitudes towards digital literacy and employability. The team distributed surveys, held workshops and focus groups for both students and academic staff, and developed definitions, all of which culminated in a one day student conference entitled Get the Digital Edge. Promoted as a way of improving employability, students were encouraged to choose six topics covering areas such as using social media for job searching, researching companies for job interviews and social media and reputation , to name  a few. As a result of this project, the university is now reviewing its digital literacy strategy and more digital edge days are being planned.

Another session I particularly liked was one on games in information literacy sessions; this was led by Adam Edwards and Vanessa Hill from University of Middlesex. They explained how they had faced the usual problems library staff face in that information literacy wasn’t integrated into modules and that the sessions they held were far too general in their nature. In an effort to resolve this library staff embarked on getting more qualifications, e.g. teaching fellowships, postgraduate certificates in Higher Education etc. They felt this gave them the skills and confidence to feel they were on an equal footing with academic staff and able to implement more innovative teaching methods. While not everyone can do this due to time and money constraints the gaming suggestions felt achievable, easy to implement, and affordable, i.e. no large grants needed.

Sonic and Tails - found on FlickrCC.net

Apart from a brief foray into Sonic the Hedgehog when I was much, much younger, games have never really been my thing (perhaps because my brother always had to be Sonic, which meant I had to be Tails). So even though I have taken part in several workshops on games in information literacy teaching I have yet to try them out. Adam and Vanessa encouraged us to play some of the games they use with students which covered areas like thinking about resources, keywords, searching, and evaluating (these are all free open educational resources and can be found at Jorum. They gave us a couple of rules to think about when including games:

• Games should be no more than 10 minutes in length
• Games should meet a specific need
• They should have a clear objective
• There shouldn’t be a need for any instruction

While these may seem fairly obvious rules it does help to have these in mind so that games are not just being shoehorned into a workshop. One of my reservations about games was that students might find it patronising, however, more ‘grown-up’ options could be included like marking reference lists out of 10 to get them to think about the types of resources being used and showing students the marking schedule to see how the lesson fits the criteria and provide proof that the skills they are learning will improve their marks.

I generally find conferences quite motivating and this was no exception. It had a well thought out range of sessions and because there weren't any options to choose from I didn't feel like I was missing out! Not only has it helped to maintain enthusiasm in my teaching, it was
a welcome reminder of the useful materials which are already available for library and information professionals to freely use, which when you are short on time or ideas can be a very beneficial resource.

Using yoga and mindfulness to improve student employability.

I like doing yoga. I don't do it nearly enough and when I do practise it I find it calms my mind, stretches out my tight limbs and lowers my stressed shoulders. So I was thrilled to find out I had won tickets to the Om Yoga Show last September.

The conference was a mix of practical sessions, suppliers selling their wares, and lectures. A lecture I found particularly interesting was led by an organisation called Teenyoga which, as its name suggests, was about yoga for teenagers. TeenYoga works with the Institute of Psychological Sciences at Leeds University to develop programmes for schools based on mindfulness and yoga. 

Teenagers, we were told, are increasingly stressed; they worry about money, death of loved ones, and body issues. The UK is no longer bottom of Unicef's list of developed countries for children's well-being but is still only 16th. Obesity levels have has doubled and alcohol levels among teenagers are high. Yoga can appeal as there is an emphasis on safety and it is seen as an easier form of exercise to take part in. Importantly, it isn't competitive. It also contains an element of risk which children need as part of growing up and testing boundaries.

Found on Flickrcc.net

I spent several years in Further Education libraries and even though I am now in Higher Education, students still seem to be dealing with the same issues of stress, anxiety and anger. At a few of the institutions I've worked in the Library has been deemed a 'safe place' for students to go even when they have no work to do, presumably because the Library is staffed, is generally warm, and students are treated fairly as the CILIP Ethics Principles states all users should be.

