Meeting in Christchurch

After the weekend with Alison Holmes in Christchurch I stayed on for a meeting at Canterbury University of the project team for which I am an external 'critical friend'. The project has a snappy title: "Unlocking Student Learning: the impact of Teaching and Learning Initiatives (TLEIs) on First Year University Students" and is funded by the New Zealand Teaching and Learning Research Initiative. I wrote all about this in last year's blog - http://ranaldnz.blogspot.com/ - when I also visited the project at Massey University in Palmerston North.

On this occasion I was to facilitate their session using Open Space Technology and, so far as I can judge from their comments, the participants found it useful.

Those there included Lorraine Stephani (ex Strathclyde University now University of Auckland), Tom Angelo (ex-US, now Victoria University, Wellington), Kogi Naidoo and Gordon Suddaby from Massey, Neil Haigh (Auckland University of Technology), Sarah Stein (Otago), Billy O'Steen (Canterbury) and Tony Barrett (Lincoln University). I know many of the people very well from previous visits and ICED or SEDA Conferences.

In the photo, taken at Christchurch Airport as we waited for flights back to our various destinations are, from left to right, Lorraine, Sarah, Neil, Kogi, Tom, me and Gordon (kneeling).

Everyone flies everywhere in New Zealand as there are virtually no trains and the roads are slow. This means that everyone has lots of airmiles so we could use the Business Lounge at the airport - very civilised!