Unlocking Student Learning & Advising Approaches - Adventures in Advising

Dr. Declan McLaughlin, senior lecturer and lead advisor of studies at Queen’s University Belfast discusses unlocking student learning and advising approaches, the benefits of student participation in their own assessment experience, and the creation of an advisor of studies community of practice to provide training and resources to advisors. 

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hey, Adventures in Advising podcast listeners. Welcome to Episode 104. This is Matt Markin, and I hope everything's going well with you as our fall terms have either started or maybe will be starting soon, we have a great episode for you today. So let's welcome to the podcast, and that's Dr. Declan McLaughlin. Dr. McLaughlin is a distinguished academic and passionate educator who serves as a senior lecturer at Queen's University Belfast. His academic journey is deeply rooted in QUB, where he pursued both his undergraduate and postgraduate studies. He graduated with an undergraduate degree in Biomedical Sciences, followed by a PhD in cardiovascular physiology, a Master of Science in Clinical anatomy and a post graduate certificate in higher education and training. Since 2015 he has been part of the Queen's University Belfast faculty, contributing significantly to the institution's academic excellence within his teaching center, he has held the role of advisor studies since 2020 and lead advisor of studies from 2022 he is responsible for approximately 150 students and advises them throughout their whole time at university. He has recently set up an advisor studies community of practice in light of a lack of a centralized form or resources for other advisors. He's also developed an institutional podcast series called Advisor Exchange, where he chats with the key staff members involved in all aspects of the student experience. He is a strong advocate for enhancing public understanding of science. He believes that knowledge should not be confined to the walls of academia, but should reach the wider public. Declan, welcome.

Declan McLaughlin  
Matt, thank you very much for having me along today. It's a pleasure to be here. 

Matt Markin  
You know, we had a nice chat about advising not too long ago, and I respect the work that you do, and I'm really looking forward to chatting with you for the podcast today on a wide range of topics. So, you know, we've heard a little bit from your bio, but as we do with this podcast, let's start with the first question of what was your path, your journey into higher ed?

