Reflection THREE

Reflection Three – Relationship and marketing
In the last reflection I mentioned that I need to build and maintain relationships with the associate teachers. In July this year, the practicum administrator and I went to the University of Canterbury and met with our former external monitor. We learnt so much about how they run the practicum successfully for both on-campus and distance learning programmes.

How do these ideas reflect on my position?
After the Christchurch trip, I decided to have a seminar with the associate teachers who had MIT students this year. I wanted to use this opportunity to thank the associate teachers for their hard work, and for networking. To make it work, I had several meetings with the management team, the Faculty’s business manager, and many discussions with the practicum administrator. I had to plan the whole process very carefully as I had to try to minimise the expenses. I didn’t expect we would have a big number of enrolments, and finally we had approximately 140 associate teachers attend the seminar. The night went really well.

What obstacles did I face?
I didn’t have any obstacles in the planning and marketing processes. It went smoothly and I was so grateful to have such a wonderful management team to support the event. For me personally, the biggest obstacle was getting support from staff. I requested staff to help as we had a big group of people. However, there was only one teaching staff helping and few teaching staff came to support the seminar. I also heard some nasty gossip about me after the seminar.

What to do in the future?
Next year I will do the same seminar again, as the management team and practicum team believe that it is a very good opportunity to show how good MIT’s B.Ed. programme is, as well as to acknowledge the associate teachers’ hard work with our students.