Space (centre): the no-Phil Frontier

Having been asked to help coordinate a "Creative Assessment to Help Eliminate Plagiarism" workshop as part of the joint JISC/HEA e-asy Assessment day at the National Space Centre, I arrived in Leicester late last night to be told by the organisers that Professor Phil Race, the advertised keynote speaker, was ill and unable to attend, so "could I step in"?

3 beers, a glass of wine and a pizza-full of persuasion later, meant sleep was postponed while I re-purposed a collection of resources and wrote a presentation to make up a (hopefully!) coherent 2-hour session around the day's theme of "engaging with innovative ways of assessing learners to make assessment e-asy".

Fortunately, when the moment of truth arrived, adrenaline overrode the effects of having had only 3 hours worth of sleep, so my delivery was something close to normal, but after an afternoon workshop, a plenary and three hours to get home, the effects of "boldly going where no one (well me anyway) has gone before" has left me feeling very tired....

One Man Went to Mow (Bray)

This week's hurricane tour (4th presentatio/workshop in 3 days) blew into Melton Mowbray to deliver a speech on " The Regional Impact of National Policy on FE/HE Partnerships" at PERA (Production Engineering Research Association as was) for the local LLN.
The day started with Oxygen's Earl Lynch getting everybody to hold hands (knowing what was coming - see past post on Pork Pies - I made sure that I was in between two attractive women) and jiggle about (experiencing partnership working in action apparently).
As DIUS's Sean Simon declined to attend at short notice (so I still don't whether HE in FE comes under him or Lammy), the day's opening address was given by Chester University's Charlie Woodcock who outlined how their multi-HEI/college partnership worked.

Workshops and a nice lunch were followed by delegates tieing one another together with string handcuffs (made sure I was on a table with no blokes), and getting out of of them by cooperation and unnessary (as it turned out when you knew the solution) close-quarter gymnastics!
Still fuelled by adrenalin, I then delivered my much-rehearsed 25 minute talk to probably the most animated 200+ audience I've ever had - conference facillitators take note!

Proper Planning Prevents Poor Pork Pie Performance

I was sent by the HEA to the Skills for Sustainable Communities Lifelong Learning Network (based at the University of Leicester) after a request for a conference speaker had been passed to me with no details whatsoever about audience type. After outlining the work of the academy & its subject centres, we then spent the afternoon discussing my high-profile speaking engagement at their annual conference next month in Melton Mowbray: "Maximise the potential of your people for improved business performance".

The aim of the event is to bring together their educational partners to celebrate success of partnership working, help provide ways they can work together in the future and overcome any barriers to help vocational learners progress.

After agreeing a biography they're putting on the website & in delegate packs, I now know that I'm supposed to be an expert on "The importance of FE and HE working together, new developments for FE/HE (good job I went to an Advanced Apprenticeships meeting yesterday!), can give many successful examples of FE and HE partnerships, and talk about regional policy/strategy as it affects HE in FE".

Fortunately the content of the speech won't be a problem, but it would have been nice to know what the brief was before the meeting so I could have put some proposals together. Still, this will serve as a good example of the 6Ps I can give out to give students prior to their vivas.