Formative Submission
Intervention 2024-05-26
As someone who has worked in industry, I did not think about having a career in education, but now it is something I really enjoy, passing on my knowledge to students. As my position as a technician, I’ve come across a diverse learning experience.
I started seven years ago as garment technician and at this time, I did not fully understand the role. Which has an impact on the student learning outcome. Through the Pg-cert it has highlighted to me the responsibility, awareness and the goals students face in their learning. In my intervention I would like to go back in time to the roots, for a technician’s role at UAL. I feel without a good scaffolding system it is unfair that technicians may not understand their responsibilities creating a hierarchy system between academics and technicians, to remove this level at the university, and creating a better pedagogic practice. Putting it simply, there has been a gap between academics and technicians. One which I bridged through my own diligence and team building.
Technicians at UAL play a strong role in supporting students’ experience and educational achievement through workshops, demonstrations, videos, and personal experiences. I feel that technicians may not always have the right tools or knowledge in students learning outcome, separating them from academics. During the period of COVID we all had to work from home. Technicians played a big part in the university’s education system as they had to get creative, I developed new methods and demonstrations of teaching, having to use technology that I wasn’t too familiar with and which the students may not be familiar with themselves, so we all became students again. This is why I would like to take my intervention to my peers, as I feel that they will benefit through this more. Then if I was to focus on the students I support. I am proposing to do a survey, in the format of a form. To help my peers to be acknowledged and accumulate data in which we could use to improve our workshops and benefit students in the learning outcomes (as well as my own learning). I do understand that all technicians may not one to participate in this research allowing for personal choice. So, the survey results might be a small representation of the technician’s knowledge who work at Stafford site.