Following Sandy’s post about a busy week in her life as a DoS of IH Bydgoszcz in Poland, which I found very interesting, and attending a Learning and Teaching Professional Scheme introductory meeting and learning that to become a SFHEA one of the things I need to do is write a personal statement about who I am and what I do here at the university,  I was inspired to write a bit about what I do as an ADoS in Sheffield University ELTC’s USIC arm. So here it is! This is what an ADoS does!

(Caveat: every ADoS position is different and depends on the type and size of the institution, as well as institutional requirements – this post is just about what an ADoS does here, where I am – aka what I do! Perhaps the title should be “What does *this* ADoS do?”!)

• I teach. (Yay!) Currently 6hrs per week plus 3-4 WAS’s (1hr Writing Advisory Service appointments), as of next week 9hrs per week plus 1 WAS. Along with that, of course, comes all the usual planning, prepping, marking and admin. Am also timetabled 6hrs of cover slots per week.
• I write meeting notes. Well, I co-write meeting notes with my fellow January ADoS. (At this point, I should explain – I am ADoS for the January Foundation cohort of students. We currently have 4 cohorts of students  – September Foundation and Pre-Masters, and January Foundation and Pre-Masters – but will go up to 5 in April. The April lot is always smaller so though there are also a mixture of Foundation and Pre-Masters, they are counted as one cohort.) We do this using Google docs and share them with our teachers towards the end of one week, ready for the meeting at the start of the next week. This means that teachers have a written record to refer back to without having to write copious notes on a scrap of paper that then gets lost or something! We give them a print-out in the meeting, so they can write down anything extra that comes up/anything that wasn’t clear to them that they asked about etc.
• I run…co-run…weekly module meetings (in previous terms we did the meetings independently but this term about 95% of our teachers are teaching both January cohorts so it made sense to combine it; this may revert to separate meetings next term, depends on timetables and teachers!). These meetings are about what’s got to happen in the immediate future and looking forward to next week’s lessons. (So, as ADoSes, say it’s week 5, we write meeting notes for week 6’s meeting in which we are talking about week 7 lessons!)
• I make materials. Last term, that included materials for the workbook, as we adapted some lessons based on teacher feedback and student response from previous use of them. This involves not just creating the new materials and putting them into the workbook but also updating the powerpoints, teachers notes and student worksheets that live in our shared drive resources folder so that everything matches up to the changes that have been made. Examples this term include independent listening development materials, and self-study materials and in-class or self-study materials for using www.wordandphrase.info/academic. (Here I have linked to copies of the materials in my personal google drive so that you can see them, but the originals live on my work google drive and are set to be useable only by people with sheffield.ac.uk email addresses.)
• Relating to the above, I seek feedback regarding the materials in order to use it to improve them for the next time around.
• I make sure the tracker is up to date and correct. The tracker refers to an excel spreadsheet with marks and progression rating colours for all students, and there is separate tracker for each cohort. This involves inputting data (e.g. the diagnostic test results), reminding teachers when data that they are inputting needs to be done, helping teachers when they have trouble inputting data, correcting mistakes with student information e.g. when they change groups due to changing pathway and fixing it when random things happen like a student ends up with two lines that correspond to their name/number but non-identical scores (cue checking scripts to be able to work out which is the correct row and delete the other). I have learnt what a v-lookup is and what filters are. Either which way, we hate the tracker… 😉
• I make sure all the other admin happens when it meant to. This includes transferring progression colours from the tracker to the student management system at certain points, generation of learning conversation documents (even if we don’t actually have the conversations, as this term, the data is needed so that academic success tutors can discuss it with students). This term the document generation has been mostly automated but teachers still need to select smart targets in a Google sheet and copy and paste the resultant data from Google docs to a certain spreadsheet that will then be used for a mail merge, and stuff like that. Teachers need to be told it’s coming up, taught how to do it (in the case of new teachers), supported through it (i.e. troubleshooting if/when the struggle) and we have to check everything in the end to make sure all is in order.
• I deal with unforeseen situations that come up e.g. a teacher being off sick for longer than a day or two when there is a tight marking deadline and other admin too – between us the ADoSes have to cover that teacher’s marking and admin.
• I make sure everything is ready for assessments. This includes sending mock tests/seminar discussion exam sheets/etc off to be printed well in advance of when the assessment will take place (printing has a two week turnaround and may take longer in busy periods), setting up Turnitin buttons on MOLE, putting coursework templates on MOLE, doing summative assessment papers myself as part of pre-standardisation etc.
