courses

I spend a lot of time attending, supporting and listening about coures run by CCU: a group about 10-15, whole day session (workshop) a few times during a semester, folder with all the materials you need (handbook, workbook, handouts...), a team work as a method of teaching and learning...

Get Talking
The very basic course for CCU. Sometimes I get the impression that everything starts with the Get Talking module... As a part of my job I investigate it's roots interviewing members of CCU's staff. The very initial version of my conversation with Kate Gant:

Kate runs the special shorter Get Talking module for members of My Health Matters. During the course they learn the Participatory Appraisal methods (that are usually illustrated by colourful notes sticked to a board)  and work on their own projects. All of them are about community consultations and improving peoples' well-being in the local area. The results before the end of November.

Volunteering
Volunteering sector is more and more important - as the authors of the 'Big Society' idea convince. During the first session it turned out that the most experianced member of the grup has volunteered for about half a century whilst the least experianced (it was probably me...) 1/10 of this time... At the end of every course students have to give a presentation and a piece of 'reflective writing'.

Speaking Up
The very special course that helps people to... speak up. The good example for how a univeristy can be inclusive for poeple with different learning disabilities (using pictures, graphs, games, work in group, support from volunteers...). For the Wednesday 3rd of November I prepared questions about Stoke-on-Trent for "Who wants to be a millionaire" - Miniature of Stoke-on-Trent helped me a lot (done by Junction 15, with whom o.o. works).

Getting Communities Involved
This is the course that we all (o., o.o., and j.) can take part in and the one that I partcipate as a student only. General introduction (what is a community, why and how to involve people), case study, lecture about social exclusion (that was the first session), than: a bit of the political history of UK, workshop about a participation and afternoon with the community arts. And it was enought to see about a half of CCU's staff as the lecturers :)

I also sit in some lectures from Department of Drama, Performance &Treatre Arts that I really enjoy:
Theatre Production (a lot of new words in English that I do not know how to translate into Polish)
Reading Theatre - The Semiotics of Performance (sounds familiar, however it took me a while to realise that Checkhov The Cherry Orchard = Czechow Wiśniowy sad...)
From Anger to Politics: Post-war British Drama (thank Derrick Cameron for introducing myself...)


Weekends (with o.o.):
Birmingham: nobody on the streets + Pen Room Museum (in the old manufacture of nibs - you can do one by yourself; hidden place worth visiting)
London: forgotten during the last month spirit of metropolia; half a day in Tate Modern.

o.o.

Further economic education:
I spent one of the mornings with the economic developement officer from the City Council (thanks to Paul) talking about the economic department, the economic problems in the area of Stoke-on-Trent and having a tour around the city (I had thought that I know Stoke quite well just now, but I was wrong: Festival Park, commercial district, Keele Univeristy...)

o.