Declan McLaughlin  
I suppose my route into where I am now was a little bit circuitous
 . It took me a little while to get where I'm at. I studied at secondary school here or high school for my North American colleagues, and always knew that I wanted to do something to do with science. I had thought about careers in medicine and dentistry, nursing, physiotherapy, all of the usual suspects, I guess. But I had a real love of chemistry. And it's, I think it was the practical elements that I really, really liked, very hands on, very tactile. So from speaking to careers teachers, careers advisors, they suggested that pharmacy or pharmaceutical sciences would be my avenue, and that's what I set my sights on. When I was sitting my final exams in in secondary school, I didn't maybe do quite as well as I should have done. Let's put it that way. And when it came to results day, my results weren't what I needed to get into into a pharmacy degree in any of the institutions that I applied to. I happened to also be in Germany at another event unrelated to school or work, and had to hear the news from my father over the phone, at which point he had told me that he had spoken to the university that I was applying to go to. They had laughed down the phone at him at my results, and said, there's not a hope that this son of yours is getting into university, and that we should look elsewhere. So you can imagine, I was a bit distraught, not knowing what to do, being 18 years old, far away from home, and not knowing what I was going to do with my future. So in the United Kingdom, the body that organizes the applications to University has a process called clearing, which pretty much means that for students that maybe don't get onto the course that they wish they had, they go into this pool and they then look for other institutions, or any institution that will accept them based on the marks that they have. So what was offered to me at the same institution that I wanted to apply to, where music technology or biomedical sciences. Now I had the highest grade that I achieved in my leaving exams was in music. So I thought that my father, knowing me, would pick music technology. However, he decided that biomedical science sounded more like a science subject, and with the bad grades that I had got, opted that for me. So I was actually a little bit annoyed at him for that. As it has transpired, I now teach in the Department that I once studied. So I went to Queen's University Belfast to study biomedical science. I spent three years on that degree. I moved straight into a postgraduate PhD in cardiovascular physiology, and that's really because I through my time studying biomedical science, I really loved learning about the human body, particularly the heart. I kind of take the approach, now that everyone has a body, why would you not want to learn about it? And that was very much my kind of thought process going through university, through my undergraduate degree, you know, we have this wonderful thing that you can't escape from, so why not try and learn as much about it as possible? And the heart and cardiovascular system was something that really interests me. So the opportunity came up with a member of staff that had done a few lectures on our course, and I applied direct from undergraduate, straight into a PhD. And did that for four years full time, and then one year part time, while I was I was writing up. And in that last year of writing up part time, I was applying for jobs and wondering what I was going to do, and because I was probably institutionalized, for want of a better word, by that stage, I thought, You know what will be a great idea, another postgraduate degree. So that's when I started trying to do a master's. At the same time that I was finishing up writing a PhD. Meanwhile, kind of running in the background is through being a PhD student, one of the requirements that you have to do is get experience of teaching, and normally that's running tutorials for maybe 20 students. But I found that whenever I was doing that, I really loved the interactions with the students, given that I myself was only a few years older than them at the time, that's, of course, changed. They are eternally 18-19, or now I'm getting progressively older, but I really loved that interaction with the students, trying to find analogies to explain how you can make real term relations to things that are happening in your body. And basically what I was trying to do was impart ways that I had learned the material, and trying to say, look, this is how I did it. It might not work for you, but here's an idea, and I got quite a good reception from that. So a few people had said to me, you know, more senior staff who were, I guess, responsible for my activities in the class, the students really like you. They like your analogy that you used here. They say that you're very friendly and approachable. Approachable. Have you ever thought about going into teaching? And I hadn't really with, you know, a teacher as a with a capital T, I just enjoyed the interaction and that, I guess I called it informal teaching at the time, but I mean, ultimately, it was a very formal process. So then, when I got was completing my masters, I was applying for real world jobs, and one of those positions that came up was a teaching fellow in the University of Newcastle in England, and I was lucky enough to get that position a teaching fellow in neuroscience, and went and did that for six months. While I was there, there was another opportunity came up back home at Belfast, and being the home bird that I am, I didn't want to fly too far away, so I came back home and got a job back in University, working alongside colleagues that had taught me previously, that had worked alongside me when I was a PhD student and indeed a master student, and now suddenly I was actually a member of staff in the department that I once studied. So I did that for a few years, and one day, out of the blue, some more lecture positions came up, and I applied for those. Was unsuccessful at the time, but still had my academic related role. And again, kept, kept doing that, and got a phone call out of the blue from the HR department personnel department, and said, we have this position coming up. You were on the waiting list for a previous job. We would like to offer you this, and that's how I moved from academic related to full academic role. And as of August of last year, I then was promoted from lecturer to Senior Lecturer education. So I kind of got here by accident. Good luck, chance hanging around the place long enough until they give me a job wearing them down, I don't know, but I kind of think that it's a good story for students, particularly for some students that I speak to that find themselves at university, because they think that's what they have to do. They think that that's the next step. And even, certainly, as we speak here today in the United Kingdom that those high school results will be getting released in the next 10 or 14 days. So I always not that it's blowing your own trumpet, but I always try to put up on my social media to remind students, you know, these exam results do not define you. I got into university through clearing I was laughed or my father at least, was laughed at on the phone saying this, this fellow will never make it in to study this degree program, this institution. And fast forward 15 years, and I now teach some of those students on that degree that I was told I would never do myself. So. So I have an office. I work alongside colleagues, I enjoy what I do, and I still have that enthusiasm for important knowledge to other people. So I have had good experience of higher education. I love higher education. I love learning. It's, I guess, part of my own self, it's what makes me me, and I just want to keep continuing to show that enthusiasm and share that enthusiasm for my subject with other people.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, no. I mean, it's, it's a great story, because there might be some disappointments, and there might be, you know, blows to the ego, but one door closed, another door opens, there's always gonna be some, some sort of opportunity, or opportunities that that come about. Now, you know you, you work at Queen's University of Belfast. So tell us more about you know, how would you describe your institution?

