Learning Well: Shaping the Future of Personal Tutoring and Academic Advising - Adventures in Advising

Dr. Peter Fitch and Dr. Kathryn Woods from University College London join the podcast to tell you more about the upcoming UKAT Conference in April 2025! Find out what it means to foster positive emotion and build partnerships and connections by "Learning Well." Also learn about UCL, Peter and Kathryn's career journeys, and where their inspiration is drawn from to enhance the student voice. 

Submit a proposal to the 2025 UKAT Conference! Deadline is Friday, December 20, 2024. 

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Transcript

Matt Markin  
Hi. This is Matt Markin, and welcome to episode 111, of the Adventures in Advising podcast. At the time of this recording, it's early December as we get closer to the end of 2024 and the start of 2025 so on. Today's episode, we welcome Dr. Pete Fitch and Dr Kathryn Woods, both from University College London, UCL. We're going to learn more about them as well as more about the upcoming UCAT conference. So Pete and Kathryn, welcome.

Kathryn Woods  
Hello.

Matt Markin  
Both would be here too. And before we jump into UKAT and the upcoming UKAT conference, can you tell listeners about yourselves? What was your career journey, your path into higher ed?

Kathryn Woods  
So, yeah, so my career has been really all about personal tutoring as well. I started out as an academic. I did a PhD at the University of Edinburgh in 18th century body history. At the time, loved just basically because I loved being at university. I loved the whole experience and everything that it brought with it. After that, I went and worked as a teaching fellow at the University of Warwick. I did that for a few years, and over that time, kind of got more and more kind of into the teaching side of the university, and I saw an opportunity come up to represent the faculty as the early career academic on the kind of education committee. And I joined basically because I wanted to fix things in the department around personal tutoring and make it better. I could see that there was a lot of scope, and had some ideas I wanted to bring forward. And that was really kind of then the beginning of my career in education management, first opportunity I had where I could have a job that enabled me to enact that change, not just as a representative. I jumped at it and became the Director of Student Experience for the Faculty of Arts after that at Warwick then went to goldsmiths, where I was the Dean of Students for a number of years. Led a personal tutor review of the whole university there, and made quite a lot of changes, brought in new policies, brought in new training. That was a lot of fun. And then I came to UCL two years ago, two years ago, which feels like it's been a very quick time and long time in other ways. And yeah, we're doing the whole thing again here reviewing personal tutoring. It's been an enormous task. And one of the best things about working here is I get to work with Pete as a partner in crime for all things advising and tutoring. Yeah, it's been a wild ride, but a lot of fun.

Peter Fitch  
And for me, I guess a similar kind of thing where I started off my university first degree I tried to do was a degree in nursing at King's College London. After a year and a half, realized that wasn't quite the career path I wanted to go down, so decided to withdraw, and somehow found myself then signing up to do a degree in geology, Earth Sciences, and never looked back. Went down the research route, got a job at Imperial as a research fellow, and found that I was more interested in the teaching and the kind of pgta work, and over time, moved into a teaching focused position, senior Teaching Fellow role, I completed a master's in education, began to really think there was something quite interesting about all the stuff that underpinned what I was doing in my teaching practice. And at the same time, I was taking on more roles of student support, personal tutoring. I was a senior tutor, so eventually, again, trying to work out what I wanted to do in the next part of my career. And a role came up at UCL Arena, which is UCL education staff development unit with a focus on enhancing personal tutoring, staff development provision, but also supporting education development more broadly. And over the last four years, I've been in that role, I've increased our provision. I've got more and more involved within you, kept helping with their curriculum side of what ucap provides. And as Kathryn said when she joined us, I came on board to help leading our personal tutor and review, and now I'm working on piloting some of our recommendations and updating our resources to kind of support staff in any transitions as we move forward. 

Matt Markin  
Well, thank you both for that. And I was interested to know, like, with your current roles, what's your day to day? Like with with your responsibilities?

