Contemplating Writing

Preparation for the Workplace

We are almost two-thirds of the way through our MA program in Technical Communication and E-learning, with some outstanding assignments and our summer project remaining. I have been reflecting on what I have learned during my time at University of Limerick (UL) so far. 91% of UL’s recent postgraduate diploma students are either in employment or further study and the university has recently won the Sunday Times “University of the Year” award for the 2^nd time in five years. Alistair McCall, Editor of the Sunday Times Good University Guide, said: “Its graduates are among the most employable in Ireland, prepared for work by practical courses and a work placement and internship programme second to none.”

I would certainly agree with his comments on practicality. The course is 100% graded through assignments, I would never have enrolled on this program if it was 100% exam based. All assignments are designed to assess multiple skills and become more complex as the year progresses. Fortunately, some of the first assignments were focused on written skills and I received constructive formative feedback to help improve my proficiency. Real world course work is supported by theory which connects the creativity with critical thinking. Creating podcasts, websites, presentations and eportfolio’s have been challenging but rewarding ways to apply theory studied across this multidisciplinary program.

There is a strong focus on best practice in the workplace and further study throughout the year. We enjoyed visits from various companies and presentations from PhD students on their research. We were asked to interview a professional working in the sector which is the assignment I enjoyed the most. I had a fantastic conversation with an educational technologist working in higher education about her passions, challenges and the exciting future ahead in the field. Another aspect of the course I have been impressed with is the course director Yvonne’s sharing of research she has completed with past alumni on current trends in the workplace. This validates choices around technology, assignments and learning objectives. Darina’s feedback on how she engages with other departments at UL and external projects has also been beneficial during lectures on E-learning theory and practice.

There is an emphasis on the use of technology during the program especially in semester two. This would be an area of weaknesses for me as I usually stick with applications that I know. I have felt out of my comfort zone at times and I am struggling with Dreamweaver the past few weeks. These are good challenges, we all need to be pushed at times to learn something new or explore a new talent. It was interesting to see the focus on technology in our class Twitter feed over the past few months, as students embrace new tools.

The concentration on key transferrable skills is also apparent. Darina mentioned in one lecture that program directors at UL must link key competencies with the program outline for each course and show how they will be assessed. I think this is a fantastic step for higher-education to remain current and relevant to the workplace. Fellow students have questioned the relevance of certain applications we are studying at times. From my experience you cannot learn all applications or all scenarios that you may have to deal with. You need to learn how to be resourceful, creative and develop problem-solving skills and apply them to the task or tool you are using in the workplace. We have got fantastic support from the lecturers and there is a real focus on students succeeding in assignments rather than ‘being tested.’

I recently visited the careers office to update my c.v. and was asked why I enrolled on the course as I have quite a few years’ experience working in learning and development. I explained how I ‘fell into’ the profession and felt that I did a lot of the right things along the way but now I feel properly qualified. I have never built an E-learning course before and I will be doing this for my summer project. I have written lots of training material, user guides, wiki’s and processes and feel a lot more competent with these tasks now. I feel like I have a career now and will use social media to keep updated with trends and research in the industry.

This time last year I made a big decision to leave my job, take the year out and complete this program. My friends thought I was crazy and my work colleagues first responded that it was a very brave (crazy) decision to make and later all admitted that they would love to do the same thing. One of the main reasons I left my job was because I was no longer learning anything new and never had time to implement new ideas due to constant repetitive tasks. I saved hard for six months, bought a new laptop and desk and must admit I’m delighted!

I have spent seven of the last 20 years as a stay at home parent and the rest of the time working full-time with four children, both very demanding roles with little time for learning or reflection. This sabbatical from that lifestyle has been difficult at times but very refreshing. I feel reinvigorated towards my career, have broadened my perspective on my subject and learned so many new skills. Thanks to this excellent program I feel a lot more employable than I did last year and it has also rekindled my love of learning which I will continue to foster. Hopefully in ten years’ time when my children graduate from UL and are starting out on their careers, I will take another ‘gap year’ and work as a volunteer in Asia or Africa. That will be crazy!

Finally Submitted!

