A short thread on academic workloads & the #UCUstrike.
It’s not just that academics are now expected to teach exponentially growing numbers of students, publish extensively, win large research grants, engage with policy makers, blog, go on TV and the radio, write op-eds...
It’s not just that academics are now expected to teach exponentially growing numbers of students, publish extensively, win large research grants, engage with policy makers, blog, go on TV and the radio, write op-eds...
...mentor colleagues, chair committees, peer review papers/books/research proposals, give talks, manage budgets, manage people & projects...and so on, often with little training.
It’s that the processes that underpin these have become increasingly complex for unclear reasons.
It’s that the processes that underpin these have become increasingly complex for unclear reasons.
Coming back to teaching after 6 years, I can feel like the proverbial frog thrown into the pan of boiling water. So many changes, so much additional work, and I can’t says it’s always for the better.
An example...
An example...
Resource Lists.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered we don’t give our students reading lists any more - carefully curated lists that take many hours of work to put together.
We give them ‘resource lists’, or electronic reading lists where all they do is click on a link.
Imagine my surprise when I discovered we don’t give our students reading lists any more - carefully curated lists that take many hours of work to put together.
We give them ‘resource lists’, or electronic reading lists where all they do is click on a link.
Academics still have to put in all the hours to pull together the list, but on top of this we now have to turn it into a fully clickable list to go with the hugely complex online handbook we now also have to construct.
This process is so complicated that the fantastic & hard-working folks at the library have put together a series of instructional videos to help academics do this.
There are almost 40 videos... 😔
To do something that we used to be able to do on Word.
But that’s not all...
There are almost 40 videos... 😔
To do something that we used to be able to do on Word.
But that’s not all...
This may be popular with students, because who doesn’t like to click & go, but it surely must be detrimental to their learning and for the development of relevant & highly transferable skills.
They don’t get to know the library well, online or in person, until it’s time to do assessed work like essays or dissertations. They might miss out the joy of discovering reading off their list, & we then miss out on the fresh insights they could bring to class.
Their ability to do research & to find evidence, especially through snowballing, becomes more restricted to assessed work.
They miss out on those 🤓 & wonderful moments when they become more knowledgeable about the field without anyone holding their hand.
They miss out on those 🤓 & wonderful moments when they become more knowledgeable about the field without anyone holding their hand.
And it is so much extra work...
I don’t mind putting in extra slog if there’s evidence that it will lead to improved learning outcomes and skills. Maybe that evidence is out there, of course, & I just haven’t seen that.
But for now it feels like just more boiling 🐸s.
I don’t mind putting in extra slog if there’s evidence that it will lead to improved learning outcomes and skills. Maybe that evidence is out there, of course, & I just haven’t seen that.
But for now it feels like just more boiling 🐸s.
@threadreaderapp unroll please