Kathryn Woods  
Oh, no, day is the same. I think that's fair to say. So at UCL, at the moment, we're doing lots of change projects, which I think is common to many universities within the UK. So we've got this big project around personal tutoring. We're kind of we're at workshop on Friday, designing our new policy, which is quite an exciting development. And Pete's running a big pilot this year, which I'm sure he'll say more about shortly. We've also got a big curriculum transformation project, so we're trying to review all of our 800 Ed programs in one year, from January to August, and I'm in charge of that one for my sins, so it will be quite the undertaking. UCL is a big university. We've got 52,000 students. So alongside that, we've got loads of kind of exciting things that we're doing around, kind of Ed Tech and kind of looking at our systems. So yeah, no two days the same. And there's always something exciting happening at UCL. There's always a party as well. So now I've got a party with alumni, so I'm looking forward to that.

Peter Fitch  
And I guess for me, it's a similar thing. Every day is different. I often talk back to my old friends and colleagues that work in geoscience, how you can kind of predict what was going to happen each day. It was the same thing every year. And I think certainly now working in staff development every hour is different. Never mind every day. And as Kathryn said, it ranges from the personal tutoring focus either staff development workshops or having one on one conversations or meeting with a group of staff to talk about challenge. I'm really enjoying leading our pilot thinking about these recommendations, what we can change, how we can support staff to make those change. But also outside of that, I do a lot of work where I run quite a few workshops and resources around flipped learning, blended learning, active learning, in different ways, in different classrooms. I also find myself being pulled in to help with training research supervisors, and I did a couple of workshops there around inclusive supervision, but also supervision for PhD student well being. And then with an arena, we've got a lot of core provision. We do a course for PhD students who are acting in this ta kind of role. We do a course of eight weeks for brand new lecturers, for leading leaders of change and leaders of education. So literally, every hour can be a very different topic. Never mind the line management of my colleagues that I'm working with as well.

Matt Markin  
Well, yeah, definitely busy schedules for you both. So glad that you were able to get time to do this recording with us today, and then so you both work at UCL. For those that may not know much about the institution like how would you describe the institution that you work at?

Kathryn Woods  
Well, UCL is a very big organization, so we've got 94 academic departments gathered under 11 faculties. We've got 52,000 students and 16 staff. So absolutely, it's like the size of a small town. And actually, if you're ever to come to Central London, we live in Kings Cross, you are will be surrounded by UCL buildings. So we, we kind of take up very central space in the heart of London, but really exciting place. So you know, all around us, we've got organizations like the Wellcome Trust. We've got Bloomsbury gardens, we've got the British Museum, got the British Library, so we're right in the heart of London, and yeah, very kind of plugged into the capital in that way. Our catchphrase is disruptive thinking. And the thing that UCL is really known for is that our mascot, if we can say that is the dead body of Jeremy Bentham that sits in our foyer, who is the father of utilitarianism, and that kind of tells you something about how the organization thinks about itself. We've got kind of these big, grand, 18th, 19th century buildings that sit in the middle of the square, but we've got an exciting kind of new chapter. I'm sat out here today our UCL East Campus, which is based on the old Olympic Park, and that's where we've got kind of new programs coming in that are looking at everything from AI to interactive storytelling. So yeah, we encompass that kind of very traditional history and set of disciplines and traditional organization, traditional disciplinaries, spread right through to the very cutting edge. So it's a fun place to be, at UCL. There's always something going on. 

Matt Markin  
And I think this is a great segue into the main part of this recording, and that is to talk about the UKAT conference. But before talking about that in your own words, like, how would you describe what UKAT is?

Peter Fitch  
I would say. So UKAT stands for UK Advising and Tutoring, and it's pretty much I refer to it as the UK's professional association for people involved in personal tutoring and advising. It is a place for sharing practice, a place for supporting people like myself with development opportunities for staff and really, friendly community for thinking about some of the naughty or thorny challenges and bringing that pool of ideas together from across the UK and across it's not just the UK, of course. We have us people involved. We have people from across Europe as well. So it's a really lovely, lively community. 

Kathryn Woods  
It's such a nice organization, you cat. So, you know, as I was talking about before, about spread of the career, UKAT has been the kind of support and the cheerleading community all the way through that. Have you had David Grey on the podcast the CEO?

Matt Markin  
Yes, we have, yeah, it's been a few years. But yes, he has been a few years.

