From isotopes and religion to Learning and Teaching

Introduction

Maxinne and I (Jess) come from really different academic backgrounds: Maxinne’s PhD is in Psychology of Religion, while mine is in Environmental Science, however we both chose to use our expertise to support the academic development of science students as Effective Learning Advisers for LEADS. We work exceptionally well together, despite our diverse backgrounds, so we decided to sit down and have a wee Zoom chat about what led us to becoming ELAs, and how we use what we learned during our PhDs in our current roles. You can watch our chat via the video or read the transcript below. Special guest appearances from Mahatma Ghandi and Sean Bean.

Click here to see the transcript     ↓

Maxinne: Hello. So we're here today to speak about ourselves, really. I'm Maxinne Connolly-Panagopoulos and this is Jessica Bownes. We are from LEADS and as, I said, we'll talk a little bit about who we are and what it is we do. But I guess the most obvious thing is that neither of us have a Scottish accent. So where are you from Jess, where's your education background?
Jess: I am from Sheffield, in Yorkshire, in England. And, fun fact, I‘m from the same town as Sean Bean
Maxinne: That's cool.
Jess: My educational background is a massively mixed bag, so my undergraduate is in history, which I did because I wasn't actually really sure what I wanted to do for a career, and so I just decided to do something that I really enjoyed in school. Then I took a break after my first degree, and that was when I kind of discovered my love for science. I went back to university to the University Bradford to do my Masters in Archaeological Science and then I moved to Glasgow in 2013 to do my PhD in Environmental Science. How about you?
Maxinne: Brilliant, I'm from South Africa, not Australia and I'm…
Jess: … A lot more glamorous than Sheffield, can I just say…
Maxinne: …It depends who you ask. But yeah, it's all right. But I went to University of the Witwatersrand or Wits and I always say that the probably the coolest thing about Wits is that Ghandi went there, so that's something to be proud of but…
Jess: …Who is cooler than Sean Bean, so you're winning on many fronts...
Maxinne: Ha! I studied Psychology there; did my undergrad and did a one year of post grad - so we do an honours post grad in South Africa - and then I moved here and did my Masters in Psychology. Also took a year off and then did my PhD, which I finished just literally as of today.
Jess: Cool. Congratulations! So, what did you do for your PhD and how did you go about it?
Maxinne: I looked at a really, really niche part of Psychology, which is the Psychology of Religion and I mean, niche is probably an understatement because they are really few universities in the UK that look at that. Unsurprisingly, a lot of universities in America look at Psychology of Religion. But, I did a qualitative investigation and I spoke to people who had converted from Islam to Christianity and mostly Iranian migrants. I did a really immersive study on that and looked at it sort of from a psychological or social psychological perspective. But it's interesting because my Masters was quantitative where I looked at terror management and death management. But yeah, it's that kind of mixed bag which is quite cool. What about yourself?
Jess: I looked at a really well-established analytical chemistry technique that's used in loads of different fields to model diet. It's used in zoology and forensics and ecology and archaeology and it's really well established, but it depends on having baseline values of samples from the environment that you're looking at. So, my research basically improved the accuracy of that technique where we don't have those baseline samples, and I applied that method to look at how human diet changed when we started farming in Scotland, six thousand years ago. So, a bit of chemistry and a bit of archaeology.
Maxinne: Amazing! I think any student who has attended our classes on criticality or writing will be a little bit familiar with your work because there's loads of samples of writing from your thesis
Jess: If I can get isotope analysis into a class. I absolutely will do!
Maxinne: Fair enough! So, at what stage, did you get involved in with LEADS or Learning and Teaching in general?
Jess: I can't remember if it was the first or the second... I think it was the first year of my PhD, actually. I did my PhD in a research centre in East Kilbride and not on campus. My lab was basically on the outskirts of Glasgow, so I wanted to do a bit of teaching and wanted to feel a bit more connected to the campus, and applied to be a GTA for LEADS. And I particularly wanted to do that job because I've got this really weird mixed background, and for my Masters I ended up having to learn an entirely new academic field in a really short space of time at Masters level. I found, basically, that it was made that much easier by improving my academic development - so how you write, and how you study. By looking at how to do that properly, it made studying my subject so much easier. I basically wanted to kind of share that with students because it can make a university degree that much more accessible if you know how to go about the academic work. I joined as a GTA and stayed with that job until I finished my PhD and then I joined the team permanently as an Effective Learning Advisor. How about you?
Maxinne: Yeah, I'm sort of similar. When I was doing my PhD in the first year, I was working in a homeless accommodation in Glasgow, so it was homeless accommodation for young people between 16 and 25. And I really enjoyed working with young people and obviously still do, but I kind of got to the stage where I realised that I had to just try and throw myself into academia fully. It was really difficult to be part of two separate worlds. And I also at that stage, having done psychology for my whole academic career, I thought, okay, do I want to be a psychologist? But as it went along, I realised, no really academia is where I want to be. And so LEADS was a great way for me to get involved. Same as yourself. I started as a GTA. And what really attracted me to it was Let's Talk About [X] and [X]position; the ability to work with students from all over the University improving their research skills, improving their presentation skills. So that was really, really appealing to me. And I guess it sort of stayed within the vein of working with young people and working to improve different areas of their lives. So, same as you, that sort of carried on and as of last week, I'm officially a full-time member of the team! Well, I guess we should explain a little bit about what it is that we do. We're using terms like ‘ELA’ or ‘LEADS’; could you sort of clarify some of those?
