Our module has come and gone, assessment work has been graded and it’s time for reflection. By that I mean my own reflection rather than yours, many of which have inspired this blog post (or ‘blessay’ given its length at just over 1,000 words) and your insightful direct quotes are scattered liberally throughout. Here goes…
Before the semester started I was concerned about the size of the group. At 42 it would be the biggest cohort to date and my experience of similar (and larger) group sizes was from my lecture delivery in project management to Business Studies undergraduates at Cork Institute of Technology from 2005 to 2009. When that group doubled in size in my fifth year of lecturing I decided to call it a day, preferring the intimacy of the smaller MSc groups at the Centre for Project Management.
You may recall that I was concerned about remembering all your names, pronouncing them correctly (thanks must go to my namesake class rep for helping me walk through the name signs during our first lunch break and correcting my poor attempts!) Having worked with many colleagues from India over the years I honestly thought that Praveen was pronounced as Pra-veen rather than the phonetically correct Pra-win (oops!). Nor will I pretend that even at the end of six full days together I still didn’t mix up your names but my intention was good, and this year teachers did not have the advantage of the profile sheet with photographs (thanks to GDPR no doubt, but nevertheless a shame).
Your reflections have given me a confidence boost that our module together was a good one. Although the size of our classroom was problematic at times, we got around it, moving group work to different locations and leaving the door open on occasion. I was surprised that having the door open prompted a question from a concerned student amongst you as to whether I was claustrophobic, thankfully I’m not.
Following an excellent attendance rate at the beginning, this soon dropped off, I was gutted. It was such a shame since much of the module’s value was in sharing our in-class experiences so for those who were not there I can safely say that you lost out. For those who attended week-in week-out, I feel I got to know you a little better and thank you for your continued engagement. I will certainly consider taking up one of your suggestions:
“to borrow good practices from Commercial Management of Projects, which incorporated gradable workshops as part of the lectures.”
Aligned with positive feedback from you on the use of quizzes I find myself compelled to share a few of your comments:
“The technique of giving out a quiz and then learning about the subject is very much appreciated, I was able to clearly identify my learnings.“
“I also particularly enjoyed the online quizzes/activities made available to us prior to each lecture. While I did not always complete these activities, I realised that when I did, I took away more from the lecture and was better able to draw links between the content covered in the lecture and that of the supplementary readings.“
“Sandra won our attention by conducting these competitive quizzes and case studies, in the event of competition we not only put our best foot forward, but also learnt from fellow team members. I can evidently say that none of the other courses in any of the semester made us take quizzes and learn important aspects of the course in an engaging way such as IPM.“
This leads me to consider that the development of the quizzes as a gradable component might be an incentive to attend class regularly! Moreover, this quote has prompted me to continue developing my teaching practice:
“By being highly interactive, the module has increased my interest to learn about international project management and allowed me to remember the module content quicker. I believe the approach is memorable, reducing the chances of me forgetting the key learnings of each session.“
Once again this year I really enjoyed the cultural interaction within the class and it certainly felt to me that given the diversity of nationalities there was a nice blend in group work which was mostly self-assigned apart from the first day activity when groups were organised by birthday month (that was actually an icebreaker activity!). In fact, some of your reflections picked up on the importance of self-assigned groups since your future careers will most likely see you working in projects of culturally diverse teams, so what better place to start than in our module? To quote two of you:
“Applying the various tools to these real-life examples helped me to better understand the significance of each dimension, and also to better understand some of the differences in behaviour that I have experienced in my groups in the past.“
“The knowledge and experiences shared by my colleagues gave me great understanding on a wide range of cultures worldwide… a great learning curve on my journey.”
I wholeheartedly agree!
Some key themes that resonated with you in addition to culture and sustainability were communications, trust and conflict. It seemed to me that there were some underlying challenges that may have caused you to reflect more deeply on these and of course I am happy to take up the challenge for the next cohort that one of you presented:
“Although it was a great learning, I felt that there was a class activity required on how to deal with explicit and implicit context communication and key example on how to deal with negotiations arising from direct and indirect communication styles.“
I truly hope that the module has helped equip you with, in addition to the knowledge gleaned, some of the softer skills required for your future careers and I wish you every success. I have certainly learned a lot from you all and this will contribute to my continuing professional development. The quote I leave you with was, I suspect, likely presented at Vinette’s class and one of you quoted in your reflection:
“People follow leaders, but people work for managers.“
Well said!
I will continue to share articles of interest on Twitter using the hashtag #MN6052 and if you wish, feel free to follow my personal learning journey through my blog at http://eternalstudent587.wordpress.com
Wishing you all the best for the future,
Sandra
P.S. All quotes used are with express permission of the authors.
Featured image courtesy of Pixabay
Sandra Flynn 