Attendance: Pauline Anderson, Karla Benske, Vic Boyd, Joanne Brodie, Frank Brown, Julie Brown, Jim Canning, Beth Crossan, Patrick Donnachie, Marjory Jones, Jim Leahy, Katherine Madden, Gayle McKay, Jane McKay, Eddie McKean, Stephanie McKendry, Frank Montgomery, Elizabeth Mooney, Nuala Toman, Kevin Ward, Ruth Whittaker
Welcome
Karla welcomed everyone and initiated introductions in order to welcome the SEP and CAP teams from CRLL to the group
Implementation of GCU Transition and Progression Framework in relation to
- LTAS follow up event – Following the September LTAS event, which Karla attended, Julie and Ruth attended the follow up event held in the CA in December
- Moving Forward event – to be held on Wednesday 25th February 2009 in the CA. Joint event between Moving Forward and Real WoRLD initiatives. Invitations to be sent later today
- Nuala suggests that the Employability people from psychology be invited – to advise Sabine
- The focus of the MF part of the event is to launch the Mini CoPs or Working groups which will focus on LTAS goal 1
- Karla provided update on the Framework going through all university channels and how MF were advised to focus on Goal 1, while still looking at the other principles raised at the Service Design event
- Ruth provided an update on the policies
- Advised group that Moving Forward will be meeting with Learner Support regarding induction
- Discussion surrounding the ‘complexity’ of developing the independent learner an the appreciation for the need for flexibility
Evaluation of Moving Forward
- There will be limited time to undertake a MF evaluation, as the initiative should terminate in December 2009. Require to consider a longer approach to this
- Discussions – focus groups/interviews/ and various approaches to this
- An anonymous questionnaire may be distributed
- Case studies – some questions at the end of this?
Student’s association update on Student Summit (November 2008) and information on Class Rep Conference 2009
- MF to circulate copies of Student Summit report to CAP and SEP teams
- Class rep conference to take place (TBC) on Thursday 12th March 2009 in M201
- Patric raised the issue of concerns over Block Timetabling and students not understanding this policy. However, Ruth advised that at PRAC it was agreed that Andrew Eadie will establish a working group to look at this and to see how this policy would work at GCU. It is anticipated that the Student Association/Students will be involved with this working group.
- Major concerns raised within the group regarding block timetabling and the surrounding issues. E.g. Paisley University. However, LSS ran a previous module with Block timetabling and it was felt that students were more engaged
- Loss of Geography modules – a good example of developing the Self regulated independent learner
NMCH conference on pre-entry student support and student’s academic preparedness for HE
- Draft of call for papers circulated to group
- The forum will be held for internal and external members of staff and students
- Possibly to be held on the 2nd June 2009 in the Mbeki building (TBC)
- The call for papers is to be issued shortly
- There will be a peer review committee and Vic and Steph are looking for volunteers to join this committee
NMCH feedback from ADT group on the recent pod casts produced for Learner Services
- Chris Smith attended the Student summit and appears to be well thought of by the executive (A Eadie and C Macdonald)
- There is no student feedback from this yet
- Learner support are leading on the pod casting
- Difficult getting students to participate in the making of the pod casts
- NMCH established this as a pilot over the Christmas/study/exam period
- Send links on pod casting to Frank Brown/SEP and CAP projects
Future collaboration with SEP and CAP
- SEP/HN student web-based survey in 2nd semester. Due to be issued again possibly in the last two weeks of teaching
- Possible collaborations/meetings with SEP/SA especially in relation to attending Class Rep Conference as it would be useful to raise issues to be addressed
- Perhaps the survey requires more focus, i.e. what are the students interested in?
- Pauline advised that the HN student cohort data is now available and on the CRLL (??) website
- Possibility raised of distributing a sample questionnaire to the group (who else?) looking for feedback and support from SA on results which are now about to be released (not sure of this section at all???)
- CAP – in its 4th year of running. Research, Mentoring and disability strands. Visits to college. Pre-entry work
- Nuala advised that she uses Frank’s mentors at induction and this has proved to be successful
AOB
- Questions raised over what the term ‘independent learner’ means. The framework is in place and available. To be circulated by MF
- brief introduction to Greater Glasgow Articulation Project, SFC funded
- brief PRAC update, i.e. looking at exams prior to the Christmas period in Session 2009/10. SA been given the OK to say that this may be a possibility, although the policy proposal still has to go through all of the official channels.
Date if next meeting – Wednesday 4th March 2009
