I meant to write some posts relating to my CMALT and the LftM assignment as they came around earlier in the year, but work and life have been ridiculously hectic with the record breaking pace with which we are implementing the new VLE. The headline is that I aced both.
In 2012 I struggled with CMALT and had to submit twice, as my first submission didn’t contain enough reflection or detail relating to teaching. My revised submission scored ‘Adequates’ all round if memory serves. No such problems this time with my portfolio review – ‘Strong’ on every measure bar one ‘Adequate’. Furthermore, within a fortnight of receiving my feedback the lovely folks at ALT were asking me to become an assessor, to which I agreed, and have my first one due by the end of the week.
One piece of feedback I’ve noted was a comment that the page is very text heavy and it could have been improved with some relevant images to break it up. That is something I was conscious of, and not just in relation to the CMALT page, but to much of the content on the blog. I do try and insert images wherever possible, but it can be hard to source relevant images for much of what I write about. One can’t just go around inserting random images of bunny boos of dubious and uncertain copyright after all.
My assessment for the Leading from the Middle PG Cert was submitted on the 21st of April, and being the good responsible student that I am it was submitted well before the deadline. 7 minutes before to be exact. Those of you who follow my Twitter may have enjoyed the minor meltdown I had that evening as I hurried to get in finished off. In the end I wrote almost 7,000 words for the assignment which had a word limit of 5,000, so my Friday evening was spent editing and adding my references. All worth is though, as I got my provisional mark back last week and I nailed it – 75% – which on Sunderland’s grading scheme puts it well into the First territory had it been an undergraduate assessment.
Two down, two to go. Before the end of September I need to complete my second PG Cert, in Academic Practice. No big assessment for that one, just lots of little ones and a portfolio of evidence for the associated HEA Fellowship.