Declan McLaughlin  
So Queens Belfast is, we refer to it as a red brick institution. It's, it's a member of the Russell Group, which is in the UK. It's about 24 leading public research universities. So very research intensive. It's, it's kind of made akin to the Ivy League in the United States. So if you think you know New England, Harvard, big red brick buildings, it's kind of got that, that gravitas. Okay, it's our main building, our our landmark building is The Lanyon designed by Sir Charles Lanyon, hence the name. And we've been a university where, at least founded in 1845 so we've been around for quite a while. And I guess we're one of the biggest public sector employers in Belfast. We contribute a lot to the economy in terms of bringing students in having spin off companies and things like that, and with most institutions, we offer a wide range of of degree programs, so anything from Arts and Humanities, science and engineering, medicine, social sciences. I myself am in the Faculty of Medicine, health and life sciences. So we have pharmacy, Nursing and Midwifery, medicine, dentistry, biomedical sciences, human biology, and various different flavors of biological sciences, from biochemistry, microbiology, food science. Northern Ireland is a very or at least historically and traditionally, has been very agricultural. We're in this little wet rock in the North Atlantic that bears the brunt of the bad weather that's come rolling in off the Atlantic. So we are lush and green and have lots of cattle and agriculture, and I guess developing from that are industries. So we've got agri food, veterinary medicine, pharmaceutical industries, primarily dealing initially with animals and livestock, but spinning out then into into the medical field. So we, we are, yeah, a historic red brick institution, kind of in the same box as some of the maybe bigger well known institutions in the United Kingdom. But we are very much a global university. Our our student population is as diverse as anywhere, I would argue. But I think we're particularly unique in the sense that Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, but it's it's part of the United Kingdom that everyone forgets about because it sits on the island of Ireland, so it's not directly attached to the main Scotland, Wales and England. So it's smaller. The population in Northern Ireland, I think, with the last count, was under pressure life, but so like, One point 1.71 point 8 million. So it's, it's not huge. I'm sure there are some cities in North America that are probably not far off that population themselves. And you know, we're talking about the population of a country. So when students from wherever come to visit us, they find that it's, you're studying a United Kingdom institution. You're a red brick historic Russell Group university, but it's in a very small city. It's very quiet, it's very community focused, it's very collegial, and it's got a really lovely feel about it. We are not the only institution, the University institution in the city, which means Belfast, then itself, is is very student focused. It's very student basis. We've got a young population. We're renowned for several different things. One of them was a big boat that, you know, tried to make its way across the Atlantic wasn't too successful. But as the old adage goes here, it was all right when it left. It was the Canadian icebergs, I think that and an English captain steering the ship, that were the problems. But you know, we have a terrific music scene. We have historical sites. We're steeped in history. We've got UNESCO World Heritage status in Northern Ireland. So Belfast is really just the hub for the rest of the country. I maybe you've picked it up, but I've already said I love Belfast. I love my city. I love Northern Ireland. We've got a very particular, specific sense of humor. We've got. Sometimes a very dark humor that's tied with our with our troubles that we've had in the past, but we're also very forward thinking and very progressive. And of all places, I think that's what a university should be. It should be all of those things that should look at our history, but it should also look at our future, and it should be a big melting pot of the home institution, the home people, but all of those other beautiful flavors that come from all of the other students and staff that come and choose to work there. So for anyone out there on the off chance shameless plug that is thinking, do have a think at Queen's University, Belfast, or even if it's coming to visit, it's a beautiful city. It's not the city that many people still think or would be familiar of it from back in the 60s, 70s, 80s. It is a completely different place these days, and we would be more than happy to see anyone get off a get off a ferry, or get off a plane or get off a bus. You're more than welcome. We're very, very friendly here.

Matt Markin  
Yeah, you know, I think you had me fooled. I couldn't tell if you if you love Belfast or not.

Declan McLaughlin  
Maybe comes. I'll try to be, I'll try to be a less subtle next time. 

Matt Markin  
I mean you so I mean you're well respected in your field, and you know, partly because of your your understanding of biomedical science and anatomy, or ability to simplify complex concepts. Um, so I was kind of wondering, like, as a senior lecturer, like, what? What does that role entail? If someone here Senior Lecturer, and as well as you know, what's your strategy when teaching students?

Declan McLaughlin  
In my job, I've always said that I want to be what I expected a lecturer to be, and I have to be careful, because I still work with some of those people that taught me, and to an extent, that's that's probably why I'm doing what I do, because I had a really positive experience. The center that I work in is the Center for Biomedical Sciences education. I am my job title is Senior Lecturer Education. in brackets, that means that 80% of my time, 70% of my time is dedicated to student facing teaching. So 70% of my week should be in direct, face to face, student contact, or preparing assessments, exam boards, having meetings with students. It should be student centered. The other 20% is my research and scholarship, and the remaining 10% is citizenship and publicity and entrepreneurship in terms of the university. So when I go about my job, I was like, how am I going to help and influence students today? What do the students need? How can I make their time at university more straightforward? How can I impart that knowledge? How can I give them the good Unix university experience that I had? So I would say that my focus is very student centered as as a Senior Lecturer Education, I primarily teach biomedical sciences, anatomy, physiology. Most of my time is teaching anatomy. So I'm teaching medical students, dental students, biomedical science and human biology students, their their anatomy, where everything is what it does. My colleagues in physiology will teach it, well, how does it do it? And then my biomedical science colleagues will say, well, when we're trying to apply that to clinical or laboratory sciences, what does that mean in terms of tests that we run, test results that patients are getting, that you as a scientist, a data analyst, are going to have to interpret. So we work very closely together. It's about, it's about building that scaffolding, that skeletal framework, to use an anatomical term. Imagine, there we go. So we work very closely. We know what each other is teaching we are. Our department is very well respected in the university, not just necessarily in our school, but you know, for example, a couple of years ago, I was very privileged to be nominated for a student nominated Teaching Award across the whole institution. There are only 10 awards in various different categories across the institution. Of those 10, three of them were won by staff in our center. That's, you know, 30% of the awards that were given out that year were from an academic team that only has fifth, well, maybe 17. Now that's a very small teaching center, so yes, our teaching center is very, very student focused. So a lot of the stuff that I have learned as being a student, as being a junior member of staff and I progressed into senior lecture has been from working with my colleagues and their years of experience, and indeed, the advising comes with that as well. All my experience in advising has been through what I've learned from my colleagues, what I've learned from my own advisor. So yeah, we are very student focused, and I think that's the way to be because if you're not student focused. Why are you there teaching? You know, we're at a university. Yes, there are people that be more research focused and want to do their own research, and that's fine. That's not the route that I wanted to pick. I wanted to, I guess, be a teacher. I wanted to impart knowledge. I wanted to try and get the. Students excited about a topic and subjects that I love really much, and the best way that I can do that is to stand up and proclaim it from the front of a lecture. And if I can't get them there, then I get them in a room with, you know, 1920 of their other peers, and we do it in small tutorial, and they still get that enthusiasm. It doesn't, it doesn't change the enthusiasm, how that enthusiasm is presented. Obviously changes depend on the teaching style that you're doing.

