I found it particularly useful to discuss in groups our approach to different types of teaching. As a librarian I do not teach in some of the environments that other people in my group do – for example I do not have experience of running crits. It was great to hear about this side of teaching and find it relevant to what I do with the students too. For example, in my group we talked about language barriers, time pressure and learning by doing when it was our turn to think about advantages and disadvantages of Presentation/Crit/Review teaching formats. All the issues we discussed I can easily relate to when seeing the students in small groups or one-to-one tutorials. It was especially interesting to talk about ways that we can make language more accessible. We reminded ourselves about the importance of using plain English and watching the pace of our (and the students!) speech.
My next session with the students will be a lecture and I was most interested in hearing what others have to say about their strategies for this teaching format. The biggest issue with the lectures seems to be the students’ engagement. We talked a lot about making this format of teaching more interesting, in both, in person and online environments. After taking part in online workshops on the PgCert and the discussion with my group I think of using at least one new method I came across (or heard about) during this first unit to keep the students interested in my session. I am especially drawn to using the Padlet in a more engaging way than I have so far.