Thankfully, our virtual team project was finally submitted on Monday. This project was a roller-coaster and I found the student experience very different from the workplace. The deliverable was very simple, but the journey had many elements and overall, I feel this comprehensive project is worth including in our MA program. Project management, collaboration with colleagues, communication skills, use of technology, writing, editing, translating, critical thinking and graphic design were among the skills needed on the team for a successful outcome.

The 4 C’s of Education, certainly needed on this project

What new skills skills have I developed?

I have a better understanding of how to write for translation from working on this project. It’s an important skill for technical communicators and something I have never thought about before.

I wrote part of the instructions and I know I did a good job, there was only one edit, however, I did learn from our editors on this project. They did a great job creating a style guide once they realised how disparate some of the writing was and worked hard to make the document feel like it came from one writer. They were meticulous with wording and taught me how to keep everything consistent throughout the document and eliminate unnecessary words. This is something I have been working on since September!

I have also learned how to approach project management and clearer guidelines should have been set out from the start. I found this great article on creating a style guide, design information and documenting the process which would have been a really useful guide for us.

Leadership on our project

We had a leader for each university on our team and in hindsight we should have had an overall project manager. As the team leader for the UL side I got the project started and created a project plan. As we had no overall manager, checking in with everyone took a lot of time and the editors were left with a lot of the decision making. One of the Paris students never engaged so their leader was our only contact point for translation. In Florida one of the students was very engaged and the others less so.

Project Management tools & collaboration with translators

Overall the tools worked well. We used Big Blue Button for calls and Slack to collaborate. I also developed a Gantt chart at the start of the project which clearly showed the due dates, holidays and task list which was very useful.

The lead translator was on the initial conference calls, but she had no experience ‘writing for translation’ and had no advice to offer. She was involved in choosing the topic and took a step back during the writing process. Engagement was poor during the translation phase until the very end of the project where she needed a couple of clarifications on sentences using Slack. Slack was our main collaboration took and generally worked well. It did get a little confusing at times and would have worked better with an updated action list. Slack was useful for feedback between the writers and editors and we set up private channels for this task.

We also used Google Drive for storing each version of the document and adding comments for editing which worked well in conjunction with Slack. No-one else on the team had access to the graphics tool chosen by the designer, until late in the project when one of the Florida students got access through her workplace so she could make necessary changes.

Creativity

Freedom to choose a topic, assign roles, select tools and develop our own plan is one of the strengths of this project. It forces collaboration and decision making from the beginning and teams must take responsibility for choosing their own path. It’s also a great opportunity to use new tools for a real project.

The graphic design element of the project should have been more creative. This never happened on our team unfortunately, one of the students had experience in graphics and put himself forward for that role. There was little engagement with the rest of the team on design and most of the feedback was never implemented.

The most valuable lesson I learned

I have managed my own team in the past, but never multidisciplinary teams. This project has taught me the importance of teams having clear guidelines on everyone’s roles within the team and exactly what is expected of each person, how they will communicate and collaborate with the rest of the team. Additionally, having a key decision maker in the group would have been useful for final sign-off of the document at various stages.

What to do differently

Hindsight is fantastic and having two graphic designers on the team should have made a big difference to the success of the project.

A master document to track all actions, no matter how small they were, would have worked well. There were times towards the end of the project when members were making the final updates which had been agreed on Slack, yet some of the tasks weren’t complete or there was confusion over exactly what needed to be done.

A style sheet was developed after the first writing phase. This would have been more useful before we started writing.

Motivation during the project

I was really motivated for most of this project, as we had good engagement, created solid relationships and developed well-written instructions. I like being part of a team and sharing achievements is great when everyone is working hard to realise the goal. At times it was difficult to keep motivated as we were so badly let down by the graphics designer towards the end of the project. It was really demotivating for the editors to have all their work ignored on the first design draft and I felt their pain. The designer going for two weeks holidays without giving notice to the rest of the team and saying they were only putting 20% effort into this project because that was all it’s worth was certainly unhelpful. I am disappointed with our final submission, which is demotivating for many on our team due to the amount of time spent on the project and we know this will affect our grade.

