Hassel and Rideout (2018) claim that a mismatch between expectations and reality constitutes a real risk for student dropout, suggesting such a mismatch means students are unprepared for what they really do experience at university. They refer to specific areas of mismatch as being: over-estimating contact time with staff, unrealistic beliefs re. staff availability, class […]

I think it would be fair to say that our learner analytics platform has had too many fundamental issues over the 2019-20 academic year to claim that it could have been a useful tool. I appreciate that much of the issue was with the data feeding in to LEARN being inaccurate or not feeding through. […]

In one of my earlier posts, I referred to the concept of ‘wobble week’ (Morgan, 2019); a point in time (between week 3-6) where first year students might be more likely to wobble in their commitment to staying at university. If any readers post-date the 1970’s and are unfamiliar with the image above; the catchphrase […]

During Welcome and Induction week (WIW), our programme (like most others) aims to support the incoming students to get to know the programme, university, us and each other; to feel like they are settling in, and recognise that most of their concerns and questions are shared by their peers. Day two, WIW: One of the […]

This post illustrates the original timeline plan submitted as part of the ILT bid and compares it to work completed, including revisions and additions as well as showing where some tasks were not possible. The obvious major impact was that of COVID-19 and lockdown. It is also relevant to note that the programme team on […]

  Reflecting back on my previous post, exploring the Diamond 9 ranking activity in which my first year students participated, led to a Wonderland of philosophical and Political rabbit holes.  This post, in starting to question why and which engagements matter, attempts to make some of those rabbit holes a little more familiar and consider how […]