only fair to restore the balance this week having moaned about my students' laziness last week. this morning's seminar was much better: in groups they had 9 ripper suspects to study and make the case for, while i came up last with a tenth. a selected panel of absentees from last week judged their efforts and asked questions to try and undermine their evidence. most of them took it seriously and everyone contributed, some (especially a couple that generally say little) really did well. i had very little to do for 3 hours and it never dragged or needed me to cajole or encourage. in all it was, as a colleague said at lunch, the perfect teaching and learning experience. and they weren't being assessed so could easily have chosen to cruise, so well done to them :o

in the afternoon it was the turn of the first years to try and impress with their (assessed this time) group presentations. now students generally HATE presentations because this is the time they find themselves in the spotlight and at risk of looking foolish - the number one concern of most teenagers i reckon. we had three today - the first was almost excellent, very well organised, lots of good ideas backed with well expounded theory from their reading. it fell down a little because they weren't totally cohesive as a group - they were more 4 individuals and this caused them to run over time a little. the final group were better at this: they were a proper group - zipping speech between the four of them, and they had good ideas and lots of evidence but were perhaps a little dull by comparison. i think i will give them very similar 2:1 grades.

the middle lot were a bit of a shambles. here are four untypical university students: all from ethnic minorities, all first in the family to go, all from 'deprived' parts of the UK. and they lacked confidence in the limelight, they can be cocky and cheeky (in quite a charming way) in class but this brought them down here. not enough planning, stopping and starting, errors in their overheads and an air of casualness.. but, they had some good ideas, they tried, they had enthusiasm and they have contributed to discussions all year so they will pass but they will be lucky to scrape into the 2:2s :-/

overall then a much better end to a much less stressful week - i dont know if its a factor but the needles tonight were much sharper - i felt them much more and i relaxed much more in my session. i am certainly ready for a week away from here: the change of scenery and the excitement of a new place is just what i need to boost me to the end of term in three weeks.