Completing projects with remote workers will be part of everyone’s future and I’m glad we had this opportunity. I feel more competent about anticipating issues that may come up in the future in a similar project. Those who disengaged from this process certainly lost out on valuable learning.

References

Hollis Weber, J. (2011)Developing a Departmental Style Guide TechWhirl.com, available at https://techwhirl.com/developing-a-departmental-style-guide/ [last accessed 1 April 2019]

My experience as a Blended Student

This week in EL6052 our lecture was on e-moderating online and blended courses which may be a key task for many of us in the future. Facilitation and scaffolding are keywords used by Gilly Salmon in her five stage model of teaching and learning online for interaction with students. Her model details the different stages students will go through and what levels of support they will need. Some critics feel that her model is just designed for fully online learners and doesn’t focus on other types of learning. I feel that her five stages could theoretically be applied to blended and classroom training also.

A short video of Gilly Salmon explaining her model

In my previous role working in Learning and Development in the corporate world, most of our training was classroom based with approximately 10% online. In the classroom training we used Moodle on a daily basis so students could follow the training material, learn how to use knowledge bases and take assessments. Students had to learn how to use various other systems and software applications. All of this required technical support for access issues and motivating students to use the systems in the correct way. Some students needed a lot of help due to poor computer literacy. Socialisation was really important in the classroom. I have always felt that students learn better within a group where there is a respectful environment and we spent a lot of time ensuring that students got to know each other and were relaxed in the classroom. This ensured that they would ask questions or request help when needed.

The trainer approached the students as a facilitator ensuring that everyone participated, shared experiences and helped each other through the modules. Through the active learning phase the trainer would ensure that everyone was on-track and would facilitate problem solving sessions. This would move to students being responsible for their own learning at the end of the program when they were starting to perform on the job tasks.

Even though I have attended most lectures for my blended MA program, I use the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) to review lecture material, submit assignments, complete e-tivities and engage in forums. I love the mix of both. Having all the material available on the VLE is really useful and being able to easily contact lecturers for questions is fantastic. Lecturers were very supportive at the start and ensured we could access all systems at orientation. Online socialisation was achieved through introductions and an information exchange was facilitated through research proposal feedback and discussion. We are currently in the latter stages of the model but if we have to complete a new task we would likely be back at level 1 again. The model is fluid.

I feel I get a lot out of the lecture by being in the classroom and enjoy the interesting discussions on the subject matter. The personal contact with the other students is priceless. Last Tuesday we were really stressed so a trip to the market for a lunchtime therapy session and discussion of the assignments we were working on made everyone feel better. For me the blended model is a great mix, I’m not sure how I would cope with this course fully online.

References

Salmon, G. (2004) E-moderating the key to teaching and learning online, 2nd ed. London: Routledge Falmer.

Wrapping up the Virtual Team Project

This is the penultimate week of our virtual team project and it’s been testing for most of our group. Perfecting teamwork is a challenge. We have had various levels of engagement over the past few weeks. Some team members have worked really hard on the project, I think the editors probably contributed the most. Some teams members are great at keeping in touch on Slack, others don’t. We have had sporadic updates from one of the French team. The other student hasn’t engaged.

Our graphic designer changed all the text and left us with a document that we couldn’t edit and went on holidays. That was the low point until he commented that he was only giving 20% to the project as that’s all its worth. We’ve sunk even lower.

One of the US students, who has been great throughout the project got access to the editing software and had a list of issues to fix. Great news, until she sent back the document with graphics are all over the place, no numbering for each step and section 3 was still incorrect. It’s now 48 hours before the deadline and we have no cover page, no alignment on the graphics, no numbering and most of us are losing the will!

I understand why we are doing this project and ultimately it’s very beneficial. It’s also very frustrating. Cleary and Slattery’s (2009) article on virtual teamwork has “uncooperative and non-participating team members” recorded first on their list of challenges for students on this project. My experience defiantly concurs. Work experience has also been a challenge for us. Apart from one or two part-time students there is very little experience on our team with the different stages of this project. In hindsight we should have designated a project manager rather than a project lead from each site.