Matt Markin  
And then as of 2020, you began your role as advisor of studies, and then into the lead advisor studies. So this is a something separate from being senior lecturer, I'm assuming?

Declan McLaughlin  
Yes, advisor of studies is the term that we use at our university. It's a term that's given to academic members of staff, so faculty, staff, I guess you would call them. We don't have a centralized model that a lot of our colleagues in North America do. So we have Center for Educational Development, which is institutional wide. It's responsible for staff, learning training, and, you know, educational development, as the name would suggest, and that's really where the role of advisors of studies lives. So it's hidden up there in the higher echelons of university in terms of staff training and development. However, how it's administered is really down at the school level. So the way our university is structured is that we have three main teaching faculties, so the arts, humanities, social sciences, physical sciences and engineering and medicine, health and life sciences. And within each of those three faculties, you have the schools. So for example, in my faculty, one of our schools is Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences, which is where I live. And then within the schools you have individual centers. So we have three research centers and three teaching centers. I'm in Center for Biomedical Sciences education, so the advisors of studies role lives quite high up institutionally, but it's actual running on day to day, feet on the ground is disseminated down to school level, and indeed down to center level. So within my center, we are responsible for approximately anywhere between 130 and 150 students, depending on intakes each year, of students studying biomedical science and human biology within that center. Then we have three advisors of studies, one advisor that looks after the first years, one that looks after second year, someone that looks after third years. And we follow the cohort of students through their entire time. So the advisors pretty much cycle around. So you'll go with first year, second year, third year, and then you'll come background again with the new intake of first year. So it's like a three year cycle. Of course, sometimes you have students that need to repeat years, or you have students that temporary withdraw or take a leave of absence, go on a placement year and come back. So it's not as straightforward as you just have one cohort. So in the past academic year, for example, I primarily was looking after first year cohort I had come around the start of my cycle again, but I was looking after some students that were repeating in third year and some students that were studying part time who are also in second year. So it's kind of one of these things that you you need to get your head around. Of all my advisees are in different years, which means that they're studying different modules, which means they're on slightly different pathways, and they have different requirements. And as you know, advisors and academic advisors tend to be aware of and then as of 20 late, late 2021, I took on the role of lead advisor of studies. And that's that's really just a term within my center, and it's really for practical reasons. It doesn't come with any additional responsibilities per se, other than when it comes to student experience meetings and going and attending faculty events or school events, rather than have three times as many people in the room. I speak on behalf of all the advisors in our center. I'm also then responsible for trying to make sure that our advisors are up to date on any training or at least suggest some new training courses that are coming up. And I'm the go between, between the advisors, the personal tutoring team, peer mentor team, and our director of the student experience. So I it's no additional roles, but it's just, it's really there to try and streamline communication within our center. And that's, that's a role that I'll do for a few years and then hand over to one of my other colleagues, so that I get a bit of a break, and they get a bit of experience doing it. So it's kind of this role that we, we hand about, but in terms in terms of advising, then, yes, I've been an advisor of studies for that the last four years, four full years now, anyway, I'll be starting my fifth year, and then the next academic year that's that's just starting.

Matt Markin  
Do you feel like being a lecturer and with teaching your classes, has that helped you with the Advisor of Studies role?

