Marking blues are here again...

It's been a while since I've blogged regularly. My sporadic posts have been ordinary and I felt like I was forcing myself to write them. I've felt like I've had stuff to say but I've been too exhausted to put it into words that make any sense. I make no guarantees that this will make any sense either but Ben has just announced a blogging comeback, and I was feeling inspired reading about it. So here I am.

Life has felt very full on for the past few months. Work has been demanding...both the teaching at Uni and at the same time learning all the skills I need to rehabilitate people who've had strokes, fractures and amputations. An interesting world. I'm going to blog about some of the memorable moments and the ups and downs of working with old people when I get going again.

In the meantime, I'm in assignment marking mode. I have two assignments left to mark out of twenty. You would think that would be incentive to knock the last ones over and get it done, but instead I find myself looking for ways to get out of it (you know... I haven't blogged for over a month, but now that I have to mark stuff, blogging becomes a far more important priority...). This assignment involves prescribing a client a wheelchair and an electric mobility scooter. Since I started marking them, I find myself analysing every wheelchair and scooter I see when I am out and about. We live in an area heavily populated with retirees so there are plenty of them out there.

Tomorrow's Uni teaching session is on dressing techniques for people with disabilities. There's a big focus on doing things one handed. I have reviewed fastening a tie and putting on a jumper and a button up shirt one handed, and I have finally mastered the art of one handed shoe lace tying. I didn't quite get there last year, which led to a few embarrassing moments in the tutorial, so I was determined to fix that up this year. It's actually pretty easy, and kind of cool. So cool, in fact, that I'm going to teach my kids how to do it. If I can find some pictures online, I might even blog it so that you'll all know what to do when you have a stroke or your hand gets amputated.

Enough procrastinating. If I can get through one more paper before bed, I'll be feeling great about having just one more to do tomorrow.

Attention students.. (warning...grumble ahead)

No, you cannot all have High Distinctions for the assignment. The bell curve doesn't work that way. And believe it or not, some of you didn't even answer the questions you were asked. That is why you failed.

And to those of you who are haggling for what amounts to maybe an extra half a mark if you are very lucky, why carry on about it when you aren't in any danger of failing the unit? It is a waste of my time to review your assignment over little quibbles that don't matter. Move along, people, just let it go. Put your energy into studying for the exam so you can blitz that instead, it's worth half the marks for the unit so you're better off doing well in that.

Sorry to everyone reading this, none of whom are likely to be students from my tutorial group. But I just needed to vent for a moment. I have put in many hours of time marking over the last couple of weeks, we had to put off a birthday party for one of our children so I could get the majority of the marking done, and now, having gotten all of the marks into the grade centre, I have come down with a bad cold and I can't go to work at my other job tomorrow. At the moment, the contract I am on doesn't include sick leave so if I don't work, there is no pay. And even though I am not at work, I am probably going to spend at least part of my day (that is supposed to be spent in resting and recovering) in addressing people's silly assignment questions.

My husband was having a conversation with a student supervisor from a different University at work today, but it went along very similar lines to the above. Students these days want to question everything, even when the feedback they are given is blatantly clear. I don't remember ever questioning any low marks I got when I went to University, you just took it, dealt with the disappointment, acknowledged that you hadn't put in as much effort as you needed to and used the feedback to improve the next paper.

Sigh. Times have changed. I blame the University for encouraging it though. When you change your tag line to "Where it's all about U", then I guess the students really do start thinking it's all about them....and then respect for the teaching staff disappears. It's a slippery old slope.

Something I've been thinking about today

Yesterday, a couple of students in my tutorial group disclosed to me that they have Asperger's Syndrome. It got me thinking about whether someone with Asperger's could make a good health professional. The ability to take the other person's perspective, and empathise with another's situation, is often not great among this population. I've noticed that one of these students can become quite argumentative when I've challenged or questioned them about a point they've made. I thought at the time that teamwork might be a bit of an issue for this person in the future.