What has been good to see over the past few days is most people are pulling together and some of the student who rarely engaged much are now asking how they can help. Hopefully our document will be in better shape by Monday evening. After all the planning, writing, editing and time spent it would be a shame if it’s not at least 80% good enough.

References

Cleary, Y. and Slattery, D. (2009) ‘Virtual teams in higher education: challenges and rewards for teachers and students’, in 2009 The All Ireland Society for Higher Education, available: https://ulir.ul.ie/bitstream/handle/10344/7268/Slattery_2009_Virtual.pdf?sequence=1 [last accessed 23rd March 2019]

Should you Storyboard a website?

In EL6072 we are required to create a digital resource using Dreamweaver. The first part of this process was to write a proposal and storyboard. I have heard of storyboarding in the context of film and wasn’t really sure how relevant and useful it would be in our industry. We learned that a storyboard is a visual layout and sequence of a digital resource. In our assignment we were required to submit an overview and several pages of the resource, show how they would link together and write a proposal detailing our design. All our choices had to be backed up with reference to literature.

This is going to be so much work, will it be worth it? It turns out that storyboarding is really useful and makes you think about all aspects of your resource. It forces you to make decisions early on. As you are mapping out how the resource will look, you start to think about typeface, font size, colours, use of visuals and other aspects of your content. There is so much to choose from. The essence of the resource will come through in the writing and visual style, so you need to decide on a ‘look and feel’. How the navigation will work and which objects stay on each screen becomes really important and you have decisions to make on being interactive and site accessibility. I found the advice from literature conflicting at times. Sometimes you just need to make a decision and stick with it.

There are many advantages to creating a storyboard:

It reduces rework. Building your site and having to back track because you haven’t figured out all the details will be costly and frustrating.

It will communicate to others what the finished product will look like. This is especially useful if you are working with a team or a client.

It helps you think of the user experience. Usability is so important, users will leave your website if it’s difficult to navigate. I found the Neilson Norman Group website has lots of great articles on usability.

It improves the quality of your work. Everything is documented and available when you start to create your website.

Yes its time-consuming, but I can see the value of storyboarding for a website or e-learning resource.

Using Twitter as a Learning Tool

Most of the work has been completed on our virtual team project and we will be submitting our completed document next week. We designed a Twitter User Guide and our aim was to create a guide that would help a new user get setup and start using Twitter. While it’s not perfect, I think the end product is a useful document. We choose this topic as only one person on the team had used Twitter previously and he was a recovering twitterholic who had mixed feelings on the platform. The rest of us had just set ourselves up and weren’t quite sure what we were doing.

Now that I have been using it for almost two months I’ve started to think about Twitter as a learning tool for students. There has been some research on this topic and it is getting more popular in third-level colleges.

I like twitter a lot more than I thought as I’m not a fan of social media. I can see the value of using this tool in our course. It broadens horizons as different students have different backgrounds and will gravitate towards certain topics to post each week. Its brilliant to see such a broad range of interesting topics and I have lots of tweets ‘liked’ to read later when I have more time. I’d love if the application had a ‘keep’ or ‘favourites’ button rather than ‘like’ to bookmark these, it would be a little less judgmental.

The timeline also annoys me, is it ever in sequence? Apart from those two little criticisms I find Twitter is so easy to use which makes it a good choice for students, it shouldn’t stress them out too much. It’s defiantly a great networking tool, you can follows others in the industry and develop a professional identity. Is it a good learning tool?

E-Leariningindustry.com says that it is a good tool to engage people who like social media and the mobile version makes it really accessible. I love the fact that if you have 10 minutes to spare anytime of the day or night, you can browse, send a tweet and complete your weekly twitter assignment. I also think it would be really useful for communication on a course where there is no VLE.

Eva Kassens-Noor, an Assistant Professor at Michigan State University completed an exploratory study on using Twitter to enhance learning in higher education in 2012. Third-level colleges were encouraging staff to use Twitter to “enable interactivity, excite learners and foster greater student participation”. She examined if it aids in-class learning. She looked at how students apply, create and retain knowledge when using Twitter compared with more traditional methods.