Declan McLaughlin  
I think certainly in my particular circumstances, it has, because I'm familiar with the modules that the students are running. Now, modules do change and the courses do change, but they haven't changed too much from when I was an undergraduate student, so having sat on both sides of the lecture hall, as it were, know on the receiving end as a student, but also teaching from the front of the room, I've got a pretty good appreciation for how those attitudes, how receptive students are to things, and also I can see it from the staff perspective of needing to communicate and communicate information to students. I think it has been it's encouraged me, me to be a bit more empathetic with the students, which I think is a pretty important skill to have as an academic advisor anyway, and because I'm, you know, education focused. I think that brings with it some, you know, personal characteristics. I mean in terms of institution, institutional wide, I'd say a vast majority of our advisors of studies in the institution are on education contracts. So like myself, lecture education, Senior Lecturer education, reader education and so on. And I've always wondered if, if that desire or need or love of communicating your subject, being a teacher, as you know, as a with a small t or big T, whatever way you want to think about it, brings with it a certain amount of skills, those kind of personal, transferable skills, those good communication skills that kind of lends itself well to being an advisor. But also, given that a lot of our advisors to studies are academics, they tend to have lots of post graduates, PhDs, masters and Phils and so on. So they have that analytical part of their brain which is good for attention to detail. So when it comes to rules and regulations and knowing how many credits that you're allowed to take if you're a full time student, but if you're a part time student, then it can't be anymore. So all of that analytical part of your brain is still being put to use, but it's being put to use in a teaching focused way, rather than a necessarily a wet lab scientist, way that maybe some of our colleagues who are on research primarily research contracts, would be more focused on although that is not exclusively the case, I should say it's not exclusively the fact. 

Matt Markin  
Now I want to talk a little bit more about the advisor of studies, or actually something connected to it, because you have also created an advisor of studies community of practice. And I know we talked a little bit or read a little bit from your bio, but I was hoping you can dive more into that. And you know how that was created? You know what the goals are?