Librarians spend a lot of time teaching students how to be critical, how to analyse and how to search effectively. I'm not suggesting we all add yoga and mindfulness classes to our skill-sets too but I found it interesting to hear how taking part in them improved students decision-making skills, increased their self-esteem, and developed their emotional resilience. These skills and attributes are necessary in the workplace and employability is currently very high on the agenda in the education sector. If organisations like the Ministry of Defence can see the benefits of it for their staff then perhaps it's not the strangest idea.

Conference Write-up - Open Access Futures in the Humanities and Social Sciences #HSSOA

Open Access Futures in the Humanities and Social Sciences was a conference that truly embraced the power of social media. Every presenter had their Twitter handle clearly displayed on slides. Tweets were displayed on the screen next to the speakers. Even Google hangouts played a part as people became involved in multiple strands of conversation.

I attended this event on 24th October 2013 because I currently look after the Social Sciences within my institution and have learned from my experience with them that they tend to like to do things differently. Also, it was a conference mainly attended by academics, as opposed to librarians, and I thought it might be prudent to check that we are correct in our thoughts about what academics issues are.

Found on Flickrr,net

Looking back at my notes from the day, the main issues seemed to be:

Plagiarism
Some audience members were concerned that plagiarism would increase if work was openly available. It was remarked that students do attribute correctly in essays (so library staff are getting something right!) but often mix their own words with academics - students need to write for themselves and in their own voice. Both Brian Hole and Professor Charlotte Waelde on the panel at the time responded that plagiarism depends on the ability to hide so open access will help prevent plagiarism as it is easier to detect. This made sense to me yet it remains a sensitive topic as academics consider their livelihoods to be at stake and wish to ensure rules like those set by the Berne Convention remain in place.

Visibility
There was a lot of emphasis on the publishing of books and chapters as social scientists and humanities scholars still rely on these for much of their research output. The general impression I received was that while open access can increase the visibility of monographs, the logistics for these still need some thought as they can be both costly and awkward to manage. It will be interesting to see if they remain viable in the future.

Visibility for new staff was also raised as a key issue for which open access could be a solution, e.g. easily accessible urls can help with job applications, however, publishing in traditional high profile journals is often what it is expected of academics to build up a reputation.

Cost
There was much heated discussion about the cost of open access; it is not free as some might think but comes with a hefty price tag. Libraries have to pay costs to publishers whenever they choose to publish an open access article and this can sometimes run into thousands. While a few are in receipt of RCUK funding to reduce the burden, my own included, libraries just can't afford to keep doing this, especially as quite often they are paying twice - once for the article to be published and again for the subscription.


While this is only a brief snapshot of the conference (more information can be gleaned from the Storify created by the organisers) I left feeling that no-one really had the answers yet and that there is much more to discuss and discover. There are some innovative projects created by forward-thinking enthusiastic people, for example, new ways of publishing and collaborative projects like the Mark Twain Project Online , but these seem to remain few and far between.

LIKE 50: Collaborate or die

It's been so busy at work and in life recently that I've had little time to do any writing. However, here's a little catch-up of LIKE's 50th event - The Business case for Collaboration. To celebrate reaching this number, the group decided to coordinate their event with the Online Information 2013 conference and invite their keynote speaker Jacob Morgan, author of The Collaborative Organisation, to speak about collaboration and the way workplaces have to be willing to change to thrive in the future.

The evening was very much an interactive affair with him asking questions, inviting examples and so on, which kept it very much in the spirit of LIKE.

The main points which came out of the discussions were:

• Millenials are very picky about where they work - they like to have social media available, have a flexible work/ life balance, are not necessarily in it for the money and are increasingly working for themselves e.g. portfolio working.
• As job security no longer exists and if millenials choose flexibility and other criteria  over money then big companies may not exist in the future, unless they choose to adapt
• With social media now widespread, workers are no longer tied to their organisations as they create personal profiles and reputations instead and find it much easier to talk to people in other organisations
• The  downside of this is that they rarely switch off and the work/life balance can become skewed

There was quite a lot of conversation about whether universities will exist in the future. Jacob's argument was that as graduates leave with increasing levels of debt they will be working to just to pay the debt off and will become 'unengaged zombies'. There will be less of an incentive to pay for an education. There will also be less of a need as they will find it easier and cheaper to build up skills themselves through Youtube and MOOCs. While I do think the current government may be trying to hasten the closure of many universities, I don't think there are any silver bullets to take over just yet.