She discovered that in some contexts Twitter will better aid students to learn compared to more traditional methods, however, in other contexts it would hinder them. She felt it worked well for engaging students in theory and practice focusing on real-world examples. In contrast if the instructor intends to foster critical, in-dept and self-reflective thinking among students, Twitter would be unsuitable.

I think that Twitter can be a powerful tool for educational purposes. We have created a really useful community of learning that I hope will continue past the assignment completion date.

References

Kassens-Noor, E. (2012) ‘Twitter as a teaching practice to enhance active and informal learning in higher education: The case of sustainable tweets’, Active Learning in Higher Education, 13(1), pp. 9–21. doi: 10.1177/1469787411429190.

Minister, L. (2014) Using twitter as a learning tool,
elearningindustry.com, available at: https://elearningindustry.com/using-twitter-learning-tool

Using Slack for your Virtual Team

Virtual team working is becoming more popular in technical communication, e-learning and many other disciplines. Whether it is the ability to work from home some days or a fully distributed team of co-workers or clients, we should think about management of people, process, leadership and tools. A good collaboration tool can help your team achieve higher levels of engagement and work ethic than an office based team.

In our virtual team project we are using Slack, which is a cloud based team collaboration tool. We use the free version of Slack, there are also two options where you can pay monthly or annually for premium level products. In the free version of Slack you can have unlimited members, however, it does have some limitations. You can only voice or video call one person, so you will need another tool for conferencing. The storage is limited to 5GB for uploads across the team and searching previous messages is restricted to the last 10,000. The free version was perfect for what we need and what I really like about it, is that it doesn’t keep reminding you that you are using a free version and doesn’t constantly send you special offer emails to upgrade.

So how does Slack work?

Slack is a messaging tool on steroids. Teams or organisations set up channels for different projects or tasks. You can have invitation only channels for certain projects that some members don’t need to see. We used this in the editing phase of the project, where feedback was shared between the editors and each writer privately and it worked really well. You also have a direct messaging channel with each person for private interactions.

Messages can include documents which is really useful or links to other tools. You will know you have a new message as the channel or direct message will be in bold. You can setup notifications if you wish, I chose not to. The use of emojis is encouraged and really useful if you want to give an idea the thumbs up or down. You have the option of starting a message thread to link conversations together which helps keeping track of discussions. You can also set reminders to follow-up on a message or pin important messages.

Why you should use Slack

Important Considerations

Teams will need to learn how to use it and decide what to use it for. Think about naming conventions for your channels to make it more intuitive. We had too many channels on our project and some weren’t used. There is an informative analytics space where you can see what channels are being used and when. This could be useful for project managers in larger projects or organisations. You may want to have a ‘water cooler’ channel for chit chat. We did this on our project and it was used sporadically. I feel it’s important for teams to work out how to engage on Slack, for example, deciding when to use private messages or encouraging everyone to set their status if they are away from the office or on vacation.

What else is good?

You can integrate up to ten applications on Slack. We are used Google Drive and Survey Monkey which proved really practical. There is also a whole section on keyboard shortcuts. Anyone born in the 70’s will love these! The help section works well, in fact every time you log in you get a tip from your friends at Slack. These are worth reading as you may get “you look good today” or “Happy Friday” messages which are so much nicer than a traditional loading screen.

What’s not so good?

There were a few niggly things. I keep hitting the return key on my keyboard, which posts my message. It’s annoying. Luckily you can edit your message and post again.

You can set follow-up reminders for messages, however, there is no task management element, you will need another application for that. Sometimes channels do get out of hand and are difficult to follow.
The free version is perfect for our college project but could be insufficient in the long run, especially if you are sharing lots of documents.

Overall, it’s a great tool, it looks cool, promotes social interaction and should cut down on the need for meetings to keep everyone in the loop. That’s defiantly a winner!

Is gender relevant in Technical Communication in 2019?