Declan McLaughlin  
Certainly it's, again, a pretty, pretty interesting story. Well, I think it's interesting anyway. So when I first came back to Queen's University Belfast as a staff member on an academic related contract, so I was, my title was anatomy pro sector. I was the first anatomy pro sector in the university. And that's kind of a part teaching role, part technical role. So I taught in the sense that I would help run tutorials, I would help deliver practical classes. But if any of the academic staff leading the practicals needed specimens prepared, or they needed some slides, microscope slides cut, or the labs, virtual microscopy lab setup, then that was part of my role as well from, I guess, the technical preparation side. But when I came back to the university, one of the things that I wanted to do was develop my own continued professional development. So there was a course that was being offered, coincidentally by a colleague that worked on our corridor, called being an advisor of studies. And I kind of thought, well, if I'm in this for the long haul, being an academic member of staff is something that I want to do. This looks like a good course. It would maybe help with my teaching with students, small group, teaching that and, you know, just knowing how to talk to students and handle difficult conversations that they may, they may bring up. And I did that, did that training, and kind of nothing more came of it, because I was still academic related. But when I became a lecturer and had that full title of an academic, like a full academic member of staff, that door, as we were saying earlier on, was kind of open to me now, because I was an academic member of staff, I met the criteria of, you know, potentially being allowed to be this advisor of studies. And I just just had to wait for the opportunity, which eventually came along in 2020 but by that stage, in the middle of pandemic, you know, a lot of things happened and didn't happen, and one of those was. That that course, being an advisor of studies, ceased to run in the university, so I was made an advisor of studies. Luckily, I had done the training the previous training. But from talking to other colleagues who maybe started around the same time as me, or had started after me, they were coming in as academic members of staff and being told, here is this role, but there was no formal training. And again, I'm very lucky to work in the center that I work in that my colleagues have had years and years and years of experience of doing this. So anytime I had a question, I went to them, and I happened to be on another training course, because I love training courses. I'm a lifelong learner. I'm a client for punishment. But I was on a program called developing leadership in educational practice. One of the the elements of it was that we had to present a pilot project, or, you know, something that we were passionate about, that we wanted to try and do a trial run over the course of an academic year to see how it panned out. One of the things that I came up with was advisors of studies are are swimming around like swans here. They're looking nice and graceful. You know, everything's fine. We're talking with students, but for the vast majority of them under the water. They'd no formal training. They had no access to, you know, how do you properly structure a meeting? How do you how do you follow up with students? Where do I find the internal transfer forms? So there was no resource there. They were getting by on the goodwill of their predecessors and anyone that they could find in a in a virtual corridor that they could not knock on the door and ask. So I thought, well, this is a huge gap that really needs plugged or addressed. So I thought about, well, what about trying to make it certainly an in house, certainly for my center resource pack. So here's some templates for emails of you know, this is the type of thing you should be sending your students at the start of each semester. If you've got international students on your under your care, or that you're advising, you know, check in on them at least once a month. And I started to pull these things together, and thought it's a bit selfish keeping this between myself and my three four other colleagues here in the center, why not try and share it with more people? So as part of that pilot project, I propose this community of practice. And the idea would be that, you know, that's exactly it. We have advisors that we have about 300 advisors in our institution because of the structure, the way that we have it structured, and from getting to talk to a fair amount of them, I wouldn't say all of them, but they felt that this was a great idea, because everyone had their own resources, because that's the way that we do it in our school. And I appreciate that there is nuance and there is difference, and it's not a one size fits all. But if you're emailing a student from architecture at the start of an academic year, or you're emailing a student from Biomedical Sciences at the start of the year, the general information that you're trying to impart, there is nothing you know new. It's Hello, welcome to the University. Here is my email address. Here's my phone number. Here are some of the links to the key services in the university that you might need. So a lot of that very general stuff, I kind of thought, well, if everyone, or at least more than my center, even if I got it to a school level, if all the advisors in my school were sending out that fairly similar email, it means that we're all saying the same thing, and that that was really 2021 22 academic year. And since then, it's kind of grown, and recently, I've been asked to help coordinate my official university training for advisors of studies. So we haven't had that in maybe five, six years, and now, in this academic year, probably by the time that this is going out with with your listeners, we will have run our first session. So that's exciting. It's this, be careful for what you wish you know. It wasn't there, and I was expressing an interest, and somebody higher up went, that guy, he's the one that's going to do it. And it was nice to be asked. There was that element of, oh dear. Now I actually have to do the thing that I was giving off that wasn't happening. But in the same time, I go back to that, my day to day job, okay, well, how can I be the advisor? How can I give the information that I wished was there for me or other colleagues had wished was there? How can I be the teacher? So I just see this as another type of teaching, except instead of teaching students, this time, I'm trying to teach my peers and other academic faculty staff about this. Is how I do it. You don't have to do it this way, but given that there is currently no training, not like this is what, this is what you're getting. But you know, let's start afresh. Let's use this as an opportunity to refresh and start building good practice and sharing good practice. Because I will hands up say I don't know the answers to everything. And I think why I have been asked to do this, and why people ask for my opinion on these things, is because I have this enthusiasm. I was speaking to you just before this, about this, this puppy like enthusiasm that I have sometimes that probably grits on an awful lot of people. But when you talk to people like yourself and other colleagues that we know that have that same enthusiasm. It's actually, I find it quite motivating, and it's from speaking with other colleagues that are that are on this advising journey with me, that they're saying, Yeah, Declan, that's a good idea. Keep going. And it gives me that motivation, like many of our students need, you need that pat on the back. Let's not forget that we're all human at the end of the day, and our egos do need massaged every now and again. So when you're sitting with a student No, say, look, yes, okay, you feel this exam, but look at all the exams that you haven't failed. And you know, remember that you're in your second or your third year of study, and this is the first time that you've really had to come and talk to me. So you've managed Okay, albeit maybe with your challenges, but you've done this off your own back for the last two years. You've now got to the point where, yes, the the expectation is greater of you, the content is harder. And what, what we're doing is that we find your you know, the point at which the scale tips where you need that additional extra support. So well done for what you've done so far. I'm going to give you the pat on the back, or the push or the help that you need to power on through to the end. So I'm getting that from my colleagues. But I'm also cognizant that that's the type of advisor that I have to be as well. I have to be that kind of motivational and give students the credit for you know what they have achieved, and if they need help, and they've come to me through with their own challenges or difficulties or whatever it happens to be to say, well, right, let's, let's try and and work through this together. Let me try and resource you to make your informed decisions, and if you need extra help, then yes, we'll see about getting you that as well. So that's really where this advisor of studies, community practices, comments, where the formal training is now taking place. And I guess what I will do as well. As you know, haven't spoken to you as well. I also in a want or a need to try and share best practice, set up an institutional podcast advisor exchange with the idea being in my head, I had this idea of like collisions of these people from across the university coming together, sharing ideas and things, splintering off and firing back. Was maybe a little bit more graphic and violent when I was explaining it to my to the to the editor and producer. But the idea is, is that it's exchanging. It's things come together, colliding. You learn from your colleagues, and, if nothing else, it it helps share with the university the very important, vital work that advisors do that it's, it's, it's not a role as it is in a lot of American and Canadian institutions where it's like a career path. It's something that you can pick and choose to do. It's kind of this thing that is laid on you willingly or otherwise. Sometimes people are kind of given it because they're head of department or it comes with the role, and it's just about trying to say, look, it's been a bit quiet on all things advising lately. We're starting a fresh here. We're trying to make this a positive thing and resourcing colleagues. It's all about resourcing. It's help, helping, helping staff, help students, because the better armed that you are for dealing with university life, that makes it an awful lot easier when a student comes in, because at least they can see someone that they hopefully trust and can depend upon, and if that changes that student's time at university, if it changes their experience of university for the positive, then I'd say that's a win any day. 

Matt Markin  
I guess, speaking of advisor exchange. Do you find that your podcast can also be connected to the community of practice? Could be connected to training for advisor studies? 

