Barnard Castle School

I had an excellent visit to Barnard Castle School yesterday and enjoyed lunch in a very traditional dining room with panelled walls and good food! The students were very articulate in explaining to me how they use resources for their coursework (especially Wikipedia, of course) and we had some interesting discussions about how english and chemistry students approach their information needs. From originally telling me that chemistry only needs facts, the students persuaded each other that actually there are times when it also deals in opinions and shades of grey, for example when considering global warming but also when thinking about theories in general.

Caroline Shovlin in her School Library

NTF Symposium

The NTF Symposium this week was an opportunity to meet and network with other National Teaching Fellows from around the UK. It was great to catch up with old acquaintances but I also met lots of new people and have great hopes of working with some of them in future in areas such as IL as a threshold concept in nursing and IL and transition. Arti Kumar from the University of Bedfordshire is writing a book about employability and tells me there is a chapter which addresses how IL can add value to employability. One to watch out for!

Christine Bruce at Durham Cathedral