Glasgow College, UESTC

Learn and Empower!

The 12th Professional Development Week at Glasgow College, Autumn 2023

Featuring sessions in expert sharing, peer exchange, and inter-school cooperation, the Professional Development Week (PDW, week 12) at Glasgow College has played a pivotal role in enhancing the teaching and research capabilities of the team, consistently empowering high-quality language education. This week marks the first all-offline interaction in four years, with an expert guest speaker from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology engaging in in-depth discussions on "teaching practitioners," significantly sparking the teachers' interest in teaching and research.

Teacher Identity and Authority
Jennifer MacDougall, English Language Quality Lead at Glasgow College, commenced the training week with a session on "Teacher Identity." Comprising a series of interactive tasks, the session enabled teachers to explore their different social identities through experience sharing, discussion, and role-playing to understand the impact of various teaching styles, such as "relaxed" and "passionate." The training also explored the concept of "authority," with group analyses on how teachers can enhance their "authoritativeness" and "discourse power" in the classroom through demeanour, tone, and body language.

Critical Thinking in New Engineering Education
Professor Xu Shizhong, the Deputy Dean of Glasgow College, delivered a lecture on critical thinking. He highlighted the importance of integrating English teaching with new engineering education, advocating for collaboration with professional course teachers, leveraging empathy, and enhancing students' systemic and critical thinking to propel curriculum development. He encouraged teachers to explore new teaching and research domains, guiding students to upgrade their thinking from "manufacturing" to "smart manufacturing."

Effectiveness of Feedback Comments to Students
Jennifer MacDougall led the session that started with brainstorming on how to write meaningful, student-centred feedback. All teachers contributed their insights on the key characteristics of effective feedback. Jennifer then offered detailed, specific guidance for writing feedback that aligns with marking criteria and Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs).

In a practical exercise, English teachers assumed the roles of both teachers and students, writing and receiving feedback on the online learning platform Moodle. This activity helped all English teachers become acquainted with the feedback process, from writing to uploading to publishing.

Teaching Practitioners & Scholarship
Professor Melinda Whong, head of the Language Education Center at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, presented a lecture titled "From Practitioner to Scholar Practitioner." She began by distinguishing the roles of a “scholar” from a “researcher,” outlining the career prospects for the former. She engaged the teachers in self-reflection, exploration, and discussion, aiming to uncover fundamental, exploratory, and meaningful research questions. Lastly, she emphasized the significance of academic publication and discussion for teachers, providing channels and platforms for such engagements, and presenting new pathways for the professional development of the college's language teachers.

Student Engagement
On the final day, Jennifer hosted a training session on enhancing student engagement. She introduced exemplary student work from previous students, including posters, audio, and videos, sparking an in-depth discussion among all English teachers on the subject.

Later, English teachers formed small groups to discuss their teaching practices and experiences, creating posters that concentrated on each teacher's methods to increase student engagement. The session concluded with a carousel presentation where teachers visited each group's posters, leading to a fruitful exchange of best practices. The teachers reported the session to be exceptionally inspirational.

Standardization of Project Report Assessment
During the week, first and second-year English teachers held standardisation meetings for the project report assessment of the courses "English for Academic and General Purposes" and "English for Engineering Studies B." These assessments are designed to evaluate students' comprehension, synthesis, paraphrasing, and report writing skills, aiming to ignite student interest and improve their independent research and teamwork skills. Teachers critically analysed samples of varying quality (low-middle-high) to ensure the assessments' reliability, validity, fairness, and consistency.

The PDW in autumn semester 2023 marks the 12th successful iteration run by UofG's Jennifer MacDougall and the Language Support Center at Glasgow College. These training sessions have broadened the teaching, research, and professional development horizons for teachers. More than just improving students' language skills, the focus is also on nurturing a sense of engineering responsibility, critical thinking, and social accountability, preparing students to meet the demands of the times and emerge as innovative leaders in new engineering fields.

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First published: 20 December 2023