Speaker 1  
Yes, so that's that's another reason why we wanted to do it. We recorded it last year. We recorded, I think maybe seven episodes, eight episodes, primarily with with staff from the main student support services and academic affairs within our university, and we've released one a month at the start of each month. But we also then pair that up with an advisor of studies, Community of Practice, either online event or in person event, where we come and we meet and we talk about the theme of this month's podcast. So the most recent one, for example, was the exceptional circumstances policy. So that would be, you know, a student is due to sit an exam, but for whatever reason on the day they're either they're sick or they've had a bereavement or an exceptional circumstance happens that they couldn't have foreseen. You. We have a form that the student fills in to basically say, can I be excused? Can I set my exam as a first set without any penalty the next time? But that brings its own complications. You know, sometimes students are just genuinely sick. They have a tummy bug and they're ill, or it's because of various other different reasons, and what we do is that we recorded that podcast with member staff from Academic and Student Affairs who is responsible for that mitigation, exceptional circumstances, procedure. We chat very informally, but practically, about, well, what happens? What's the point of it? What happens when a student submits a form, where does it go? What options are available to them? Who looks at the form, what decisions are made? And a lot of this is because it's to try and take away that cloak and dagger of you know, if I refer a student to this particular service, I hand them over, and I kind of have to trust that the person that's receiving them on the other end knows what they're doing. And for a lot of our advisors, you know that's that's fine. You have to, you have to know your limits. It's not your job to be the counselor, or unless, of course, you are a counselor. But you know it's not your job to follow that student and know every minutia of what's going on. You have to stop at a certain point. But what we were trying to do is to demystify. So rather than make it a a big, heavy velvet curtain, to try and make it like a bit of a like a net curtain, that you can kind of have an idea of that, you know, Matt's over there. He's looking after this student. These are the things that he's doing. And if he needs to talk to me, then they come back to me through this particular Avenue. So we've tried to, just to get rid of demystify all the the unknowns, and then we talk about that, then in our in person or or our online meetings. And that also gives people an opportunity to meet new advisors, and also then to just, you know, bring new ideas. You know, if nobody has anything to bring up, we will say, Well, anyone got any other issues? And we usually find that someone does, and through the kind of the power of the hive mind that is in that meeting, we come to a solution, or at least offer solutions. And I have yet to be at one meeting where someone hasn't learned something, which is great because it shows that it's working. It's showing that it's what people need and what people want. 

Matt Markin  
As we get kind of towards the end of this recording a couple more questions for you. So one is, you know, I saw that you have written multiple articles, or been part of multiple articles, and one of which was published in 2021 and that was titled, When, the student becomes the teacher adapting to student feedback on the fly. And so in it, you mentioned that there has been an increasing emphasis on student as in a way, partners in teaching as well as learning and assessment. You also indicate that we're quickly recognizing that by increasing student participation in their own learning and experience, they become more successful with with their outcomes. Can you talk about this article and how you've used this concept in your classes? 

Declan McLaughlin  
So this, this stemmed from a piece of work. One of the modules that I run, anatomical sciences, has an element of group work in it, and group work has its own challenges, as many of your listeners might be aware of, but really, really, what we were trying to do is give the students an opportunity to present a teaching scenario to their peers. So students were asked to give a one hour lecture and 3540 minute practical class based on our body system. So it could be in respiratory system, urinary system, cardiovascular system, whatever happened to be. And a one hour lecture, usually between six or seven students is working out at about seven to 10 minutes each, so it's not hugely taxing. The idea would be that it prepares them for their final year presentations, and it also gives them the skill set of getting experience talking in front of other people, because ultimately, they're going to be going out into the world of work. They're going to have to have a job interview. The last thing that you want is that their first time speaking to somebody that they don't know is in front of someone that is determining whether to employ them or not. So it was meant to be about developing these transferable skills, but we ran it during successfully for a few years, but then the pandemic happened again, and what students got back to us and said is that they were they were very overwhelmed with the amount of work that they were going to have to put into this, given that they knew that they weren't on campus, that given a one hour lecture was was going to be hard going. We also happened to have a smaller year group during the 2020, 2021, academic year, for various different reasons, a lot of people. Students deferred their entry in the off chance that the next year will be back to more normal circumstances, which is totally understandable. So we were then we looked at it and said, Well, we're trying to ask three students now to give a one hour lecture, which means that they're going to have for talk for 20 minutes each, given that the waiting that this assessment was carrying it was like, that's, that's quite a bit of work. And as lectures, we were being asked to give 30-35, minute lectures. So we said, well, let's make it more reflective of what we're being asked. So I spoke with colleagues, and we had a bit of a think about it, and decided that, okay, let's reduce the burden on the the amount of time that the students have to speak for in terms of the practical class. We're not getting, getting into a practical lab. However, let's, let's imagine that they're designing a resource pack. So what we said was, okay, if you were planning a practical and you had to pick up four stations for scenarios. What would they be? And you can do whatever you want, but one of them had to be online deliverable. That's how we got the work around of still being able to have a practical class. And you know, normally, if it was a practical class, it'd be, it'd be quite stale, that we would have bones out or some micrographs, and at least, what's this cell? What does this bit do? You know, the normal things which are, which are perfectly fine, and they all have their own merits. But when we give the students the freedom to do whatever they wanted, we had students coming back with using Google Forms or something to create an escape room about, you're a red blood cell in the heart, and you have to get around the heart, so you had to, you know, pick the next chamber or tube or no valve that you're going to pass through. We had students develop a game called gastrointestinal pursuit, kind of based on the Trivial Pursuit games, where they had questions about all of the different organs in the gastrointestinal system that you would roll dice with. And the little markers were little organs, so we got them to make this resource pack. And the ingenuity and the creativity that students had was fantastic. It was like the any shackles that they had had been broken and they had the freedom to do whatever they want. And as a consequence, they all scored really well because they were coming up with ideas that I'd never seen before. They really enjoyed the module. The feedback at the end of the module evaluation was terrific, and really importantly, within about an hour of sending the instructions the students to say, okay, you don't have to speak for an hour. You have to speak for 30 minutes. You don't have to give a 40 minute practical. You design a resource pack, and you present one thing online to your peers. Almost instantaneously, the students, their student rep, said, Thank you for alleviating our fears, because that people were experiencing an awful lot of burden in the 2020, 21 academic year. That's understandable. So to have that extra little bit taken off it students were worrying about their families, their friends, whether they would even stay at university. So by trying to, I guess, loosen any pressures that we had on them, they really appreciated that, and it got really positive reviews. So we wrote it up as a short paper and published it in a periodical here back in Belfast.

