Background
I ‘inherited’ a module from my former colleague Petia Petrova which focuses on academic/professional identity and values as part of our PGCert programme. In this particular session we try to get colleagues to think about their position, values, aims and aspirations, and how these are challenged or accommodated within the current UK HE context. As a theoretical backdrop for all this, we use the work of Lynn McAlpine and Gerlese Åkerlind, Becoming an Academic (which Petia really tried hard to get me to read, and which was well worth it), as well as the work of Angela Brew and Gillie Bolton.
As part of this workshop we have a really good activity with images which participants use to come up with metaphors to describe what it’s like being an academic. Petia had really designed this session immaculately, and in the past I was able to run with the activities really easily.
However, on the day of the workshop I started thinking that I would like an activity that really brings home the (potential) tensions of where people thought they would (or wished they could) be, and where they actually are, as a basis of an honest reflection on their values and how these fare nowadays. This was not intended to make colleagues depressed, but rather
- to show how we are shaped by our contexts and have to adapt in order to progress in our careers
- to demonstrate how we also keep the flame alive for things we’ve had to compromise along the way.
Activity
The activity itself is extremely simple. I gave all participants two blank sheets of A4 paper. I asked them to draw a blank circle on each. On the first sheet I asked them to divide the circle into three sections, one for research, teaching and administrative work they are currently doing. I asked them to do this not according to the ‘official’ amount of time/work, but according to the real amount of time/work they have. I asked a few volunteers to comment on these: some had way more teaching than expected, a lot less time for research than anticipated, and admin really varied (some had very little, others a lot). Interestingly, some colleagues were unsure whether being a personal tutor was admin or teaching (it’s teaching). I allowed them to use their own interpretations.
On the second sheet, I asked them to divide the circle into three according to what they would like that allocation to be, if they had full freedom of choice and were their own boss. This was extremely interesting. A colleague just wrote a massive ‘R’ in the circle, others went for 80-20 research/teaching, some others were more balanced, or even privileged teaching over research. A colleague actually kept the same percentages, and declared themselves happy with their current balance (40/40/20-the last for admin). Some kept no admin duties, others acknowledged that a certain amount is necessary.
Reflection
What this activity really helped us to surface was the tension between real and ideal. It helped colleagues really articulate how the pressures of the context around them are hugely critical in shaping their practice, and often leave them with contrasting emotions. I think that in the future I might give them an additional piece of paper for them to write down clearly what this exercise meant for them, how they feel and what they’ll do as a result, so they have something tangible to go away with.
This will hopefully become a platform for discussion in their written assignments. I linked it with broader contexts, research/teaching-driven agendas etc., and finally I also linked it to future CPD as a series of targeted choices which help us reach our own targets alongside those imposed by a system. It was just a circle on a piece of paper, but it became so much more than that. So simple and yet so powerful.
References
Bolton, G. (2014). Reflective Practice (Sage)
Brew, A. (2006). Research and Teaching (Palgrave)
McAlpine, L. and Åkerlind, G. (2010). Becoming an Academic (Palgrave)
Educational Development at Birmingham 