Interview with Sian and feedback

The first interview went well today. Room for improvement certainly, however it seemed to go along smoothly. It ended up being a bit rushed at the end - and that after an hour and forty minutes. As well as needing to reduce the number of questions, Sian was good enough to email later in the day with the following feedback:

Hi James

Nice job this morning - I found it interesting and stimulating, and you made me think again about certain things (training for example!).

A few thoughts that came to mind:

1. As you know it was possibly a bit long, so I think you maybe need to ask your people to set aside 1.5 hours rather than 1, or reduce the questions a bit
2. I kept wondering when the examples were going to come up - maybe mention these early on and say what you'd like people to do with them - either to use them illustratively throughout, or that you'll ask specific questions about them later
3. I'm not sure how much you are pursuing narrative now in these interviews, but I felt that you could have asked one or two 'life story' questions early on, even just as an ice-breaker. For example, asking people whether they had any exposure to multimodal methods in their own degrees, and/or what it is that has drawn them around to the practice of multimodality in their own courses (I guess you did open with this latter, to an extent).
4. Sometimes it felt slightly as if you wanted me to say things that aligned with an existing agenda - eg the need to re-think assessment, or the need for training - eg this exchange:

[10:11:46 AM] JAMES LAMB: This would seem to be a significant reconceptualisation of how the tutor is traditionally seen.[10:12:02 AM] JAMES LAMB: And you've already talked about the need to re-think assessment...

[10:12:23 AM] Sian Bayne: Yes - except I see this as a 'tendency' rather than a seismic shift

[10:12:41 AM] JAMES LAMB: That's useful - thanks for clarification...

[10:13:38 AM | Edited 10:15:04 AM] JAMES LAMB: Does this tendency then - alongside the need to rethink assessment - call for us to rethink the role and training of tutors in the digital classroom?

Obviously you *do* want people to talk about this, so it's really just a question of nuancing - I don't think I had actually said we needed to re-think assessment, at least not explicitly - so that moment struck me as very briefly jarring.

A minor point though, as overall though I think your interview style was very good indeed - focussed, friendly, and to-the-point without being overly restrictive or directive.

Best of luck with the upcoming ones - I hope we don't all fundamentally disagree and explose the MSc's assessment framework as riven by conflict and inconsistency! ; )

all the best,

Sian