I was so proud this morning to receive a ‘happy women’s day’ message from my son who is current teaching English in Hanoi. Wow, he thought of me this morning not just as a mother, but as a women worth celebrating! I have to admit I felt great. I started to think about women in technical communication. I have developed my own perspective of the field over the past six months and I haven’t thought about gender being a concern for the female technical communicator. Have I been gender biased? We have three fantastic lecturers here at University of Limerick (UL), a class with a high proportion of female students and have studied the works of Karen Schriver, Carolyn Rude and Laura Gurak.

I looked for research on the topic and found that gender has been an issue in the field. I found that there was little recognition of women’s role in technical communication historically. Technical writing has traditionally existed in the fields of science, engineering and the military which are still male dominated. In 1973 in Louisiana, two university writing professors, Nell Ann Pickett and Ann Laster entered a conference of the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing much to the surprise of the male attendees. They were so astonished to see women in the room that one man asked if they were lost.

Towards the end of the 20th century articles in technical communication journals written and published by female editors were focused around three themes. Eliminating sexist language and providing equal opportunity in the workplace, valuing gender differences and recovering women’s historical contributions to the field. Surely in the 21st century there isn’t a problem?

A recent study by White et al. (2016) were surprised to find a decrease in the number of articles published about gender and the textbooks they analysed were gender neutral. However, they felt that this painted a false picture of the current workplace. Their own classes were very male dominated and gender didn’t feature in their curriculum. The researchers acknowledged that there is a large female presence in the field and decided to focus on teaching their students to adapt to a variety of situations, contexts and audiences and how to navigate diverse environments in their courses rather than focus specifically on gender.

I would agree with this outlook. I have recently worked in a very male dominated team, being the only female in a group of six managers with all male clients. Did I ‘man up’? Absolutely not! I was myself. Sometimes ambitious and competitive, sometimes empathetic and supportive, depending on the situation and the task at hand. Everyone needs to adapt when dealing with different scenarios.

Working with a diverse range of clients and multidisciplinary learning were the main themes of the Louisiana Tech University students presentation yesterday at the Technical Communications Research Day in UL. I was amazed by the display of their work through the Visual Illustrations of Science through Art (VISTA) program setup by Professor Bustamante to develop digital fine art skills to communicate complex scientific concepts. I was blown away by these students presentation on how they approached their designs creatively and through researching complex medical information. They had learned so much about the world by connecting with volunteer medical programs in working class Louisiana. I loved their feedback on collaborating with clients and finding a common language between art, colour and perspective and complex emerging biomedical research on stem cells and DNA.

We also heard from the current PhD students in Technical Communication at UL. Each one of them, along with the keynote speaks and alumni of UL demonstrated a deep understanding of the field and how it contributes to society. It made me realise what a huge contribution technical communication can make to the world of medical care, education and public administration. I’m not going to worry about gender. I will focus on making my contribution in my own way, by adapting to and collaborating with the audience, clients and colleagues to find a common language.

References

Hodges, G. (2015) Women as Technical Professional Communicators, Technical Communication Body of Knowledge, available: https://www.tcbok.org/wiki/about-tc/history/women-as-technical-professional-communicators/?action=history [last accessed 8 Mar 2019)

White, K. et al. (2016) Are We “There” Yet? The Treatment of Gender and Feminism in Technical, Business, and Workplace Writing Studies. Journal of Technical Writing & Communication, 46-1, p27-58

VISTA program at LA Tech, information available: https://latechvista.weebly.com/

Where is all the text gone?

“Graphic Design uses visual media such as pictures, decorative words or animations to convey a message” according to the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA). In our virtual team project, one member took on the role of graphic designer of the instructions we developed. I have previously written about the challenges of this project and for me, the biggest challenge remains the same. What is everyone’s role and how do we work together to achieve the best end product?

The role of the technical writer has changed since in the last 20 years due to the internet and globalisation. We are now technical communicators and information design is a key function of the job. The function of the text has been reduced. Think of the signs and symbols you see every day for no parking or exits, or the textless IKEA instructions for your new Billy bookcase. Videos and podcasts are becoming more and more popular for customer help and support. That’s all great for the future but this deliverable is mainly about the text.