I suppose the answer to my question is that it depends. On the person, where they end up working (some OT jobs are quite structured, a person with AS could probably cope in that kind of setting), on how flexible they can be and whether they can learn to cope with change.

I'm still not sure though. I think they could get through the OT course. They might even make it through a job interview. But I think they might struggle in an actual workplace. One of the things I love about OT is that every day is different. There might be some people with AS who would find that very difficult to deal with.

So...we're really all the same, aren't we?

Here's a direct quote from the essay I've just been marking:

"Most of us in Queensland do similar daily activities due to our culture, background, economic position, personal interests, values, the climate and lifestyle."

Well, I'm glad I no longer live on the Queensland side of the border then.

Considering this essay is supposed to be about individual differences in interpretations of people's occupational roles and activities, I actually found it rather funny.

This person hadn't referenced the above statement, so my comment on it was that they needed to provide a source to back it up. But I also said that I didn't believe it was true.

Ah, first year Uni students of the "just out of high school" variety. So little life experience, so much of the world they have yet to discover...

It's assignment marking season again

The less said about that, the better. It's going to be an awful week or two while I try to sort out people's weird logic on what occupations, roles and activities are. Not to mention their unusual referencing skills.

On the bright side, my new job started well. Because I've never done rehab before, no one really expects me to know anything. So I can watch other therapists and learn from them, something that I haven't done for ages. My first client was a 96 year old, a bit of a change from all the little people I'm used to seeing!

It also seems to be a pretty relaxed environment, although at present the ward isn't particularly busy. I guess if it filled up, it might seem more stressful. But I'm noticing that in rehab, they're happy for everything to take a long time. Most of my experience working with adults has been in acute hospital wards, where the pressure is on to get everyone home as quickly as possible.

The other good news is that the two occupational therapists I'm working with there are both Christians. One of them is moving on to a different caseload in a few weeks' time, but for the next week or two it will be good to be able to talk to them about church stuff without feeling too awkward.

Here's a boring way to spend an evening

I'm looking for a YouTube video of a preschool or early school aged child putting on their shoes and socks. You'd think it would be pretty easy to find one. Sadly, that's not proving to be true.

Listening to an online lecture

About no-lift policies. For work. The students have to do a quiz next week so I need to be able to make intelligent comments on their answers to the questions.

I knew there was a good reason that I chose to work with small children. I think this could be the most boring lecture I've ever listened to. It was putting me to sleep so I'm blogging in here to stay awake.

Had my first tutorial this afternoon. All the dismal failures I had last semester have been given the boot for now because they have to repeat that subject next year before they can do this one. I have fifteen students in my group. Four of them I already know from last time around. The rest seem nice enough. One super-keen person who wanted to hang around afterwards to ask lots of questions that I couldn't answer properly.

I think it will be an okay semester once I learn how to use the hoist and the rest of the equipment. I had my first practice session yesterday. I transferred Chris from a bed to a chair (and back again) using one of the hoists at his work. He's a big guy. If I can move him around a few more times, I think it should all be cool by the time the hands on equipment session comes around in a couple of weeks.

One of those weeks

Not a good one.

Yesterday I had one of those days where I felt like nothing I said came out the right way. As in open mouth, insert foot. Bible study is not a good place for this to happen. I apologised to someone I realised I may have said the wrong thing to, but there may be others whom I may have inadvertently offended. Sorry.

Today, I discovered a student who was in my tutorial sessions last semester has complained about the way her assignment was marked and has demanded a re-mark. Well, actually, she signed an affidavit so her mother could complain on her behalf. I think that says it all, really. But it still hurts. I wonder if I could have handled her situation differently (probably not), or whether it would have made no difference either way.

The subject I am tutoring this semester (which starts next week) appears challenging. To give you some context, my area of specialty at work is paediatrics, in particular young children with delayed development. This subject involves practical lab sessions where I will be teaching the students how to assist adults with strokes or other physical impairments to transfer and move around in bed, how to prescribe wheelchairs and pressure cushions, and how to use equipment to assist with dressing and eating. Part of the assessment is viva based, so I assess their ability to do some of these things in a practical scenario-based session. Think "blind leading the blind" and you have a pretty good summation of how I'm feeling about that right now.