Jess: Yeah so, we're both ELAs (ELA is Effective Learning Advisor) and there's one for each of the four colleges at the University of Glasgow, so I'm Effective Learning Advisor for the College of Science and Engineering and I guess, well, when we're not in the midst of an apocalypse and working from our respective bedrooms, the majority of my time is spent either teaching or advising students. So, I do classes, both college specific (but not subject specific) classes on different subjects like academic writing, criticality, how to go about a dissertation and how to revise for exams, that kind of thing. And I do those classes, both for anyone who wants to drop in from my college, but I also teach within subject modules as well; so I do specialist classes for certain subjects. I also do one-to-one appointments, so I have regular office hours where students can come and see me and get one-to-one academic advice. That's the kind of student-facing side of things, and then the rest of the time is spent doing a bit of research and working on projects in Learning and Teaching. I guess we have very similar jobs, but is there anything else you'd add to that?
Maxinne: No, I mean I do the same role as you, but just for a different college. I guess what we would want to add is that we both work on Let's Talk About [X] and [X]position, which is sort of across the full University. Actually, I would 100% encourage people to have a look at our website, www.talkaboutx.net, and have a look at what we're doing there. And similar to yourself, I do a little bit of research as well.
Jess: Nice. Okay, so is the research you did, or your experience from your PhD, relevant to the kind of stuff that you do now?
Maxinne: Yeah, absolutely. Some of the research I do is I've looked at PASS or Peer Assisted Studies Schemes and Peer Assisted Learning. Looking at how effective this is, where does it work the best in which subjects, as well as what kind of structure of a PASS works well. So student lead, academic versus pastoral, things like that. And even though that's really far from psychology of religion, it's really not! A lot of it has to do with student belonging and a sense of identity and a sense of cohesion as well as how we acquire learning. So, it definitely is an overlap, and I think the biggest overlap would have to be the methods. As I said, I'm a qualitative researcher, so the PASS investigation was focus groups as well as interviews. So definitely there's 100% overlap, which is great. What about you?
Jess: I am kind of the complete opposite! My PhD research was entirely lab-based and it was entirely quantitative, so I can't really take anything directly from that kind of research and apply it to what I do now, but the principles of research like desk-based research and critical analysis, all of those things I learned during the course of my PhD I apply to my job. But for the most part it's been a massive learning curve again to come to and Learning and Teaching as an Effective Learning Advisor and do more qualitative research so yeah, it's really cool.
Maxinne: Yeah, like constantly evolving and learning. Yeah exactly. I guess we're sort of running out of time here, but I'll just sort of end things by asking what kind of research or upcoming projects are you working on at the moment?
Jess: At the moment I'm writing a book. Actually, I have just come back from maternity leave, so my project for the last year has been raising human life! But now I'm back, I'm writing a book that's a guide for science students on how to do their own research and how to write a dissertation.
Maxinne: Brilliant! I can't wait to read that and I'm sure we'll use it loads for our classes. That's exciting! Right now I'm starting to look at mature students and I'm really interested in how mature students - the older mature students as well as this middle point between 25 and 30 who are still mature students - how they integrate into the university, how they engage and it's sort of rough as you can hear!...
Jess: Actually, as a complete aside, I did some research a few years ago on how the university can better support the transition of PGT students, who are often mature students, from undergraduate to postgraduate study and we published our guidelines, so I can send you a copy of that if it would be useful.
Maxinne: Yeah, amazing. I think this is actually a perfect organic illustration of how broad Learning and Teaching is and also about how, you know, we're both from really different, not only cultural and geographic backgrounds, but also education backgrounds and research backgrounds and we're able to kind of...
Jess: yeah, we can still collaborate.
Maxinne: It's cool, man.
Jess: Yeah. Awesome! Good chat!

What is Let’s Talk About [X]?

Let's Talk About [X] is a multidisciplinary conference that runs every February for 2 days. The conference allows undergraduates from the University of Glasgow to showcase their research and their contribution to a wider audience. Students from across all four Colleges give 10-minute presentations or posters where they communicate the main findings of their research.

It's a unique opportunity which allows students to develop research communication, presentation, and public engagement skills. Those who are accepted as presenters receive 1:1 training with research-active PhD students, as well as a series of classes from LEADS, which guides them towards making excellent presentations.

Click here for more information on the conference, and here to see some of the presentations over the years.

Authors:

Dr Jessica Bownes, ELA for CoSE

Dr Maxinne Connolly-Panagopoulos, ELA for MVLS