Matt Markin  
Very cool. Yeah, I'm glad that you were able to share that, and I know we're at time, but I feel like I have to ask you this question. Association of British science writers media fellowship, I saw that either you are will soon be working on video content with BBC ideas that it's a it's a fellowship that's supported by the Institute of Biomedical Science. So I know you have a commitment to enhancing public understanding of science and contributing to informed decision making. I was wondering if you can just chat more, tell us more about this, this opportunity.

Declan McLaughlin  
Yes, so I am one of 13 Association of British scientific writers, media fellows for 2024 and we all get paired up with a with a media organization. I've lucky that I was asked to work for BBC ideas. And this, this really does stem from my love of science, my love of education, communication, science communication, at that. And as you said there, you know this, this information shouldn't be kept in institutions and academia. It needs to be shared with the public. And again, back to this idea of the public have a body that they need to know how it works, and I very much feel that, particularly having come out of of the pandemic and a lot of the information and misinformation that was around how vaccines are created, and you know how disease spreads, and not just with covid but just generally. Globally, I think it's it's our duty as scientists, as educators and as human beings to look out for each other and to promote positive, truthful information. So I'm all about trying to make the public more aware, to make an informed decision. Now whether your choice and how you act on it is different from what I think you probably should. I don't mind, as long as you are being informed and you're not just coming up with an idea or making a decision on a whim with no information, the science part of my brain can't deal with that. It can't understand why you would make a decision without having the background knowledge. So this is kind of marries up with that. The Institute of Biomedical Science is the governing body that regulates biomedical scientists in the UK. But it's, it's a global recognition so it approves and accredits degrees from all over the world. So it's really the world body on accreditation. So they sponsor a position, and because I'm a fellow of the IBMs, the position that I the media fellowship that I was awarded, is tied up with them. So I'm off to work with BBC ideas, which primarily create short videos for the public to watch on very varying and wide topics about, you know what types of food don't give you cancer, and you know how the space race and flying to the moon helped with modern medicine and things like that? So it's a it's sometimes very out there. Titles kind of do to pique interest, but with a very solid grounding in in science and fundamental sciences, anatomy, physiology, biomedical science, biochemistry and so on. They do. They're constantly changing their ideas there. They've recently been looking and working with kind of local celebrity here in the United Kingdom, and media personality about mental health and exercise, so looking at the physio, physiological aspects of exercise, but also then the psych, psychological, neurological consequences of that. So yes, I'd be working with the BBC in London, BBC ideas in August and September 2024 and hopefully I bring a lot of that, that learning, back to my own institution, and then implement that into my own teaching in terms of how to engage my public, which are students, but also trying to then break it out of the institution, out of the university, and put my money where my mouth is, and get out to the public in Northern Ireland And indeed the UK, and try and promote the biomedical sciences, the fundamental sciences, to the general public as well. 

Matt Markin  
And I think this just kind of sums up the idea that opportunities happen, and they just absolutely sometimes come here, and you have to just go for it. This was a great chat. Declan, I really enjoyed you being on the podcast today, getting to learn more about you and talking about this wide variety of different topics. Thank you so much.

Declan McLaughlin  
You're very welcome. I loved it. Thank you very much.