Blog following TEL Training sessions:

The saying that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks isn’t quite true in my case.

I am a 50-something senior lecturer PT and an Advanced Nurse Practitioner PT. I have spent the whole of my nursing career gaining knowledge to develop my clinical skill and then passing them on through clinical teaching. I ventured into HE back in the early noughties … only to find I missed clinical practice. This was at the start of online resources for teaching and learning – I thought, “bugger that, I want to be hands on…” Fifteen years later, somewhat at a loss having done clinical practice full-time, I found I missed my students and formal teaching – and landed a PT role here at UoP (#Nursing).

The last year has been a massive learning curve for me. Gone are the big lecture theatres; instead we have small lecture rooms, with satellites and facilitators, and more online activities and learning. I thought, “Oh no, I’m too old to learn how to do that – keep a group of students in another room engaged with my lectures whilst not actually in the room!”

Then I found the TEL training sessions and Tom. He’s not quite a knight in shining armour, but he’s definitely taught this old dog new tricks.

I am about to embark on a PhD (well an EDD, but you know what I mean) in using online activities in undergraduate nurse education (“OMG” you cry; me too!). But I am so enamoured by all the resources I am keen to learn and use this in my teaching – my head is spinning!

I couldn’t do all the TEL sessions in order as I’m PT, but that doesn’t seem to matter. Tom has been patient and listened to me, and I’ve been developing lots of activities through Moodle to enhance my teaching.

I have been promising a blog for a few months – so here is the first, and hopefully not the last. And whilst I’m an academic, I’m not your traditional academic – and over time, if I continue with blogs, you’ll find out why. So keep reading!

Image credits: Photo by McDobbie Hu on Unsplash