Chris has offered to set up some equipment at his workplace so I can practise beforehand, and hopefully not look too stupid when the sessions come around. I am filling the shoes of someone who had vast experience with all this stuff. I am not in the same league.

The kids' school was seeking people to take billets from a high school band that is visiting the primary schools in our area next week. They are only billeted in pairs and we only have one sofa bed so I didn't say yes to start with. But when nobody offered to help and they got really desperate, I thought I should stick my hand up to take somebody. So now we have two male trumpet players staying at our house for two nights next week. They're aged 18 and 16. Good in that I'm thinking they've toured before and should be relatively responsible. But they probably eat a lot. And we'll all have to be on our best behaviour for those two days, which means the days after that might not be pretty.

Sorry. That's all pretty grumbly. But that's life here this week. I'd better get praying for patience, calm, and the ability to quickly get up to speed on how to position an adult stroke patient in a bed and chair.

Got offered some more work yesterday

They must have liked me enough. So I will probably say yes to running a three hour lab session once a week. It all starts up again in a couple of weeks (the Uni runs three sessions each year, but the occupational therapy students only study in Sessions 1 and 2).

Not much of a break but hopefully I can have a nice long weekend watching some West Wing and chilling out before things get busy again.

Work work work

Will it ever end??

Of course it will. Just two more papers to go, and then the ones from the Special Consideration crowd are coming in at the end of the week. And then the students have their exam the following week.

While all this is going on, we have to help two kids write talks for the public speaking comp at school, and help the 10 year old (it's his birthday today!) build a diorama of the solar system. Essentially this is a craft activity, but we have to avoid the use of the "c" word because he has a significant aversion to doing anything even slightly craft related. He goes away to school camp for all of this week so it's going to be an intense week or two when he comes back to get this all done.

This is our first diorama. I have no memory of ever making one at school, although perhaps I did make one and it was a fairly painless experience. I'm hoping we can survive this one. We just need to find the right language to keep him engaged with the task.

A Google search is not the same thing as a literature search

Some of my students appear to have missed this point somewhere.

Not good enough, people.

Assignments Round 2

Back into marking this week here. This time, my group did this assignment in pairs, so there are only half as many as last time. This is good.

We are also giving them less individualised feedback than last time. So I just have to write a few summary comments and highlight the box on the marking criteria form for their score. Also good.

I just read through one of them, in which the words "indisputably" and "inarguably" were greatly overused. By the end of it, I wanted to argue every point that was in a sentence that involved either of these words. Just because it was entirely possible to do so.

Getting there...

The assignments are getting quicker to do. Some of them are even sounding a little bit interesting.

One of the tasks they had to do for it was to complete an activity diary of everything they did for a week. I found a few who go to church (one of them was a Mormon). One of these people wrote that a human's divine purpose in life was to achieve results and experience personal fulfilment and enrichment. I asked if she could give me a reference for that because I said you could argue alternative viewpoints (for example, as cited from the Westminster Shorter Catechism, "Man's chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever....").

I didn't actually include that last bit in my comment on her assignment. But it was tempting.

The pain continues...

The assignment marking is dragging on here so I haven't had as much time to do fun stuff like looking at YouTube videos or finding funny pictures to share with whoever might still be hanging in there reading anything that I post here...

I think the assignment I am about to start on might be one of the better ones. At least this person seems to be able to string a coherent sentence together. Some of the ones I've done so far have entire paragraphs that consist of a single sentence. It is hugely difficult to read, let alone to follow whatever point they are trying to make. Short. Concise. It's much better, people.

And there are a couple of plagiarism cases that I'm going to have to look into a bit more. They're from the ones who are chronically unprepared for sessions, regularly turn up late, and then don't do anything productive while the tutorials are on. And so, predictably, they are now going to crash and burn.

Marking assignments is painful

I managed to get through one very difficult essay this evening.

Sigh. Another twenty more to go. I hope there will be easier ones than this.

