Queensland adventures

Balance

Hello to all,

Well, it's been a funny old week. A little bit of a reprive from having students out on placement (well it was their final week of this block) in that I didn't need to see the facilitators for their final week but that didn't stop the work from coming. So much seamlessly takes its place even though I wasn't engaged by appointments per se. I did have the first residential ECARD on Thursday and Friday and where we travelled to Kingscliff for the two days. A lovely spot - I went for a swim on Friday morning and was partially interested in what was being said at the actual conference. And here I find myself at the end of another seven day stretch. But what have I really achieved? I'm not convinced I achieved anything this time around.

The teaching ... it's always a gamble teaching in other peoples' classes. Varying degrees of involvement in what they want taught, how they want it achieved, what the unspoken "rules" of the class are and ... oh yeah ... the students. The group dynamic, the level of engagement, the amount of chatter (keeping in mind that chatter in a discussion tutorial/laboratory is a good thing). Looking at my selection (and I use the term my very loosely) I've spread my teaching self too thin. I'm involved in 5 different streams of the course ranging from first year undergraduate to renal postgraduate students and it's really difficult to piece together where I am and what I'm doing. Complicating this is the many and varied number of classes that each group has. For example, I meet the first years every week for 11 weeks, the second years every 2 weeks for 6 weeks, the third years (the first group) twice in the semester (2 x blocks of 3 hr laboratories) and then twice again in the semester for 2 x 2 hour tutorials ... one in week 3 (just gone) then again in week 11. The post grads I've some lectures with them in a couple of weeks' time +/- some intensive laboratory work with some of them as they are international students. So each of these classes/streams has a different co-ordinator with very different ideas as to how they want their classes/laboratories/tutorials run. Some of whom I agree with, but the vast majority I don't really see the point of. "Aren't we supposed to be teaching tertiary level stuff?" I keep hearing myself ask when I've a few moments of alone time in my office. How do I reconcile these two things? This is on top of my own unit co-ordination role of CP5 which I can see myself doing very differently next time around.

I've decided that I'm not going to get hypertensive about the lack of structure in the ECARD programme setup. I can't because as was said as a passing slip/comment this week, "we're kind of making it up as we go along". As I said, we spent 2 days at Kingscliff where this graduate diploma of whatever it is called at the moment was supposed to be articulated. Instead, it felt like 2 days of being introduced to the fundamental concepts of reflection, some lunch/meals and a bit of a swim. Not that I'm complaining if QUT wants to pay for all of this merriment, but when receipt of the $15K worth of research funds is contingent on vague notions of assessment and "portfolio development", it's hard to know what we have to do for this money. I'm hoping that it will become clear ... eventually.  Maybe being the ginney pigs in this circumstance (man I keep on coming into programmes where we're the first group to go through the current incarnation of whatever it is that we're doing) might work in my favour, and where rules are not too rigidly enforced. I don't know. I just want to be able to plan my workload. Is that too much to ask???!?!?!

The lady whose role which I was toying about taking up (Jill), is getting all passive-aggressive on me in terms of being involved/not involved in my CP5 students. She's including me last minute in discussions that would have benefited from a little more thought, summarily dismissing me from conversations that I would have thought would be very important in my inclusion given that I've got to make decisions about students passing/failing at the completion of the second block of placement, and intervening in (read overriding) decisions/courses of action that I have taken with students by pulling rank. I can't wait till June 30 when she goes ... incidentally my birthday as well, so a good present in anticipation. When I have asked her directly about our working relationship and what could be done to strengthen it, she's commented that it's fine and patted me on the head like a puppy. Bah.

Finally, I'm involved in high fidelity simulation for students being run for the first time ever at QUT Nursing and Midwifery which is frightening the life out of me.  We had "training" on Wednesday as to how to operate the $120K dummies and I'm first cab off the rank in running a series of 8 x 1 hour tutorials with my mentor/gal whom I took the role from this week. I have to say I'm a little anxious and will be very pleased when this week is over.

Where's my reseach time I hear you ask? Bloody good question.

So enough with my ramblings now. How's everyone else doing?

All my love,

Naomi

Surveillance

It's been a week for watching people - in a variety of settings.

In terms of students it's been about making sure that they're doing what they're supposed to, starting to put their practice together, not misbehaving, wearing the right uniform, turning up on time and maximising their learning.