Photo courtesy of Matthew Rees

There was also a lot of discussion about social media and the use of text analytics - a few people gave examples of colleagues who had been fired because their Facebook profile didn't 'fit' their employees company profile.While others, myself included, thought that it was very shortsighted if a company didn't learn how to use it well.

Jacob emphasised that collaboration helps employees as well as the company's bottom line. It helps them be more effective in their jobs, encourages teamwork, breaks down barriers, and reduces stress BUT only if it is seamlessly integrated into working life, not 'yet another thing to do', is not micromanaged, is measured appropriately, and is taken seriously by management.

As a so-called 'millenial' I found myself both agreeing and disagreeing with much of what Jacob had to say. I use social media, save my work in the cloud, and consider librarians in other institutions my colleagues, however, I also think that while it's great to work for an organisation which is forward-thinking, offers flexible working and values individuals, much of the conversation was based on the top 10% (the Alphas in life) who are generally in a position to not worry so much about paying the bills. It will be interesting to see if companies change to benefit everyone else.

Academic and Research Libraries Group: Members' Day

Last January two CILIP Special Interest Groups, Universities, Colleges and Research (UC&R) and Colleges of Further and Higher Education (CoFHE) merged to become Academic and Research Libraries Group (ARLG). I'm active in the regional branch of this group (London and South East) having become a member of the CoFHE London and South East committee in 2010 and now fulfil the roles of liaison officer, blog editor and web editor.

On Wednesday 15th May, ARLG held its first ever Members' Day - I was looking forward to attending this event as even though I had been involved at a regional level I thought it would be a great opportunity to find out more about the goings on at the top.

It was held at Regents University London in the beautiful surroundings of Regent's Park and the day kicked off with an introduction from its new Vice Chancellor, Professor Aldwyn Cooper. For half an hour, he calmly but passionately enthused about the institution, about its social responsibility, ethos, diversity, its focus on employability but most of all its collegiality. Tying in the ARLG theme of partnerships and collaboration, he expressed his pride in working with people who talk to each other across their departments.

Regents University London 

Straight after was a talk from Lesley Ruthven, a special collections librarian from Goldsmiths University. She spoke about the various partnerships she and her team are involved in from school visits to creating workshops for her academic staff. She referred to 'empowering' the subject librarians to promote the resources by breaking down the collections into subject categories. She works hard to preempt as well as to respond to enquiries and is working to ensure her role becomes a 'jewel in the crown' at Goldsmiths.

Lesley's slides.

Working with subject librarians came up at the Supporting Researcher's event I attended and it makes sense - we are the ones who know our academic staff, know who is receptive and willing to be involved and know who would benefit. The theme of the day was partnerships but if we aren't even talking to each other effectively then we can't realistically expect to get very far with others.

Next up was Abi Mawhirt from Dundee College speaking about the new learning hubs recently installed. They took on a headache inducing amount of projects at one go as besides creating the hubs they also installed RFID, installed a new library management system, migrated their Blackboard virtual learning environment to Moodle all while five campuses were being reduced to two. In each hub there is a focus on academic support and learning and despite initial misgivings from academic and library staff, feedback indicates that students feel more engaged, more capable of working together and the retention rates have improved. While all this sounded great, one thing which niggled was that the Library specified they wanted to get new staff who worked well with people so they purposefully didn't stipulate a library qualification. I can empathise with this in one way as I didn't have the qualification when I started out but did have tons of customer service experience which has always proven valuable, however, I would have expected that they would encourage staff to work towards it, plus it implies that librarians aren't people focused which is completely untrue.

Abi's slides.

After lunch and the Annual General Meeting, Ann Craig from University of Worcester told us about the development and the implementation of the Hive, a privately financed initiative to create a library for both university students and council services. They combine staffing and resources and their corporate plans are very similar. I'm still not sure about the Hive - on one hand it's great for the community as they get new facilities and access to a much wider range of materials but I just can't see what the students get out of it. Having seen how private finance initiatives have meant extortionate costs for the NHS, I can't help but be concerned that education will suffer the same fate if it follows the same path.

