After 16 years, I am leaving The Chalfonts Community College (on Thursday!) to join The St Leonards Academy as Vice Principal.
Jennifer and I are relocating to Hastings to live and work by the sea. I took the photo above on the day I interviewed for the position. The role itself was certainly enticing but this view sealed the deal.
I am very excited about this opportunity. It is the ‘next step’ I have been working towards for some time now.
🚀🏖️🌞
I have just enrolled in the MOOC: First Steps into Learning & Teaching in Higher Education (#fslt13). This post serves as my introduction and outlines the reasons why I have signed up.
I am currently completing a dissertation for a Masters in Education, seeking to answer the following:
To what extent can virtual courses support the development of independent learning beyond ‘real time’ curriculum delivery?
To explore this I have recently completed the data collection process, which involved running a MOOC titled: Critical Skills 101. The course sought to develop in(ter)dependent learning skills in 14-18 year-olds. I am currently analysing and evaluating the collected data and will be submitting my dissertation in August.
Taking the M.Ed has not only continued to fuel my interests in Independent Learning and Online Learning but has also made me question what it is I want to do next with my career. I had often felt that it would follow a path that would take me into senior management within Secondary Education. However, I am not at all convinced that I wish to pursue such a career.
As such participating in #fslt13 is going to serve several purposes:
I wish to explore another MOOC. As well as running the aforementioned MOOC: #crit101, I participated in #moocmooc (A MOOC about MOOCs) during August 2012. While that MOOC explored open online courses themselves, I wish to participate in a course that is teaching a less-meta topic.
Moreover, having just completed the delivery of #crit101, I hope #fslt13 will provide some useful reference points in terms of pedagogy, participation and assessment, as I continue to analyse and evaluate my course. In addition to this, I want to see how open badges are put into use in #fslt13 having implemented them in #crit101.
Finally, I am beginning to feel that studying towards a PHD and/or teaching within HE may be a career path that I wish to pursue. I hope that participating in this course will give me some further insight into that as well.
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Posts relating to my participation in #fslt13 will appear here. Being in the middle of my dissertation poses a significant challenge to my time but I hope to be able to keep up with the course reading and get involved in some useful discussions around learning and teaching.