In terms of the facilitators managing the students, it's been about making sure that they're doing what they're supposed to do, starting to identify students with learning difficulties, ensuring that they're not misbehaving, wearing the right uniform, turning up on time and issuing learning contracts to students who aren't doing what they're supposed to be doing. It's been a hard slog in this department this week.

In a cyclical way, I'm part of that process too. I've been watched by the powers that be who are making sure that I'm doing what I'm supposed to do, who are watching critically at how I'm doing the job that I've been handed, who are encouraging me to identify areas where I could improve both myself and the programme, have ensured that I'm not misbehaving, wearing the right uniform, turning up on time and getting as much as I can out of the many and varied opportunities that life in academia has to offer (and believe me there are plenty of opportunities for those who want to embrace them).

And I've spent the weekend in "Brisneyland" watching the flotsam and jetsum of the place go about their spare time. I've had dinner in Southbank, been to the local Kelvin Grove markets (where there was a mobile butcher who was selling fresh duck!!!), shopped where some very "special" people shop (think Mt Druitt meets Liverpool) and seen a movie (well that's tonight). I'm feeling a bit rested, a bit philosophical, and a bit like I'm doing OK. At least I hope that that's how it looks :-)

All my love,

Naomi

Freaking iPhones

Well for those who don't know I hate these bastards. And of course QUT in their infinite wisdom have given me one as the CP5 phone and I've had it for three weeks now. But I've reached boiling point with it today. So the facilitators keep contacting me on the bloody thing. And I keep missing the phone calls. And it takes me a good while to write an SMS becasue my fingers are too big. And the previous CP5 Co-ordinators' voicemail message was on messagebank and I couldn't get it off until I called Lisa in Sydney this afternoon to help me (she laughed uproariously when hearing about this and knowing of my hate of all things "i"). And the facilitators keep leaving tentative messages like "Um ... this is a message for Naomi Malouf and I hope it gets through" when I'm at the end of the line in my shoutiest voice screaming "IT'S ME!!!!"  And I keep on accidentally calling random people who say things like "who is this?" in a slightly pissed off tone. And the battery life is crappy.

OK. I think I'm done now. Over and iPhone out (the window if it's not careful).

Naomi

Ah the legitimacy

This week has been a very long one. Lots of students on prac in the hospitals and it has been very interesting to see how I deal with some of their problems as they move through the various  clinical specialties of the hospitals that they are at. As a previous facilitator of student experiences, I think I have been groomed/groomed myself well in preparation for understanding where the "line in the sand" needs be drawn for students, their complaints and what is clinically acceptable. What I hadn't been prepared for was putting these various student concerns from multiple sites/facilitators into perspective and weighing up the merits of each of them in relation to the wider goal of allowing them to graduate (eventually in some circumstances) with registration to practice as RNs. How high do you lift the bar? What will you accept as professional behaviour? What are the implications of these breaches?

I am finding that the processes that are in place to evaluate students on prac are fairly vague. It's hard to know what it means for students who are (supposedly) adult learners but who behave like children. Who have temper tantrums, turn on the tears, manipulate the system to get what they want pretty much just because they can. New (well new for QUT) rulings about compulsory attendance are being introduced/implemented up here, but the ramifications as to what happens if they don't come to prac are really fluid. And students pick up on that really fast knowing that I don't have an arsenal of weapons to be able to combat their gall with. I will make an appointment with the DAP (Director of Academic Programmes - fancy title huh?) this week to discuss how this can best be managed. I am of course the one that this impacts the most at the moment, because my students have been out on prac for two weeks now, when this is only coming up to week 2 of the semester.

Having said all of that, I now have QUT business cards which makes me feel very legitimate as a lecturer. The uni is happy to spend (a little bit of) money on me now as their representative so I'm a bit chuffed and have been giving cards out to various people because I can. I know ... stop wasting the universitity's money. I'll get over myself soon!

 

What I do have to learn how to do is to factor in some research time into my week. There is this horrible tendency to get sucked into the vortex of student concerns, to spend a great deal of time focused on "student management" and not to have the time or energy left at the end of the day to do my own work. I think I'll take to doing my research in the morning - the time when I'm the sharpest and best able to be clear about what I want to say. Otherwise, I can see the year slip away without turning out any good publications. Balance is the key.

All my love to everyone :-)

Naomi