• I am first point of contact when teachers have any questions, problems, issues etc with January IFY students and teaching (and basically anything relating to anything they have to do here e.g. the admin, the tools used to do the admin etc). This is mostly done in person, in the staffroom, but also involves emails. Where relevant we then liaise with the person or people who need to be involved in resolving the issue. Otherwise, we offer support/guidance as necessary. The main skills this requires are patience, supportiveness and ability to be interrupted, provide the help needed and seamlessly pick up the thread of what you were doing when help was needed! I am currently trying to devise a way of providing more support to new teachers than what we currently do, watch this space!
• I run…co-run…standardisation for all summative assessments. This involves us marking several samples of a given assessment, rationalising our scores (which are under the influence of the centre-level standardisation that Studygroup centres do), agreeing together what the official scores are and then getting teachers to do the same. With exam marking standardisation, we will then all be in a big room while the teachers are looking at and marking the samples and the discussion follows directly. Once complete, marking commences. With coursework, we send out the samples in advance of a given weekly meeting and in that meeting share and discuss scores. We also have to do this for the speaking exams (the seminar discussion and the presentation), which are both done by sending out recordings in advance for teachers to watch and grade, after which scores are discussed as with the written exams.
• I double mark speaking exams. In order to increase reliability, we double-mark a a couple of groups (seminar discussion) or a few students (individual presentations) with each teacher.
• I sign marks off and prepare module boxes. Once all marks have been inputted into spreadsheet and student management system, everything needs double-checking. Errors get picked up and changed, and then, when everything is in order, we sign off the marks for a given cohort for a given exam. The paper work goes into the module box along with some samples of high, medium and low-scoring papers and evidence of standardisation. The resultant module box is stored ready to be audited by the external examiner when s/he pays a visit, so it is important that everything is in order.
• I randomly spot-check first draft feedback on course work to make sure we as a team are being consistent in the amount and quality of feedback that is given and advise where any changes/tweaks are necessary.
• I do naughty student meetings. These meetings are 1-1 with the student and their teacher, and are held when students plagiarise in the first draft of their coursework. The idea is to find out what’s gone on and why, and to ensure that it will be addressed before the piece of work is submitted finally. (Otherwise, the student will have to go to a misconduct panel hearing and that makes more paperwork for us and more stress for the student!)
• I prepare academic misconduct case paperwork. If a student’s final draft submission has high levels of plagiarism or it is clear they have received help because the work submitted is too far above their normal level, we need to prepare paperwork for academic misconduct panel hearings. This mostly involves filling in forms and providing evidence (past pieces of written work, which necessitates digitised work folders, which we also set up for teachers to use).
• I invigilate listening exams. Mostly Studygroup provide invigilators for exams but our listening exams are complicated enough that we provide a chief invigilator per exam room. Generally that’s around 4 chief invigilators per exam. One of those things that is terrifying the first time you do it and then subsequently you wonder what all the fuss was about!
• I send next term’s workbook off to the printers. Each term, at some point sufficiently in advance of the end of term, next term’s workbook has to be sent off to print. This involves making any changes that have been flagged up, altering or replacing lessons, proofreading, editing, checking formatting hasn’t altered, sometimes throwing in an alternative syllabus at the last minute because we have been told that due to timetabling we will have to deliver a 2hr-1hr-2hr delivery pattern as well as the default 2-2-1 delivery pattern. That kind of thing.
• I am supposed to do 3hrs CPD a week, but often it gets relegated to the weekend other than an hr of scholarship circle most weeks (unless stuff comes up which needs dealing with pronto, in which case that takes priority!).

So that’s the kind of thing (there is more, but that is all I can think of for now!)… except rather than “I”, it’s “we”, really! Each of the five cohorts mentioned towards the start of this post (bullet point two) has an ADoS and together we are a team. Within that, some of us also operate in sub-teams: I am part of Team Jan ADoS, and the two September ADoSes work together closely too. For me, the teamwork aspect is the best part of it! We bounce off each other, we support each other, between us we have more brains to cope with remembering everything that has to be done, we commiserate with each other (when the tracker plays up, for example!), we help each other out when there’s lots to be done (e.g. the example of covering the sick teacher’s marking and admin, we all took on some of it and between us got it done) and so on.

I like my job, when it isn’t driving me crazy 😉 If you have ADoSes where you work, what similarities and differences are there between my ADoS role and those where you are?

Another and final question I want to leave you with: How do you support new teachers where you work? Will be interested to hear any replies… please comment!