Speaker 1  
You have to get him back. You need to get back. So, yeah, David's obviously. A great guy, and it's just so much fun being involved with with UKAT and so many friends and colleagues that we've met through that way. So Pete and I knew each other before we came together at UCL through UKAT. So it's a great way for us to build connections, not only with each other, but with colleagues, like in the Australia, obviously, in the US. We love UKAT 10 years as well.

Matt Markin  
And that's kind of leads into this upcoming conference. So tell us more about it. When is it where is it at? What's your theme?

Peter Fitch  
So the UKAT conference is going to be held at UCL on the seventh and eighth of April 2025 the broad overarching theme is learning. Well, we decided, as it's a 10 year anniversary, wanted want it to be quite a celebratory kind of focus of the theme. So we're aiming to focus on how does personal tutoring, advising support that learning Well, ethos. So the conference sub themes are around positive emotion. So thinking about the positive psychology, celebrating success student, mental health and well being. A second one is around engagement. So thinking about theories and practice of how do we engage students, staff and wider colleagues within the personal tutoring and advising space, thinking about the actual physical space, but also online spaces, learning analytics, and, of course, the student voice in terms of helping us evaluate effectiveness and impact within the personal tutoring world as well. Number three is talking about connections and partnerships. So here between the tutor and the tutees, between tutee and tutee, but also thinking about the wider student support frameworks within the universities, from student well being services to the library to other kind of intercultural communication skills and study skills support. Then we've got one around meaning, so how we're helping students make meaning of their place within the university, their journey through the university, into and out of the university. And then the last one is around success and outcomes. So trying to think about what are the educational gains that we can help them support through personal tutoring and advising. How do we evaluate that progress and again, how do we celebrate the successes that come for the student as they journey through the university?

Matt Markin  
And I thought it's interesting that, you know, and maybe it's just the conferences I go to, but usually there's just the kind of general theme. But I thought it was kind of nice that you have it broken down and kind of have this, you know, these sub themes that go along that are connected to the more broader theme. Was there intention behind that to kind of have give more structure for individuals or attendees to know what the conference is about. How'd you all come up with that?

Peter Fitch  
Kathryn, I'm looking at you, but I can, I can talk on this one.

Kathryn Woods  
Yeah, no, I'm happy to speak. So, yeah, it was really about providing framing for learning well. So we're really keen, because it's 10th year anniversary to have really to bring the good vibes. So higher education, we do amazing, fun things, great things all the time, but it feels like a little bit bad vibe. So I know from colleagues in the US, who I was visiting not that long ago, couple of months ago, that you're feeling it a little bit too. So we wanted this to be a party, and because it's, it's a celebration the 10th anniversary. So we didn't necessarily, we wanted to frame the discussions and the presentations in that guise. So that was very much the idea about the themes. I think I've got personal and growing interest as some of this is about things that I'm interested in and having the opportunity to explore them more. So this kind of role of advising and in building that positive emotion and the positive psychology and some of the frameworks that we might use to think about that was a really big thing for me. And I think engagement and connection and partnership, also things that are interested me and I think also the other thing is that David as from the UKAT perspective, likes there to be a kind of common conversation that's happening across the sessions at the conference, so there can be some kind of big takeaways. So that was that's some of the reasons for the themes and why we organize it in that way as well. 

Peter Fitch  
I think the other one I'd add to that as well is obviously helping people think about abstracts. They're trying to motivate them for their ideas, for their abstracts. So I'll put a plug that the abstract call for submission is open until Friday the 20th of December 2024 and we're trying to get abstracts that are both standard presentations around 50 minutes, people that might want to come and provide interactive workshops for staff to learn in a different way for colleagues, there's an option for lightning talks, which are about 15 minutes, about 10 minutes with five minute questions. And there's potential for people to actually propose some discussion panels as well. So a nice diversity in terms of how people can engage and show that show and share their practice.

Matt Markin  
Yeah. Could you talk more about, like, the lightning type, round lightning sessions? Because you were mentioning that they're 15 minutes. But are there, like, multiple presentations within that certain time frame?

