Pathways for sustainable livelihood through female leaders in artisanal fishing communities in the Dique Channel, Columbia

This was a project funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund aimed to empower women leaders from fishing communities in the Dique channel area of Colombia. Women play a pivotal role in the foundation of family structure, social stability in Colombian coastal areas. Here, subsistence fishing sustains family and community cohesion, however, severe environmental (e.g. erosion, overfishing) and social (e.g. violence, displacement and gender inequality) pressures have resulted in destabilisation and impoverishment of all living communities.

Research on sustainable development suggests that success of implementation is linked to community participation, empowerment, self-organisation and context specificity (Butler et al, 2017).  The Colombia National Development Plan 2014-18 and international policy frameworks suggest women are pivotal for sustainable development and emphasise gender equality. However, as research on sustainable development around vulnerable communities in Latin America (Bertola and Williamson, 2017) and developing countries through feminist lenses (Jaquette, 2017) is relatively rare, this new participatory research is timely.

Research questions:

1. How ready is the community to live within sustainable development principles?
2. Which are the elements of female leadership that facilitate pathways to sustainable livelihoods?
3. What are the possible pathways to creation of sustainable livelihoods in an artisanal fishing community?

This followed from a project called FISHING FOR LIFE (www.pescandoparalavida.org ) where 5 women and 22 men were trained as leaders in the area.

Manchester Met’s Dr Lina Barrios, herself a Colombian national, was part of the original team and saw that the women were a minority who were largely ignored when it came to taking decisions as a community. She thus resolved to return with a team to work with a similar group of women.

So, a team from Manchester Met, including Valeria Vargas (also a Colombian national), Lina, and myself, Alicia Prowse, ran a 6-day residency at the Granja Lismar acquaculture farm near Santa Lucia, Atlantico region. The farm has a training room (below) with attached dormitory which housed the 25 participants.  An outdoor classroom provided space for yoga, reflection, more formalised learning and discussion…as well as dancing and partying on the final night.

My experience both with learning and teaching for adult learners (I work in CELT) and with global citizenship – a thread that ran through this project – was the basis for my participation.  Soft global citizenship is a term sometimes used to describe a process where the global north see the global south as poor, needy and helpless, prompting responses which tend to reinforce the status quo, preventing more searching questions being asked. A more critical global citizenship might instead prompt questions around the reasons for injustice and poverty and to seek for solutions that include all voices, not just those more privileged ones.

The outdoor classroom was challenging and lively as the women engaged in learning more about their own networks, their potential for leadership and entrepreneurship and their ideas about empowerment, all set in the context of livelihoods for sustainable development. There was also input around technical aspects of aquaculture such as injection of hormones to stimulate spawning.  Sometimes, classroom work was interrupted as the aquaculture tanks hummed and growled with the sounds of spawning fish.

Facilitating workshops in this environment required a focus that ignored the eagles, woodpeckers and other wildlife that regularly floated past the wall-less classroom, and an ability to work with the passionate commitment of the participants many of whom would stand up to give clear and heartfelt speeches about their own views.

Personally my own challenge was my unrealistic expectations about my linguistic facility in Spanish – my colleagues helped me out with translation but I was very disappointed not to be able to join in all the discussion.  It was humbling that my expertise (in teaching and learning) felt so inadequate in this context and it made me feel renewed respect for colleagues who teach in languages that are not their first.

At the beginning of the residency the women talked a lot about their ‘lack’ – of resources such as land, or finance or support. Towards the end of the week, they began to recognise the power of their own networks and their abilities to rely on their own resources.

We were on the border between two administrative areas: one area had a women’s minister (who we invited to come) and the other did not. In preparation for the visit, we asked the women what they might want to ask of a women’s minister. By this time, at the end of the residency, they decided that they had all they needed to get started on an entrepreneurial venture.  So, instead, they decided to ask for a more ‘political’ kind of support.

When they did so, her response was to immediately collect together the women leaders from the adjoining area and to make a phone call, there and then, to a political colleague using the women’s voices as evidence of grassroots support for the initiative. Two days later some of the women met with this colleague and began the process of formal lobbying for a women’s minister in their area.

