What's working like for you?
Thursday, 21 May 2020
The coronavirus lockdown has changed the way we work individually, with our own teams and with other teams at the University. Whether we are working from home or are working on the campus, each of us is adapting in our own way to these changed circumstances. Every Tuesday and Thursday, we will share the experience of some of our colleagues.
Lauren McCann is a Senior Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) Advisor with the Centre for Quality Support and Development. The team provides support in all aspects of teaching, learning, assessment and feedback.
We asked Lauren how the lockdown had affected her work:
“I think it’s fair to say that the last few weeks have been a bit of a whirlwind for the TEL team. Whilst adjusting to new working arrangements, we’ve been offering the best support we can to staff across the university with their rapid transition to online teaching and remote administrative support.
“In response to the fast-changing situation, we created a Teaching & Learning Online webinar which has been delivered 11 times with 222 attendees. We also adapted our Getting Started with Webinars (using Bb Collaborate) session to present entirely online, delivering 12 sessions reaching 282 staff. We’ve also been supporting colleagues and students with setting up, administering and completing Take Home Exams. We’re now busy delivering webinars to support colleagues with online exam marking and how to use Blackboard tests for exams. A webinar to help staff create screencasts is currently in development too. This has all been underpinned by a wealth of online guidance on our staff and student support sites.
“Ordinarily, we’re quite a tightknit and structured team and to help retain this cohesion our fortnightly team briefing has been increased to twice weekly briefings. These have rolling agendas to enable to us to feel informed and up to date in a fast-changing situation. Things are going well for us as we work and collaborate remotely - we seem to have made the transition quite successfully. Touching base on Teams chat when we arrive at our desks in the morning and signing off as we leave in the afternoon, has helped each of us feel connected whilst maintaining boundaries. As we’ve become better versed in the full functionality of MS Teams, we’ve used this to communicate and collaborate within the team much more than email.
“I’ve found that it’s possible to work for hours in front of the screen, especially if I have a lot of back to back meetings or staff development webinars. Using the timer built into Windows 10 has been helpful in reminding me to step away for a few minutes at regular intervals. Despite being physically distanced, some of us have reflected that this shared experience is, in some ways, bringing us closer together as a team. Working in different offices on campus, we don’t always see each other every day but working online I’ve made a conscious effort to touch base with everyone even just briefly every day. In sum, it’s fair to say whilst it’s not quite the same as being on campus with colleagues, we’ve adapted well and we’re working well together at a distance.”
To enable as many people as possible to share their experience the Internal Communications team has developed a storyboard, so if you’d like to take part, contact the Internal Communications team and a member of the team will guide you through the process. These will form a series of articles on what new ways of working have been like for colleagues as well as offering practical advice, hints and tips on how to manage this.