there are times when it makes us jealous - like when we're holed up in the office, and get an update saying that one of the participants is reading in sheffield's botanical gardens - no fair! but nice to see that even in the english spring/winter mid-season, we can still take advantage of the outdoors. (incidentally, sheffield is often talked about as england's greenest city, so on a nice day there are plenty of green spaces to relax in, even within reach of the city centre. this is part of the botanical gardens during summer last year:
oh, hang on, this isn't supposed to be a plug on behalf on the sheffield tourist board...back to the task at hand).there are some interesting notes hinting at the importance of being in a particular type of environment - eg, "in collegiate learning centre, getting helped on some work by a friend. better to meet here than at home - more likely to get work done!" - which is a nice indication of the continuing importance of providing appropriate on-campus environments even when students can access the things they need at a distance. although someone much more after my own heart has told us that she can concentrate better in the pub. she claims it's the lack of computers that does it, but i have other theories... :)
as mentioned above, we're getting some insights into other areas of the participants' lives and study, which are proving endlessly distracting and fascinating - for example one of them has posted a link to her tutor's blog - which looks like a fascinating exploration of literacies, media, and life. one to track for later, i think!
we're gearing up for exam season at the moment, so lots of talk about revision - the notion of 'casually revising' is a new one on me...and even better is a new catch-phrase: 'muddled study' - referring to trying to slot studying around family life, car maintenance, and cooking - i really like that one alot!
finally (for now, at least) something that's surprising me - students finding spare classrooms near their teaching sessions for revision, study, assignment writing. not sure why i find it surprising - though we're always told that there's a lot of pressure on teaching space, perhaps more to do with people block booking spaces then not using them? - but it's these sort of unanticipated uses of space that really interest me. more later...i really must get on with some of the less exciting, day-to-day bits of my work for a while...
No comments:
Post a Comment