We envisage that this will be the beginning of a process that will take some time to come to fruition but we hope to continue working with these women through our partners  at the University of Cartagena.  In the meantime, we have a thriving WhatsApp group that we have been added to that helps all women to sustain and grow their networks.

If you would like to hear more. Here is the link to a short podcast

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VESPA model training opportunity

Steve Oakes will be delivering a session of VESPA training at MMU on 22nd November from . Steve has co-authored a couple of books – one around the GCSE Mindset and one the ‘A’ Level Mindset – and is a guest lecturer at the University. The research looked at students who didn’t perform so well at GCSE but then went on to thrive in their ‘A’ Levels, and vice versa, and the reasons for this. They concluded that students who scored highly on the following qualities were more successful:

Vision – They know what they want to achieve
Effort – They put in many hours of proactive independent study
Systems – They organise their learning resources and their time
Practice – They practice and develop their skills
Attitude – They respond constructively to setbacks

They found that these characteristics beat cognition, and that ‘ceiling’ students had significant gaps in one or more of these characteristics. The findings are equally applicable to university-level students.

In order to develop these skills in students they developed what is called the VESPA model; a series of 40+ activities which help students to develop these 5 qualities. The training being delivered on 22nd will introduce attendees the VESPA model and train them to deliver these activities.

The training session is open to MMU staff who might be interested in delivering some of these activities through their practice. It will be free to attend. If you are interested, please contact Helen Lord (h.lord@mmu.ac.uk), Transition and Peer Support Manager.

In brief
VESPA training
22nd November
9.30-12.30
contact: h.lord@mmu.ac.uk
cost: free

Reaching the unreachable: How do we engage work-based or remote students in learning? Wed 31st October, 13.00-14.00 hrs, MMU Business School, Room BS 3.14

Presenter: Jeff Lewis, Principal Lecturer CPD & Distance Learning.

Jeff Lewis is employed as Principal Lecturer CPD and Distance Learning and is Programme Director for the BSc (Hons) and MSc Dental Technology teaching programmes. He is also currently acting Associate Dean of Learning & Teaching for the School of Sport and Health Sciences at Cardiff Metropolitan University.

He pioneered the use of web-based video-conferencing (Adobe Connect Pro) for the delivery of learning material to remote learners in the workplace and has advised the university on its uses and implementation.  He is enthusiastic about flipped classrooms and the use of learning technology to enable this.

Jeff is a National Teaching Fellow (NTF) and Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and has received several awards from his profession including ‘Best Educator of the Year’ (Dental Laboratories Association) and ‘Distinguished Technician Award’ (British Orthodontic Society) as recognition for all the work he had done and his contributions to education and dentistry.  He has published chapters in Higher Education books regarding reaching remote learners and has published and presented internationally regarding the use of he arts for reflection.

If you would like to attend this event.  Please register here:

 

Festival of Learning & Teaching, Save the date: 12th – 21st June 2019

Some people will remember our successful Festival of Learning & Teaching in 2016, which featured a very diverse range of activities – who could forget* our own game show, Ready, Steady, Teach?

After a couple of years of more traditional conferences, we’ve decided to return to this extended format for 2019, so please save the dates.  The call for contributions will open on 1st November 2018: we’ll be looking for research papers, workshops, pecha kucha,  discussion panels, games and whatever else you come up with to report on, develop and celebrate learning and teaching at Manchester Metropolitan.

For more information, contact your CELT Faculty link or any of the CELT Team

*If you would like a trip down memory lane, there is still a photostream available

 

 

Triple Teaching Excellence delights at @manmetuni!!! @halehmoravej @mahse1 & @gm_synergy

The National Teaching Fellowship Awards and the Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence awarded by AdvanceHE (previously Higher Education Academy), have just been announced.  This year, we are delighted to share with you that further colleagues, individually and in teams, from Manchester Met in collaboration with other higher education institutions have been recognised nationally with these prestigious awards!