Peter Fitch  
Yeah, so it tends to be an hour slot is given. So it's the same kind of time slot as the. Workshops and their longer presentations, but you might have four or five of these lightning talks there, typically grouped around a similar sub theme. So again, you've signed up for that particular session, and people have the opportunity of how they want to present. They can have PowerPoint, they can just do talk and talk, talk and talk, or do whatever they want to be a bit more interactive. And we're also trying to really encourage presenters to think about bringing students along to make sure that the student voice is present on experiencing whatever that might be that they're going to talk about from their practice as well. So the idea is, again, it could be 10 minutes, five minute questions, or it could be four or five slots of 10 minute and then questions at the end, but just trying to keep that fast moving excitement and energy going.

Matt Markin  
And with the conference. Is there a registration fee that goes along with this? And is there a deadline for that?

Kathryn Woods  
The standard delegate fee is 350 pounds. If colleagues just want to come for one day either of the two days, it's 210 and for students. And as Pete said, we're really keen to have students come along. It's 210 pounds for the two days, or 105 for for one day each. If people book before the sixth of March, they can get 10 pounds off, 10% off the delegate fee. So that's a great deal. Please do sign up early, and members do get a discount as well, 14% off if they're personal members of UKAT. So that's well worth having a think about, because you get all the other added benefits of being a UKAT member if you choose that option.

Matt Markin  
Oh yeah, absolutely. And I guess aside from session, I know the conference is until April, so they're still a little whiles away. But of course, you'll blink and all sudden, it's time for the conference. But anything you can share about what attendees could expect at UKAT conference?

Kathryn Woods  
Oh, it's been so much fun. We are like organizing the activities that go around the conference just now. So two great things that we're doing. The first is that we're going to organize a museums tour so that colleagues can go around our museums, evenings at the museums. So we've got the Grant Museum of Natural History, and we've also got the Petri the Egyptology Museum, so that's a lot of fun, and that's all based around our Bloomsbury campus. And we've also got some great students who do tours of our campus with particular themes. So we've got an LGBT tour. We've got one around kind of history and of the campus in relation to black history. So there's some good things, and there's some secret tunnels that they sometimes take college people down as well. So maybe there'll be opportunity to explore that. The other thing that we're doing is our students union. We've got hundreds of student societies, and our dance societies and music societies are absolutely phenomenal. We've got a theater on campus. So the second night, we're going to be putting on a big show, our students are going to be on a big show for the UK colleagues to kind of showcase all the amazing things that they do. So it's going to be a lot of fun, and we'll have some fantastic canopies and a bit of a drinks reception as well. It is a party after all.

Matt Markin  
How does it feel for the both of you to be the conference co chairs for this 10th anniversary for UKAT? 

Peter Fitch  
Not at all nerve wracking. Yeah. I think, personally, I'm really excited. It's giving back to UKAT, but also helping give back to UCL as well. So promoting personal tutoring, a bit of recognition for the staff in the role as well, but also just helping UKAT to celebrate. It's going to be a really nice thing to be a part of. And yeah, that would be my view. 

Kathryn Woods  
And we've got a great organizing committee, so we've got people that are organizing it for next year, the next set of organizers are helping us organizers. We've got an internal team, and we've also got really experienced people at UCAT who who know all the pitfalls to help us avoid.

Matt Markin  
Anything else that you want to mention about the conference while we have you both here?

Peter Fitch  
I guess I would just flag that in terms of who should be attending, who might want to join us. It is open to anyone across the world. Obviously, it's perhaps aimed a bit more educators and maybe administrators. But students are welcome. They're welcome to submit abstracts, but they're also welcome to just join and come along and hear what's happening, perhaps for their own development and growth of their careers. But we'd also like to hear from from researchers and scholars, again, who are doing the active research within the personal tutoring advising world. So it really is open, and we're trying to make sure it's as inclusive and accessible as possible.

Kathryn Woods  
I think, for my part, I work a lot with students unions and student organizations, so really keen, and they play a really important part in the kind of overall support for students when they're at university, and building that community and belonging, and sometimes there's not always spaces for a dialog between people doing personal advising and tutoring and the colleagues that are looking after that extracurricular part of the student experience and all the sport offer and so on. And I would really encourage that community to join us at UKAT so we can. Have that, that dialog.

