Often during the course of a project, many issues can
arise which require ‘thinking on your feet’ or to give it its proper name ‘reflection in action’ (Schon, 1983).
This project is no different, we have had to consider the situation and then
make a decision based on what feels right at the time. Even if we have had a couple
of days to think about the issue and decide on the best way forward, it is
still decision making ‘in action’; there is no going back and starting again!
As we rapidly head towards the mid point of the
project we have already made a number of these types of decisions – the best
way to communicate, which software to use, how to form a ‘performing team’ from
two groups of students…
An example of a decision that we have made during the
project that might have been different with the benefit of hindsight, was the cohort
of students the core group is made up from. The initial plan was to look for a
group of 25 volunteer students from the second year level 3 students on the Futures
Programme, run the initial training with the whole cohort and the advanced
training with a volunteer core group. However this didn’t go according to plan.
Having delivered a 15 minute session about the project to the initial cohort and
asked for volunteers, we only received a handful of responses. We decided to
open the project up to the first year students on the Futures Programme and the
A level students too, to help us reach our 25 student target.
This decision did help us to recruit further students,
some of whom are highly motivated, but
it also created a whole extra level of complexity to the project.
From this, timetabling constraints developed as the
first years and second years have different days off college; one being a study
day and the other a work day. The A level students have totally different
timetables so it hasn’t been possible to have all the students meet face to
face on the same day.
We now have two groups; one that meets on a Monday and
the other on a Tuesday. So the question arises, “How do you get the two groups to perform as a team when they
don’t meet face to face?” We are
working on this at the moment, and using a Moodle course that they can use to
contact each other and see what work has been completed. We have tried to
facilitate virtual meetings, testing out different potential webinar platforms
but this has been difficult to arrange and achieve due to the differing
deadlines on each of the courses that the students are on. We will continue to
try and pre-empt potential issues but I am sure there will be more ‘thinking on
our feet’ to come before the end of this project!
References:
SCHÖN
D A (1983) The Reflective Practitioner: how professionals think in action London:
Temple Smith
Post by Emma Procter-Legg
Students4WebES Project Manager
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