Haleh Moravej, Senior Lecturer in Nutritional Sciences from the Faculty of Health, Psychology and Social Care and also a member of the Environment team, has been awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by AdvanceHE for her excellence in Teaching. Haleh also works closely with The Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching and supports professional development activities of staff locally as well as further afield. Haleh has been recognised for her outstanding, creative and impactful contributions in the area of entrepreneurship and sustainability in learning and teaching and we are very proud and grateful for her inspiration and contributions.

Haleh is passionate about teaching, her commitment and dedication to excellence is  infectious. She works in partnership with her students, empowers them to push the boundaries and reset their personal best.  Haleh has been committed to excellent teaching for many years and has been recognised for her powerful contribution to our students multiple times locally at Manchester Met, but also nationally and internationally. Haleh is the founder of MetMunch, an innovative student-led student enterprise that makes a real difference to the student experience and students’ path after university.

MetMUnch was founded in 2011 and in 2014 it won the International and National EAUC Green Gown Awards for Student Engagement. This was the catalyst to evolve from a successful pop-up into a dynamic, passionate social enterprise that forges commercial and community partnerships. As a social enterprise, MetMUnch is forging a new path to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges and is aligned with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It’s not just an ‘add-on’ to a degree, it’s about developing enterprising, innovative and driven graduates who go on to make their mark on the world. Evidence indicates that MetMUnch is transformative. Ultimately, MetMUnch contributes significantly to building inquisitive, intelligent students that become informed, innovative and enterprising graduates.

Haleh creates a plethora of varied authentic learning activities, these include numerous public engagements that bring learning alive. They are experience-led and embrace risk taking and creativity, responsibility and commitment as well as entrepreneurship and develop personal and professional confidence and competencies in nutritional sciences and prepare her students for being a professional, work and life.

“Haleh has worked  tirelessly creating an innovative platform to drive unique initiatives for students by students, linking curriculum to extra curriculum learning and development. She is the epitome of delivering innovative education to our students and then providing the students to grow their communication, knowledge and leadership experience through MetMUnch events both within the university environment and external public and private bodies.

She has been a driving force behind bringing topical issues relating to sustainability, enterprise and entrepreneurship to students and colleagues across the university and further afield, nationally and internationally.”

Prof. Helen Laville, PVC Education

Haleh’s  AdvanceHE profile.

The Manchester Academy of Healthcare Scientist Education (MAHSE) under the leadership of Prof. Phil Padfield, formerly of The University of Manchester (UoM) and deputy-leadership of Carol Ainley, Head of School of Healthcare Science at Manchester Metropolitan University (Manchester Met) in collaboration with the University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, the University of Salford, the University of Liverpool and partner NHS Trusts have been awarded a prestigious Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence by AdvanceHE.

The MAHSE team consists of Carol Ainley (Manchester Met), Philip Padfield (UoM), Kate Smith (MAHSE/UoM), Michael Carroll (Manchester Met), Angela Davies (UoM), Ruth Barnes (UoM), Andrew Brass (UoM),  Emma Jenkinson (UoM), Philip Macdonald (UoM), Martin Stout (Manchester Met), Kai Uus (UoM),  Keith Winwood (Manchester Met),  James Bazley (MAHSE/Manchester Met), Ewan Chamings (MAHSE/UoM), Shazia Dar (MAHSE/UoM), Louisa-Jane Smith (MAHSE/UoM), Sarah Williams (MAHSE/UoM), Lindsey Brown (MAHSE lay rep), Manoj Mistry (MAHSE lay rep), Garry McDowell (Manchester Met) and the wider teaching teams across the collaborative partners.

The Manchester Academy for Healthcare Scientist Education (MAHSE) was established in 2012 with the aim of consolidating and expanding existing collaborations between The University of Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan University, The University of Salford and partner NHS Trusts that underpin the delivery of Clinical Science Masters programmes, which constitute the academic component of the NHS science training programme (STP). It was recognised that, by pooling expertise and working together, bids from a consortium of Greater Manchester universities would be stronger than the sum of individual bids. The vision was to create a community of practice for the education of NHS trainee healthcare scientists where taught programmes cross-institutional boundaries to provide the trainees the best possible education combined with an excellent student experience.