Ann's slides.

After a short promotion for ARLG bursaries, it was time for us to give back - in small groups we came up with and fedback answers to the following questions:

• what topics would you like to be covered at the next conference?
• what do we want from ARLG?
• what should its objectives be?

I didn't catch everything that was said but there were a lot of people interested in access, including open access and disability access, and transition, including from school to further education to higher education and within higher education itself. Help with career decisions related to academic and research libraries such as chartership, teaching certificates and PhDs alongside online help, webinars, clear communication, advocacy and sustainability also featured heavily.

The whole process of merging the two special interest groups has not been without its challenges and suffered enormously at the beginning from a lack of communication, however, it does seem to be getting back on track and having a Members' Day is definitely a positive step in the right direction. It's a useful way to keep in touch, to share what we are up to and to strengthen the bonds within our sector and I sincerely hope they continue.

Supporting Researchers: how librarians can support the REF, bibliometrics and data management

On Wednesday 8th May, I left work early to help set up and attend the Academic and Research Libraries Group (ARLG) London and South East event entitled Supporting Researchers: how librarians can support the REF, bibliometrics and data management. 

There was a good turnout to hear the two speakers talk about their experience of supporting researchers. First up was Andria McGrath, a Research Information Specialist at King's College London. She focused on internal library partnerships and discussed the importance of  working with IT and Research management as well as academics.

Andria's slides are available so I don't want to regurgitate everything she said, however, a couple of the main points that resonated for me were:

• The relationship between the Graduate School and the Research Librarian is key. Andria mentioned that training is very important for supporting researchers but they only want to turn up to sessions on how to use referencing software. This is why it is so important that academic librarians, and especially research librarians, have a strong relationship with the Graduate School in order that researchers don't miss out on very useful and relevant workshops. This is definitely the case where I work and it was also remarked upon via Twitter that this was the same at other institutions.

• Staff development is vital. Andria mentioned that she spent a week on a Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) training course in Leiden and this helped her to fulfil her duties enormously. While not all institutions value or support continual professional development, I think it is important that we take control of what we are able to  -  engaging in what we can and then taking the time to share it with others. Not only will it help consolidate thoughts but by 'paying it back' you are helping others to learn and grow too improving the situation for us all.

The second speaker of the evening was Monique Ritchie, a colleague and Research Librarian at Brunel University. She spoke about her new post supporting researchers, the Research Data Management Project and UKRISS. Monique helpfully listed 6 key skills needed to do her role; a useful list for anyone trying to decide if this could be for them, although I felt they could easily apply to my job too. The key skills were:

• adaptability & flexibility
• ability to prioritise
• diplomacy and tact
• a sense of adventure
• ability to think strategically
• networking - externally as well as internally 

Monique's slides are also available but a couple of items she mentioned stuck with me:

• Always be ready to justify what you're doing. I've found that as budgets and time are both tighter and we are regularly expected to do more with less, justifying oneself is becoming a regular obstacle to overcome. If we always carry in the back of our minds the reasons behind what we are doing then it should make it that little bit easier to explain it to others.

• Relationship building is a key part of the role. Research librarians need to work closely with subject librarians to embed support in departments, with the schools in the university, with research institutes and with other stakeholders. In all my various roles, librarian and otherwise, building relationships not only makes getting things done a lot easier but it helps make life more enjoyable too.

Unintentionally, this event on supporting researchers raised the theme of collaboration and partnerships. This topic is very prevalent this year; it was the theme for the ARLG Members' Day and features as a theme at the CILIP Umbrella conference. It has been recognised that in a recession or global downturn people become increasingly anxious about personal identity and therefore more protective and less willing to share (you've only to look round an office when supplies are limited - people become very protective of their staplers!)  I'm hoping that as this theme keeps cropping up throughout the library, information, education and research sectors that perhaps we are bucking the trend, which is certainly an optimistic thought.