Matt Markin  
And I'm sure it's gonna be a fun conference, like you said, a party in its own way. And I thought, you know, we could wrap up, you know, we started this interview talking about the both of you and your journeys thus far. And I thought we could maybe circle back to the both of you and your passions. So Kathryn, I know, like research wise, you explore a lot with, like, history of student voice and UK higher higher ed and Pete, you provided a lot of support for staff and PhD students so involved in learning and teaching enhancing the student experience. What draws you both to these areas of like student voice and student experience? 

Kathryn Woods  
Well, I think for me, it University plays a really important part, I think, in a lot of young people's lives. So I think about it increasing as it's part of the life experience of growing up, particularly in the UK, where we've got 50% of people go to university, and of course, they're here to learn, but it's also about going through that life stage of like and I know it from my own point of view. How do you leave home? Well, the easiest way to leave home, well, I looked University at 17. The easiest way to leave home was to go via university, because it was and actually what you got out of that university, there's not just an education in your discipline, but how to interrelate with other people, how to work in teams, how to argue. We have a scheme at UCL called disagreeing well, where we talk about how to argue, how to argue nicely with your friends. So I think that these are all really interesting issues, and in terms of the student voice, I mean, it's absolutely fascinating topic at the moment, isn't it about how you're seeing political issues come into universities, and how that combines with activism, and how the university of almost becomes a lab for some of those issues. I think it's really, really interesting. The stuff that I'm looking at at the moment around student voice starts in the 1960s and the students as the campaigning, both at the same time about political issues, but really practical stuff in the UK in the 1960s about we don't want to have set bedtimes in our university halls. We don't want University Police and these sorts of issues and and actually, it plays a really important part those things in kind of understanding citizen participation in that kind of wider social dialog. And I think you can see, and it's an interesting phase for us to look at that today. And of course, you've got different forms of dialog, and you can see that through the history of student voice over the times that in the UK, at least, we have representative systems which are run a little bit along political lines of the elections. And then you've got focus groups, which came in in the 80s, you know, tied to tied to commercialism. And now we obviously have mass mass media that enables kind of wider social participation in some of these dialogs, such as with the student media, social media, they will come away from newspapers and onto onto the phones and so on. So it's just a really interesting kind of case study lab for some of these issues, which are obviously bigger societal ones.

Peter Fitch  
I think for me, it's I've always loved working with students, and loved helping and seeing the growth. And when you get that light bulb moment, because there's something you said, it's just one of those really big, powerful things for you as much as for the student. And I think one thing I really miss from from teaching students on the ground is my field work as a geologist. Always love getting out into the field, but I'm really loving now being able to help other staff, particularly whether they're new or whether they're facing a new challenge or a new policy that they're trying to work out how to implement. There's something very powerful for me in being able to help those staff then help the students. So it's kind of thinking about the impact that you have. And one of the things I really enjoy with my work is meeting with people to talk about those challenging topics and think about what could we do differently. As a geologist, by background, I've loved working with people in laws, in medicine, in arts and arts and history, just to see that similar challenges faced in a very different way. And what can we learn? What can we cross fertilize in terms of ideas? And I think that's, that's one of the big passions and drives that I've been very lucky to have in my career so far.

Matt Markin  
Wonderful. And last question, as you know, we approach the end of the year and the start of 2025 any words of wisdom that you want to share for our higher ed professionals across the globe as we look into the new year. Keep it good vibes.

Kathryn Woods  
Good vibes. Breathe good vibes. We got to pass it on.

Peter Fitch  
Yeah, keep positive and keep reminding yourself of your values and hopefully where you aligned with your values and how you're having an impact. 100%

Matt Markin  
Agreed. Well, Catherine and Pete, thank you so much for being on the podcast to talk about yourselves as your backgrounds as well as to talk about the upcoming UKAT conference. I know it's going to be a great conference. You're putting a lot of great work into it, a lot of time as well, and I hope that it is the party that you want it to be in April. Thank you so much.