Singing the group assignment blues....

Group assignments used to drive me nuts when I was at University. I'm such a self-sufficient and perfectionistic type that I hated having to depend on other people to get stuff done and see it not done to the (perhaps overly high) standard that I would have produced.

So the second assignment for the subject I am tutoring at Uni this semester involves an assignment done in pairs. They have to come up with a contract on who will do what, and then produce an essay about a client group that is commonly seen by Occupational Therapists.

Most of them came pretty well organised and with topic preferences sorted out. I was able to give them all their first or second choices so that was good.

But there are always the annoying few who don't have their act together. Two of them had paired up but nominated no topics and then disappeared at the end of the session without coming to see me to have a topic allocated (even though I asked them to wait until they had one before leaving). Now I'm cranky with them for not listening and want to give them one of the harder topics to do. Just so they get the message that paying attention to what I tell them is important. Funnily enough, tonight's session was about professional communication skills. Nice that they followed it up with a big fail on listening.

And one guy had no partner, no topics nominated and asked if he could do the assignment on his own. I felt some sympathy for him but umm....no. This is a group assignment, buddy. Unfortunately there were no other unpartnered people left for him to pair up with. So now I have to check in one of the other tute groups to see if there's any other spare people.

Other than the disorganised people, I'm really enjoying this new job. Most of the students are really keen and enthusiastic about the material and join in with the activities. The subject/unit co-ordinator is excellent. I've worked with her before so I knew she would be well organised. Tonight's topics and activities were fun and interesting.

I'll enjoy it while the fun lasts. Their first assignment is due in on Easter Sunday. Twenty one 1500 word essays will then need to be marked...I can see that being a lot less fun.

First tutorial written

I scored the topics of basic task analysis/problem identification, goal setting and documentation. I tried to think of ways to make them exciting but let's be honest here. They're pretty dry. Trying to find a couple of humorous YouTube videos to add to the task analysis section.

I only have to write one more. That one's on confidentiality and the therapeutic relationship. I feel plenty of case studies coming on for that one.

Today at church...

...a student from my uni tutorial group turned up.

I hope she wasn't put off by seeing me there and that she'll come back again. We don't have lots of University students at our church but there are a few of them, and the number is slowly growing.

Today at our congregational meeting at church there was discussion about starting a second congregation because our main one is getting quite large. Maybe we should be looking at a Unichurch option. There are a couple of Universities around here. It could be a really good ministry to get into.

Time to get tough...

Sigh. Getting tough isn't my style really, but seriously.

Student, please don't turn up to the tutorial sessions without your lecture notes and textbook that you were told to bring to assist you with the activities we would be doing.

Don't then respond, when I show you the lecture notes I took the time to bring with me (printed in fast draft so not as easy to read) to help you with what I am trying to explain, with "I can't read that."

And don't then turn around and chat to your friends, look at the KONY video on your iphone (yes, that was silly of you to show me what you were looking at!?) and do no work for the rest of the session.

Yes, I can tell there were three of you in a group of four who were sitting there doing nothing when you should have been working. This stuff needs time to get your heads around. Don't waste it.

Yes, I know you will probably blame me and the subject co-ordinator when you crash and burn in the assignments and exams. And give us negative feedback on the subject.

But please, people, a bit of effort on your part is required here. You can choose to learn or you can choose to do nothing. If you choose to do nothing, we don't want you in the profession.

Thank you. That is all.

I feel better now.

So my new work starts next Wednesday

And the notes for my first tutorial have arrived. It sounds like fun. It's all about referencing using APA style and telling the students they aren't allowed to just copy stuff from a book, article or webpage and pretend they made it up themselves. Oh, and a cool getting to know you game where you have to share with the group what super power you would most like to have (??).

I discovered that there are a lot more things you can reference these days in academia. Even posts from blogs, which I found a bit amusing. Back when I was an undergraduate at University, books and journal articles were pretty much it for reference sources. Even when I was doing my Masters thesis seven years ago, those were still the main sources of material.

Not anymore. There's been a big information explosion out there, people.