MAHSE has developed a cross-institutional collaborative programme in a complex space that has been recognised as an exemplar of teaching innovation, excellence and imagination where students have a strong sense of belonging, are co-producers and learn and work within a community. The MAHSE team has developed a highly individualised approach to student learning, which ensures that students feel that they are the centre of activity. The MAHSE team have a relentless drive for excellence and innovation. Their approach to technology enhanced learning has been cutting edge. Their leadership on Virtual Reality as a teaching tool has fed-forward into institutional plans for the development of AR and VR to science teaching across the Faculty of Science and Engineering. The team also worked in close collaboration with academics across the university to develop a common approach to the production of our Massive Open Online Courses.

“MAHSE demonstrates an effective and energetic approach to working across the complex institutional frameworks of multiple HE institutions, health care providers, professional bodies and a determination to deliver innovative and exciting teaching.

“To have established a collaboration that services as an exemplar of teaching innovation, excellence and imagination is an outstanding accomplishment.”

Prof. Helen Laville, PVC Education

MAHSE’s AdvanceHE profile

The Greater Manchester (GM) Synergy under the leadership of Lisa Littlewood (University of Salford, Director of Placement & Practice Learning) and Jacqueline Leigh (University of Salford, Reader in Teaching & Learning).

The steering team comprises of senior leaders operating from within the multiple GM universities and healthcare organisations, with the team leader situated in the University of Salford. From Manchester Metropolitan University members of the Nursing Department (Jon Clough and Trish Morgan), alongside the HPSC Faculty Lead for Placements (Stuart Roberts), have been key figures in ensuring that this collaborative approach was implemented with their Practice colleagues.

Four Greater Manchester (GM) universities provide undergraduate nursing programmes situated within the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), a vanguard site for testing new models of health and social care. The GM universities involved with the project are University of Salford, Manchester Metropolitan University, University of Manchester, and University of Bolton.

The GM universities have a strong relationship and history of collaboration. Since 2009, GM Hospital Trusts, the four universities and Health Education England have worked together as the Greater Manchester Practice Education Group (GMPEG) to operationalise the practice component of the undergraduate nursing programme.

Influenced by evidence from the 2012 Willis Commission on the future of nursing education, and their own practice, the team identified coaching as an effective model for student nurse support in practice. The coaching model advocated by Willis is the Collaborative Learning in Practice model (CLiP™).

Subsequently in this context, a team was formed to develop a new and innovative GMCA model of support for student nurses in clinical practice. Working together and alongside three Partner NHS Trusts (Bolton Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, and Northern Care Alliance NHS Group), they developed a bespoke GM Synergy Model for student support in practice placements that is based upon coaching ideologies with an emphasis on delivering patient-centred care, promoting student nurse clinical leadership development and peer learning.

The team has broken down the silos and organisational boundaries that in the past would have prevented the success and sustainability of the project. For example, Practice Education Facilitator Champions in each healthcare organisation are utilising GM standardised resources to seamlessly convert student practice placements into GM Synergy placement areas, which has significantly increased student nurse placement capacity.

“The GM Synergy project has been an amazing experience, and also an honour to be a part of. The collaboration by all of the organisations involved has shown the impact working closely can have on the student experience in a practice placement setting. With a strong emphasis on patient centred care, clinical leadership and peer learning, students from differing HEIs have been able to learn together under the GM Synergy coaching model.”

[Stuart Roberts, Manchester Metropolitan University, Principal Lecturer in Placements and Employability, Faculty of Health, Psychology & Social Care]

GM Synergy AdvanceHE profile

Haleh’s, the MAHSE and GM Synergy teams’ contributions to Manchester Met is a manifestation of our commitment to the goals, principles and the Education Strategy. We are truly delighted to be able to capitalise on the energies of such excellent colleagues within and beyond our institution who work tirelessly to create excellent learning opportunities for our students in collaboration and in partnership with colleagues, students and further stakeholders.

We are looking forward to working closer with this year’s NTF and CATE winners and share their good practice and innovations further across the institution. We would like to thank them for making such a significant contribution to the student experience!

