A collegiate approach and the necessity for open lines of communication - Fiona Thomson

It is a long standing joke that communication lecturers must be good communicators. Stands to reason, right? In this post, Fiona provides information on the part of the communication process she plays in the academic journey for herself, her students and the tutors and Academic Leaders.

At the start of every semester, Fiona makes it clear to the parent sections and the associated Academic Leaders, that is is crucial that she attends their course board meetings, which she does regularly. At these meetings, she listens to the concerns of the students about issues which may range from workloads, timings of assessment, not having access and knowledge of ICT to produce work and such like. 

This allows Fiona to see if she can help with student/staff concerns and at times provide solutions, some by requesting to have the Communication class timetabled in a computing room for example which is a request most of the teaching team have prior to delivery. 

Attending these important meetings gives Fiona the opportunity to hear what the students think about their communication unit and what benefit or not they got from completing this. On that note, it may be that the Communication unit it not the most appropriate unit for that class grouping and again, it gives Fiona the opportunity to provide information on other units that can be delivered as servicing requests in future. 

 

This is something that should be in the forefront of everyone's mind as we start to see the 'Next Gen' Qualifications being pushed out.  The traditional Core Skills and English Units are being embedded more and more, but there is much more report writing and research to be done in these new qualifications. It is advised, and the good counsel of the experienced members of the teaching team, that parent sections will need our help to ensure their students are capable of doing this as they progress to the next level up, apply to university or go out into employment. 

As always, open lines of communication is at the forefront of this success.