7.9 Last year’s punters

The project provides a wealth of experience, often intangible, that might not be recognised. Simultaneously, this experience is of potential value to junior students and may go untapped.

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This bundle recognises that a lot of the process of project conduct is learned very well during its course, but this may go without proper recognition by the student. It is also the sort of experience that is very hard to "teach", but may well be communicated effectively by a peer.

The way it works is by realising that both those problems are soluble by facilitating interaction between students at different levels. One way of doing this is to make a presentation or poster a project deliverable, and getting the junior students to take part in assessment, although actual interaction between the groups helps more. Getting senior students to talk to groups (large or small) of junior students about "how it was for me" is another variant. This may be done as part of a formal lecture, or to ad hoc groups in, for example, tutorials. If the group is small enough, very fruitful conversation can ensue. Of necessity, the senior students must have thought about their experience, and thus reflection is stimulated.

It is necessary to ensure that the presenting students have actually conducted the reflection necessary to inspire such interaction.

A side effect is rehearsal of presentation techniques.

You'll know this is working if junior students make remarks such as "That chap warned me that this might happen", or if senior students remark on how much they learned outside the technical necessities.

It doesn't work if there are problems in scheduling such interactions, especially if senior students are at the end of their university careers soon after project submission. It is also possible that they will communicate things that contradict what supervisors might wish.

A variant is to use newly recruited PhD students who will in all probability have recent project experience. Possible problems with this are that their experience may not map directly onto local conditions, and that they are self-selecting in being at the highly academic end of their cohort, and may not communicate what is required by the broader mass.

Another variant was given by one of the anonymous reviewers of this book: "My particular variant of reading Last year's punters is to introduce an open day, when finishing students can demonstrate their products, both to staff and students from the previous year. This will introduce an aspect of continuity and inter-year contact."

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So: find ways of getting last year's students to talk to this year's, to the benefit of both.