Voice file name: Vida Douglas
Key:
s.l.
sounds like
Hell, my name is Vida Douglas and I’m the Discipline Leader for Social Work and Social Policy at
the Higher Education Academy. My work experience ranges from working within Children and
Families largely, but also generic social work teams and I taught with the Open University as a Tutor
and more recently within local universities as a lecturer and Principle Lecturer for the BA and MA in
Social Work.
What proved a particular challenge for me as a newish teacher was being introduced to a new teaching
team of which you had to build up your own credibility in the team, but also very quickly be involved
in teaching a module. The module that I was given was Research and having just come from practice
it was not an area that I was actively involved in and I, whilst having some basic knowledge about
research skill, didn’t feel that I had the in depth knowledge to input that or share that with the students
in a way that was credible.
So certainly that felt like a big challenge for me and also recognising that I didn’t need to know
everything, although when you are starting off there is that intense pressure to feel that you must
know it all in such depth but also have such a great overview of the subject area. From the point of
view of the students my concern and challenge was how do I seem credible to the students, how do I
give the impression to the students that I know my subject area? Grappling with that constantly in the
teaching environment can feel quite threatening, but it’s only when you get to the realisation that
actually it’s about a continuous learning experience that you begin to relax and recognise that the
students are also on that journey of learning too and that when you approach it from a partnership
point of view it doesn’t feel quite as intimidating as you initially think it’s going to be.
What’s exciting me about the teaching role, from a personal level, is getting the opportunity to have a
subject area which you develop knowledge around, an expertise around and you can do in depth
research and to have a sense of awareness about what’s happening currently and the application of
that in a social work setting has been quite exciting, and looking at how that can inform practice.
From the point of view of working with students that’s perhaps been the most enriching element of
being a teacher in that you work with students and you have a range of students that you work with,
with very different needs and that is actually refreshing but it also can be very challenging. But when
you come across students that have an openness to learning and they are having what I call the light
bulb moment as it were, and you can see that they have become much more critical and analytical in
their appreciation of the subject area, then that really is exciting because you begin to think well
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actually this is going to be a really good practitioner when they are out and they are going to make a
difference as a Social Care professional; and that’s the exciting bit, that you might have had a part to
play in that.
On reflection, thinking about a light bulb moment in terms of teaching would be in relation to the
interaction with students and this realisation that you don’t have to be totally in control of the learning
environment and that it should actually feel more about partnership. At the beginning I remember
feeling needing to have all my notes, my lesson plans very clearly outlined and then I felt more in
control, but in fact I think what that did in a way was it stopped me from really interacting in a more
relaxed way with the students; as a result I don’t think they were able to engage in the learning
experience and it needed to feel more like a partnership of which they were playing an active role in
the learning.
I think it helped getting feedback from students, because we are in a position where we are validating
a program and we had to look at a module and part of that was looking at the feedback from students
– some of it very positive about the content but in terms of the learning styles, teaching styles that
were employed by me at the time as the Module Leader, was that it didn’t always allow for freedom
of discussion and it needed me to sit back and listen and become a little bit more relaxed in that
process. Not that point that you don’t care about what you are doing but you actually don’t feel that
you have to be in control of it as much. I think that’s really important when you are new because you
want to give the impression that you are actually in control and you know what you are doing and that
can limit your flexibility and approach in teaching.
One piece of advice that I would give would be, be inclined to network; not just within the institution
that you are in, because I did that and that was very helpful to me in terms of identifying those
colleagues that knew the subject area, knew all the processes within the university but the real
difference for me was the networking outside of the institution and linking in with colleagues that
were teaching similar subjects and addressing similar issues, or indeed doing projects that were quite
relevant to you. It was that sharing of knowledge that gave me a wider perspective of teaching and
also encouraged me to look at partnership approaches to projects. Given the climate of working more
in partnership and joint funding bids it actually isn’t such a bad idea to be able to make people aware
that you exist out there if you are teaching in a particular subject area, but also for later on if there are
opportunities for funding, you’ve already done the hard work of establishing those relationships. It
took me a good year or so to kind of click that I needed to do more of that; I was more focussed on
inside the institution, not that that’s a bad thing but I think it can make your transition in education
more difficult if you don’t look outside the institution.
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