Our team project is focused on creating a set of written instructions of at least 900 words to be translated into French. That was the brief. We have a team of writers who wrote different sections of the text. Our two editors worked really hard to fix the mistakes, reduce the word count and give the text a consistent feel. We agreed on a style and were excited to see the finished product complete with graphics. First impressions were great. Great colours, lots of white space, clear layout, text boxes and screenshots are all aligned. Wait a minute, where is all the text gone? 1000 carefully chosen words that had been rewritten and tweaked for a week were unrecognisable. Now we had pieces of incomplete text with incorrect grammar, no structure or flow. The graphic designer thought this was a ‘quick reference guide’. It’s not! Read the assignment brief!

It all comes back to communication and assumptions. We assume that everyone knows their role. The graphic designer should take the content and make it graphically more presentable, not fit parts of the text into a template. I never envisioned this could be a problem. Another great lesson this project has taught me is how to approach working with a graphic designer.

My top five guidelines for working with a graphic designer

Establish timeframes.

Set deadlines for the first draft and each subsequent stage.

Provide background information.

The more information you provide about the audience and use of the item to the designer will help them create a useable product.

Review the first draft.

It may not be perfect. Give the designer specific feedback on the components so they have a clearer vision for subsequent drafts.

Collaborate.

Ask questions, e.g. why did you choose that image or colour? Maybe you are missing something.

Be realistic.

Know when to say ‘we’re done’. It may not be perfect, but it may be good enough.

Retaining students in third level education in Ireland

Why do students in Ireland leave their third level courses? According to a 2015 study on ‘why students leave higher education in Ireland by UCD, Ireland has a relatively high retention rate of 78%, however, every year one in six or 7000 undergraduate students fail to progress to the second year of their course. Responses from over 4000 students were gathered to find out the reasons why students leave. I’m sure you can guess the number one reason. Yes, you’re right, over half of the students left because they felt they chose the wrong course for them. The other key factors were listed as personal, financial, health and family reasons.

I have always felt that career guidance in secondary school is very poor, there is very little one on one time. We need to devote more time to students at 16 and 17, at the start of the senior cycle to help them recognise their interests and skills. Students need to know more details of the course content they are planning to study. Employers need to be more willing to engage students with comprehensive transition year programs.

The National Forum completed a smaller scale study in 2016 and they found similar results. Worryingly when they asked students who they spoke to about their decision to leave, most students did not consult relevant institutional supports or those available in the students’ union. Students were unaware of such supports or did not feel they would be helpful. The study recommended that university staff be empathetic with students looking for help. It also advised institutions to communicate existing supports for students in a more direct way as students felt they wouldn’t get the support needed.

In EL6052 this week we discussed Learner Support in third level education. I have to say that I was been pleasantly surprised by the range of learner support available to students here at UL. There is plenty of academic tutoring available e.g. writing workshops, research skills, maths and science tutorials. We need to ensure that students are availing of these early to help them build up their skills. There is also a wide range of non-academic support available e.g. free counseling, careers advice and installment plans for paying fees. The first seven weeks program is fantastic and is UL shouting from the rooftops in bright orange t-shirts with the message that we know the transition to third level is hard, we are here to help.

Being a mature 40 plus second time around student, I know that I will ask for help if needed. I feel extremely lucky that I could approach any of my lecturers for advice if I needed to. Universities need to ensure that all students feel the same. Stuff happens in all our lives to challenge us. Students should feel that they are part of the college community and will be supported to deal with problems.

The National Forum report concludes that student services require enhanced funding to ensure adequacy of provision, availability of staff at appropriate places and times, and the visibility of the service from the student and staff perspective. I feel that not all students will stay on to complete their studies, however, engagement builds resilience in students and teaches them to solve problems for themselves, an important life lesson.

References

Moore-Cherry, N. M. (2015) Why students leave higher education in Ireland, available: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/294090617_Why_students_leave_Student_non-completion_in_higher_education_in_Ireland [last accessed 26 February 2019]

National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. (2016), “Reaching Out: Why Students Leave,” in teachingandlearning.ie, https://www.teachingandlearning.ie/publication/reaching-out-why-students-leave/ [last accessed 26 February 2019]