mentors. Students both in health and child-care settings found that there was a lack of awareness in the wider team of the new roles created by fd qualifications. This resulted in a crisis of confidence in the students taking on new responsibilities. For example, in the transition from the assistant to the practitioner roles they felt that they were “stepping on the toes” of those in established roles (Selfe et al. 2002). For some of the students the foundation degree programme proved to be challenging because there was no structure in place to ensure that the theory they studied at university was linked to the practice in their work-based settings. Some expressed the opinion that the mentor's role was under-utilised, or that mentors were unclear of what was expected of them (Smith and Betts 2003).
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Below Jenica Richards reviews reflections from the workshop at RaPAL's 2014 conference where she had shared insights of her HE journey. Jenica had embarked on the fd with the hope of gaining a higher level of education as well as a pay rise for the additional skills and responsibilities she would undertake. She found the course challenging but engaged with it successfully. Though she completed the course, for her and so many others like her, there was no pay increase.
Let's reason In a Caribbean context the word reason means to speak freely, to simply tell it as it is.
Reflections on time management I can still remember the first day at Uni and one of the first discussions we had around time management. The tutor posed the question: 'How much study time do you think this course will require per week?’
Well, I thought, maybe about five to ten. How wrong was I? When she said 40 plus, I thought, does she mean hours or minutes? When it was confirmed that she meant hours, I thought, you know what, get me out of here, that's another working week on my working week! I did bounce back from that thought though and decided to give it a go.
I started reflecting… they encouraged reflection a lot on my programme. After reflecting on a typical day, I realised I was doing a lot, but on analysing what I had done. I realised how much time I was wasting because I was repeating the same activity maybe 2-3 times on a daily basis. I did this because nothing I did ever felt good enough for academic work. Yes, you hear that phrase a lot in lectures, 'You are now doing academic work!'
My diary became my best friend, in order to get home, work, study and all the unplanned aspects of my life managed, I had to keep a diary which was highlighted and colour- coordinated. This simple approach saved me so much time and frustration.
Reflections on language My fellow students and I felt that some tutors would tell/teach us something new once, generally in a formal lecture style and expect us to get it and get on with the assignment, after all we were at university now and lecturers weren't there to hold our hands. When we didn't get it first time we would often hear phrases like, 'It's not rocket science you know.' They were right, it wasn't rocket science, but it might well have been as it was unfamiliar language. I often heard my inner voice screaming, could we discuss this? Could you get it to us another way? Was there another explanation, another approach to conveying the same message? Help! The looks on my colleagues' faces and the discussions that followed in the canteen assured me that I wasn't the only person in our group that was lost. In fact, the majority of us were.
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Reflections on the workshop When Peggy asked me if I would like to co-present a workshop to share a part of my story of being a mature non- traditional black female student, I was quite honoured. However, after thinking about it, doubt visited and lingered for a while. Could I do this? Why me? Will anyone be interested in my story? As I am getting older, I am becoming a lot more confident, so I sent a message to doubt, 'No, I won't let anything put me off.’
We felt that a creative way to get this group of professional educators to understand how I felt in some of the lectures was to introduce a language that was alien to them. To let them hear it and share their understanding of it after the first hearing. It was interesting to observe the participants as they listened to our recording of a poem in Jamaican Patois. I watched with interest as they engaged their total concentration, involving their whole bodies through forward posturing, some with contorted faces as they listened for a few minutes to the recording of the poem.
Our lectures were sometimes hours in length, why do educators think it's ok to talk at others using unfamiliar language for such long periods of time? Shouldn't educators know that this method is ineffective for the majority?
The second phase was to present the RapALers in our workshop with the written text in Patois and ask them to read and discuss. I observed moments when for some the light came on and once it did, they seemed encouraged to share. It was evident that learning was happening. Finally the poem was presented in written English. The feedback following the exercise was interesting, I recall hearing a participant say, and 'We got the gist when listening, but seeing it on paper supported the process of deciphering.' Some within the workshop had developed strategies for understanding the poem and shared their strategy and almost everyone acknowledged that the Jamaican patois version of the poem required re-reading to develop understanding.
I guess those were the messages we wanted to convey. I would love to implore HEI educators to support us mature students to enjoy and make the most of our HE opportunity by adapting non-traditional approaches to educational delivery, please. Most of us are non-traditional learners, because the traditional school system didn't work for us.
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