It is quite sad to see the year end, and our SAN meeting was the closing ceremony…

Closing ceremony of a wonderful year, full of funny, skilled, smiling, and active people. It seems to me that this year, the SAN was particularly involved and keen to get into groups and do stuff, promote IBL, … This may be because we cannot get very mych involved in our own departments, or because we can see the benefits of what we do, and the positive feedback we receive. The Staff-Student Symposium was a reflect of what students are able to do in inquiry-based learning, without even knowing this concept. Imagine what would happen if they did! I think they could do even better, with the support and the facilities CILASS offers. For me it has been a rewarding year, because I have been able to learn more thanks to the technology group, I have met people, and seen how people try to integrate IBL into their teaching. I wish I could study every subject, because they are sooo interesting! Anyway enough nostalgy, I wish a lot of success and happiness to all those are leaving, and a good holiday break A huge thank you to you all.

            This morning I have been chairing sessions at the annual Staff-Student Symposium, a daunting process at first! There were three sessions this morning, each lasting 30 minutes with the aim of 15 minutes of presentation from the staff and students and then 15 minutes of discussion between the presenters and the audience.      The first session was presented by students from English and Drama called ‘Casting the Audience’ and was a great interactive session illustrating the importance of how an audience reacts to a performance and the impact on that performance. Introducing the session was great fun, but I wasn’t looking forward to the part where I would have to stop them talking thought, via a series of yellow, then red flashcards! Luckily the guys were great and stuck to their time slot which meant the next session was able to get set off on time.

            Risk in architectural learning was the next session which discussed the importance of assessing risks and involving them in a project from the start so that ideas could be developed. The Ma Arch students also worked with first years which we found was rewarding for both the 1^st years and the masters students. This session over ran slightly and I managed to break up the interesting discussion with a final question before leading the groups next door for the Bible session, which gave a really interesting presentation from the four students perspective on how the module was taught and the IBL approach used, which aided the students more in their own learning.

            I enjoyed being the chair of sessions in the morning for the Staff-student symposium, and it wasn’t scary as it was first made out!

 

After dessert, the place seens to have gotten a little quieter… We don’t even seem to be seeing any of the usual drifters about the place! I guess it’s a good time for some individual reflection on how the day has been going and how different people have responded to examples of IBL explored in the different sessions. Unfortunately my colleague is still envious of those of us who have had a chance to go to a session. The poor girl has been stuck on reception. But if she had gone to the last session on IBL-infused theater she would have learned that people have found innovative ways to use technology in a thespian setting.

For a creative writing piece I compiled during first year I had to focalise my writing through the mindset of the oppressed female slave Harriet Jacobs, envisaging a life of imprisonment, tyranny and injustice. 

In preparation for writing this short story (about a slave eventually finding freedom) our seminar group visited the Wilberforce Museum in Hull. It was an extremely interesting way to gather research as we viewed paintings, historical artifacts and documents in order to heighten our understanding of the context of the slave narratives we were studying; these research skills greatly enriched the context of our writing.

The assignment specified that we draw on any aspect of the museum which particularly interested us. I based my story on a section of the Museum labelled “The Maroons”; a section based on reports of runaway slaves. These runaways created maroon camps in opposition to the white slave traders. I thought this was an unusually positive response to the slave trade’s oppression; this account of positive revolution provides an inspiration to present issues of oppression and provided an excellent basis for spurring creative thouht.

This field trip proved to be an extremely useful IBL experience, and more importantly opened up the world of CILASS to me as it made me aware of IBL undercurrents running throughout the whole University!

 

 

For one of our modules last year we had to make a 6 document portfolio developing different skills that would be useful right across the dicipline of Biblical Studies. One of the most interesting essays was to write about the story of King David from the perspective of his wife.

I did have some trouble doing this, as i am a western male living in the 21st century and she was a female Hebrew princess living around 2500 years ago. I had a week to do the exercise, and after spending a few days on something that was not very good i decided to start again and spent a whole monday trying to get into this lady’s mind!

It was a rather odd experience, and i felt slightly odd when i finished. I think i had to watch some football and drink some beer afterwards!

The exercise was very useful though, to get a different perspective of the narrative in 1 Samuel – and also for use across other modules. This semister i have done a Hebrew text module on the books of Jonah and Ruth. Using the skills gained in the first semester i was able to see new perspectives on events in these books, but more than that to realise that other characters in the story must have had an opinion.

James Gould, Biblical Studies, level 2.

Although it was wonderful to meet and greet all those staff and students who came this morning to the symposium; I was very jealous of what was going on in cilass 7.  There was a lot of stamping of feet and cheering, far too much fun for a symposium surely? 

Sofia Stephenson

We’re still posted at reception, dutifully awaiting more visitors to sign in. There are still leaflets to distribute and name badges to make! We’ve had a pretty good turn out so far and it’s only 10.40am. Best of all we’re in a prime position to abuse the coffee machine and danish pastry supplies!

Ellis Marriott

When I arrived bright and early this morning, I was greeted by hundreds of Cilass balloons and some very squeeky voices! Spreading the message of the SSS around all 6 floors of the IC was great. We felt like ninjas, sneaking up on people and delivering flyers and IBL stickers. Feeling confident that there was no doubt people could miss the wonder of The Aftershock, we returned to the Cilass desk to welcome people to the event which I am sure will be a great success!

Lottie Needham

Just wanted to comment on how dedicated all us ambassadors are! To get 15 students all out of their bed and down to the IC before 9am on a friday morning I think really demonstrates our dedication to CILASS. This dedication comes from the belief we all have in what CILASS promotes and hopefully today will be a demonstration of the fun that is IBL. CILASS is looking fantastic with all the balloons and I think this really sets the tone for the day – celebrating IBL.

Barbara Webb