First day at the new (old) job

I sit at the desk in my new office on Level 5 of the building I’ve been working in for over 10 years, as part of a different university and with a new job title. The foundation universities of the University of Adelaide and the University of South Australia are now officially merged as Adelaide University, which is now roughly the 5th largest University in Australia. I am no longer the Deputy Head of the School of Computer and Mathematical Sciences, as neither the position nor that school still exist! I am an Academic Lead in the School of Computer Science and Information Technology, with responsibilities around educational research and our education specialist staff, and now have roughly 15 staff to manage as part of our new model.

Last year was pretty successful in many ways, the ITiCSE WG delivered an amazing report with some fantastic resources, I was part of a successful grant, the CompEd WG made fantastic progress (still going into the new year as we tidy that up), and I felt like, for the first time in ages, I really had the opportunity to look into research into detail. But it was very tiring, being the last year of a long push that started during the pandemic and finishing in a year where I got so sick that my hair started falling out and my overall physical health took a 10% hit. Much better now, although my hair is still my hair! And now the universities are merged and I’m part of the brand new Adelaide University. It’s a great time to look forward and set some themes for this year. But let’s do a 50,000 foot flyover of my job.

Research: From a research perspective, the CARD WG outcome has reinforced how important it is to have learning resources and tools that lead to the outcomes that you want – this is especially true in the face of the rise of Generative AI, where it is terrifyingly easy to sidestep any cognitive or memory work totally in the production of artefacts. For years, we got away with requiring student to produce something as evidence of a process of production, which entailed cognition, learning, and application of effort over time. Artefacts like the CARD Research Cards can’t be completed with generative AI, people have to interact with them. There are opportunities to engage with something, consider it, respond to it, and develop your skills accordingly. I sketched out some ideas last year about a working group based on tools and approaches for learning that specifically could not be carried out with Generative AI, but haven’t done anything with them. I most likely can’t do any WGs this year for timing and commitment reasons but I might pitch something next year about all the ways that game-based approaches to learning and non-AI-based scalable aspects of personalised learning can be useful in the era of Generative AI. The random and reflexive aspects of the cards make the process inherently focused on the individual – but I’ll return to this thought later. More stuff needs to happen with CARD but that’s a next week thought.

Teaching: I’m teaching a couple of courses this year, mostly around the postgraduate level, working on research skill development and computational research methods. This will be the first curricular application of the CARD system, realised as both physical cards and an online version developed by our fantastic media team in the learning design space. It will be great to be back in the classroom more!

Leadership and Service: I have 15 direct reports and will be getting to know them over the next few weeks. I suspect I’ll be in three places in a given week, my old stomping ground next to the Art Gallery on North Terrace, City West campus, and Mawson Lakes Campus. Learning what they need, and how I can use my experience and knowledge to help them, is one of my highest priorities prior to the start of Semester 1. I have had an unconventional pathway to academia but I still have many lenses of privilege to acknowledge and work through when I work with anybody else. There will be a lot of listening and thinking on my part. I have a number of duties for various SIGCSE roles that I’m looking forward to getting back into now that I’m finally healthy again.

Travel: I’ve been travelling a lot and the plane trips have been frequent, long, and not the best thing for me in any sense. I’m planning to spend about three months in Finland this year as part of a visiting fellowship at University of Jyväskylä but this will involve less flying and more time concentrated in one place. I hope that this will allow me to do better work and be more present…

Speaking of presence, I think that’s my most important theme for this year: present in my personal life, present for my students, present for my research collaborators, and definitely present for my colleagues, especially those who I’m managing. Something has been showing up in my shape at various points of the year but I’m not sure how much of it has been me. Let’s see what I can do this year.

Happy new year, everyone!