The National Teaching Fellowship is a prestigious recognition for teaching excellence that is awarded since 2000 by the Higher Education Academy (since 2018 AdvanceHE) to a limited number of academics and other professional who teach or support learning in the United Kingdom  to celebrate their significant contributions to learning and teaching. The Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence was introduced in 2016 by the Higher Education Academy (since 2018 AdvanceHE) and celebrates outstanding contribution of teams across an institution and cross-institutionally in learning and teaching.

The Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching supports and mentors colleagues and teams who have the potential to be awarded an NTF/CATE in the future. For further information, please access http://www.celt.mmu.ac.uk/ntfs/index.php.

Our warmest congratulations to this year’s Manchester Met NTF and CATE winners and all winners nationally!!!

 

Crossing boundaries & navigating borders: Exploring how first in family students move through university landscape. Tue 11th September, 13.00-14.00 hrs, BS 3.28 (Business School)

Associate Professor: Sarah O’Shea

Drawing on research conducted across the Australian higher education sector, this presentation explores the invisible boundaries that first-in-family learners considered they had to overcome in order to get to and succeed at university. These ranged from institutional or organisational boundaries through to boundaries imposed by self and others. Applying the sensitizing lens of boundary crossing, an analysis of how learners both navigated their transition into university and the types of persistence behaviours adopted is provided. The focus is on those who have traversed these boundaries and considers the nature of these incursions and the impacts such movements had, as narrated by the students themselves. While this cohort all self-identified as being the first in their family to attend university they also acknowledged a variety of additional social, cultural and economic factors that impacted upon this educational journey. Referring to in-depth biographical interviews conducted with 72 intersected learners, this deeply qualitative study contributes to our understanding about the university persistence behaviours of diverse student cohorts and provides an alternative framing from which to consider these educational trajectories. Brief Bio: Associate Professor Sarah O’Shea leads the Adult, Vocational and Higher Education discipline in the School of Education, University of Wollongong, Australia. Sarah’s institutional and nationally funded research studies advance understanding of how under-represented student cohorts enact success within university, navigate transition into this environment, manage competing identities and negotiate aspirations for self and others. Sarah has published extensively in the field and has been awarded over $(AUD)1.5 million in grant funding since 2009. Sarah is also an Australian Learning and Teaching Fellow (ALTF), a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Australian National Centre for Student Equity in Higher Education

Register here:

Failing better in order to fare better – Tuesday 4th September – 13.00-14.00 hrs – BS 3.15 – Business School (North Atrium)

Emerging research suggests that for students to fare better, they need to fail better (cf. Carol Dweck, 2006). How students respond to failure is a strong predictor of future success, and the notion of resilience is increasingly prevalent in conversations about higher education. Resilience has a number of characteristics, including levels of persistence, effort, positive mindset, motivation, and self-regulation. So how do we build resilience into our classrooms? Are there ways to embed resilience into the content we deliver? This talk will explore the ideas of resilience, buoyancy and grit in the landscape of higher education and make a case for modelling failure as a means of building the reserves of both teachers and learners so we can move forward together wi th courage and hope Dr. Jessica Riddell is the inaugural Stephen A. Jarislowsky Chair of Undergraduate Teaching Excellence at Bishop’s University. In this capacity, she explores innovative teaching and learning practices, creates mentorship opportunities for students and faculty, mobilizes knowledge around learning in higher education (with a particular focus on the humanities), enhances professional development initiatives for her colleagues, and participates in a wide range of consultations at the national and international levels. She is the VP Canada on the Board of ISSoTL (International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) as well as a Board member for the 3M National Executive Council. Dr. Riddell is the faculty columnist of University Affairs and her articles appear in a series called “Adventures in Academe.” She is also an Associate Professor and the Chair of the Teaching and Learning Centre. Her research into higher education is broad, and she has published on exp eriential learning in the humanities, using legal trials as models of undergraduate inquiry, how we change institutional cultures to support scholarly teaching. She is currently writing a book with two colleagues on critical empathy and Shakespeare in the 21st century classroom. Dr. Riddell was awarded the 3M National Teaching Fellowship in 2015, the first recipient of the award at Bishop’s University and the youngest ever recipient in the national award’s 33 year history.

http://www.celt.mmu.ac.uk/cpd/viewcourse.php?unit_id=441

Dr. Jessica Riddell