Given that I didn't think I would be able to attend this tutorial - Sunday felt a little likke a bonus to me. After two months off over Xmas I was ready to get back into studying and get some motivation from the tutorial.
I gave Clare (the other trainee from Sheffield & Rotherham) a lift, which meant a different route through the Peak District, which is always a pleasure. It was nice to have company and a chance to talk things over with Clare. We are very similar in our outlook on things and we had a really interesting conversation about our mother's influence on having/feeding our babies. Clare's mother was present at her birth and it was really good to talk through how she found that and what the pros and cons were. It's a conversation that I am sure hasn't been concluded.
Karen had brought Charlotte, her 7 week old baby with her, so it was nice to coo over a little one. No Tatum though and no-one seems to be mentioning her. I am a little worried as to how she's doing but didn't get chance to ask Ann on her own if she'd heard from her. Jo was also not present and Ann said her attendance was worryingly low last year, which suprised me as I thought she'd mainly attended the tutorials, so I'm hoping she's OK too.
The icebreaker was fun! We had to tell everyone 2 things about ourselves which were true and one which was false and everyone had to try and guess which the lie was. No-one got mine which either means I'm a damned good liar, or my life is unbelievable.
My newsround left me feeling a little bad as Ann opened to me saying "and you have an essay to hand in don't you Lucy?" which of course I didn't. Having been ill over Xmas I have acheived very little aside from a bit of sorting out (which to be fair was all I had intended to do).
Next we had a Level I presentation from Sue on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This was a great presentation and was a really interesting topic. I was particulalry interested in the area of 'debriefing' which with my reflective essays coming up was incredibly relevant. I got some extra information from Sue and she told me afterwards that she has lots of information on this if I need it - which is great to bear in mind. Clare has also looked into debriefing and the work done on it and suprisingly there is little proven evidence to show it's sucess in resolving mental issues around birth. That said this is probably down to the problems in conducting trials. So lots to look into further there for my essay.
We had a brief discussion around presentations in general an particularly picked up on the Maternity Services presentation which gave me some ideas for what I could do.
A quick energiser pepped us up before some mini-presentations on 'difficult topics' which was continued from November's tutorial. First Kate did a peice on Ceasarean Birth. This was interesting and she gave out a good handout.
Next Clare did a fantastic teaching activity on breastfeeding, but she focussed on why women give up breastfeeding and what we as antenatal teachers can do to assist in prolonging breastfeeding in our classes.
We have some work to do before the next tutorial (22/2) on Labour. Which fits in great with the fact that I am on my 'Normal labour' obsteric day on Firday! Ann is going to send us some more information on what she wants from us on this - so I need to keep an eye on the e-group.
After lunch, Sarah did a mini presentation on Forceps delivery and again provided a great handout.
Next we were given a set of questions to look up the answers to. These were the questions given at the last pre-teachng workshop and Ann indicated how well or not they were answred by the group in attendance. This part of the tutorial prompted me that I want to start using Ann's question sheets to build up my knowledge of Obstetrics, which resulted in me picking up the three question sheets on Labour from Anns files to get answered by the next tutorial.
We had a discussion about resources and it was commonly agreed that the main sources of references came from Books and the Internet. This discussion reminded me how I am going to need to start referencing journals better if I am to obtain good grades so I definately need to start reading more of these and putting details in my references file. At the end of oour discussion we decided that we would send a copy of our libraries (what books/journals we have) to Kate so that she could compile them and add them to the e-group.
On the way home Clare and I had a long chat about our shared frustrations about the lack of accessibility of Ann as a tutor for 1-2-1 time. We concluded that it is our responsibility to make that time and I think that I need to arrange a 1-2-1 session (separate to the tutorial) with Ann at some point in the next couple of months to review where I am up to and talk through my assignments so far and plans for this year).
So actions from this tutorial:
- Claim expenses for Oct-Jan
- Find out more about Female birth partners
- Look into the benefits of 'Debriefing' birth etc.
- Look into Maternity Services presentation (plan visits/decide area to present on)
- Check e-group for work on Labour for next presentation
- Answer questions given at tutorial and 3 sheets on labour
- Read and reference 1 journal
- Provide details of my resources to Kate
- Arrange 1-2-1 session with Ann
Which have all been added to my to do list.