As outlined in my previous post, there are a number of recommendations which arose from my research which our course team will look to explore and resolve.
These are:
- Better promoting studio opening times to students
- Exploring sources of funding to restart our cross-year workshop programme, which students and staff repeatedly cited and successful and popular
- Our technician will more actively promote the shared playlist and foster conversations with students about how they want to use and/or personalise the space
When it comes to my specific intervention (noodle socials), this was sufficiently popular that we will certainly be running them again. Questions we need to answer as a course team are:
How often
It needs to be often enough that students come to expect it, but not so often that they fatigue of it. (Also we need to keep our noodle budget in check!). Monthly or fortnightly seems likely.
What day of the week
This is a real challenge. Students from all three year groups expressed a desire to see more of the other year groups, but a great unwillingness to attend on days other than those of their scheduled sessions (entirely reasonably, due to transport costs). There is no day of the week where all three year groups are in, which presents a profound challenge. The first noodle social was hosted on a Tuesday, when year 1s are in. In addition to 15+ year 1st, we had around 5 year 2s, and around 3 year 3s in attendance. (Who had either come in especially, or were otherwise on site for other reasons). The next week we hosted a christmas party on Wednesday, which is a day year 2s and year 3s are in. We had around 15 year 2s (great!) 4 x year 1s (who were in for language support anyway), and around 5 year 3s (most of them were stressed about a project hand in and accompanying tutorials and chose not to attend.
In terms of scheduling future noodle socials, there is therefore an argument for changing which days of the weeks they run on to ensure all years get a fair shot at attending. That said, keeping it on a consistent day is more likely to get it embedded in people’s minds.
Also, (albeit without formal research), it seems that our first year cohort are those most struggling with food poverty, and so, those who most valued having a free, hot lunch (even if that was a very simple one). So prioritising their needs, as well as getting them embedded and socialised with their course mates means that it may make sense to continue scheduling on days which work best for them.
Additional activities?
Some students experessed a desire for additional activities as part of noodle socials, like workshops. Obviously this comes with budgetary, planning and staffing requirements that we cannot currently meet, but we take seriously their request. Our workshop programme last year (now discontinued due to funding challenges) had modest attendance, which had led us to believe it was not particularly appreciated, but the second years asking for its return, and the first years asking for something similar off their own backs implies that there is a desire and motivation there.
We will continue to reflect on all of the above as a course team, and consider what our next steps are.