Not quite as planned

Well, the referencing session was a challenge - nothing to do with the activities and the students. One of the partitions had jammed so most students were crammed into 2/3 of the space, with the overflow in a separate room. Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse the microphone batteries died, and there was not a spare set to be found anywhere. [I observed a colleague on Wednesday - still no spares, and still no moveable partition. Is it a case of "out of sight, out of mind" with IS and CADQ now we're a few weeks into the pilot?]. There was never a more pressing need for the microphone, as we had to relay information to students behind the partition. Someone, not sure who (it may have been the CADQ man) appeared with batteries fairly quickly, but only the two needed for the microphone - no spares. This was another joint session with Sian, so we had a true double act as one of us had to keep popping next door to make sure those students were engaging with the tasks and weren't neglected. At one stage it sounded as though I had an echo as we were feeding back on the referencing task, but were slightly out of sync with each other. Despite the set-backs (I forgot about the drips from the ceiling and the latecomers) we covered everything we'd planned and the students engaged well with the tasks again. I was really pleased to see the majority of groups brought along a book to reference. Some brought a printed article, but most found one online in the session. I was supposed to gather feedback but felt a bit frazzled by the end of the session and ran out of time for this, but will ask for some next Monday as my manager is keen to see if the students felt the same concerns we had about the session. I suspect not, as I didn't hear any grumbles, and they all seemed to get on with the activities. We had success with one of the SCALE-UP objectives as, by the time I was able to get to one student who wanted help, her group had sussed out the answer themselves - result! I used Apple TV for the first time. It was very slow initially, but the promise/threat of showing the students' work kept them focused. It was so tempting to chicken out of trying out a new technology but I was determined not to. I'll feel more confident in using it again now. On reflection, I don't think Sian and I appeared to be as fraught as we felt. I certainly hope we kept our composure. A sense of humour definitely helps under such circumstances. I'm looking forward to my last session running like a dream!