20 January 2021
This is a post about the group session on Wednesday 20th January 2021.
I’m aware that we are discouraged from posting retrospectively and this is particularly late but January was a challenging month and by the end of the session I had already clocked up significant screen time for the week so I closed my laptop after the class was over.
However, what I did manage to do the following morning, despite the fact that it’s hard to listen to my own voice, was to record my thoughts and it is to those that I am referring now.
Firstly I really enjoyed the session, not that I didn’t think I would, but our tutor was welcoming and shared some personal experiences which created a safe and open environment, which in turn enabled members of the cohort to open up to the group in terms of their personal challenges.
We discussed the reading material (Vilhauer, Understanding Art: The Play of Work) which I personally found engaging and no where near as dry as I thought it might be! There was an honesty from the cohort about their understanding and the likes and dislikes of the text.
I ran over time with my presentation (as usual) and I’m hoping the course will help me develop my time management skills in terms of delivery of a teaching session. Trying to find the right balance between too much and too little material is always a challenge. That slightly panicky realisation, in the middle of a session, that one is going too fast or two thirds of the way through that one still has a lot to deliver.
It felt good to be able to contribute and take away suggestions from the session. We recognised that we are all facing similar concerns around online teaching especially around language, intonation and silences and the use of the latter in trying to create a comfortable space for the students to speak. Also we were encouraged to be explicit in our expectations as as teachers.
Fast forward to today, I am now trying to catch up with my reading. Personally I like to print reading material as it is more portable and I like to mark the paper, so my recent investment in a laser printer is about to pay off.