Registration for the thirteenth annual Learning and Teaching conference is now open.
This year’s Learning and Teaching conference has the theme Innovative Pathways to Empowering Learners: Adapting, Engaging, and Thriving and will be taking place between Tuesday 8 and Thursday 10 July 2025.
Staff, postgraduate teaching assistants, and students are invited to submit proposals for the 13th Annual Aberystwyth University Learning and Teaching Conference held 8-10 July 2025.
Inclusive Curriculum 2.0: Bridging Inclusion and Employability Aims through the Curriculum
We are delighted to confirm our keynote for our mini conference on Tuesday 8 April.
Dr Aranee Manoharan from Kings College London will be joining us.
Please see below for an overview of Aranee’s keynote and a biography. You can book your place for the mini conference online and we will be announcing the full programme in due course.
If you have got any questions regarding this event, please contact the conference organisers on elearning@aber.ac.uk.
In this keynote, Aranee will introduce an approach to inclusive curriculum design that supports all students to develop the knowledge, skills, and experiences required to successfully navigate the rigours of a VUCA 21st century. The presentation will explore the key principles of inclusive curriculum development that supports student and graduate outcomes, before sharing how employability can be integrated effectively through subject teaching & learning – including using a programmatic approach to curriculum design and high impact pedagogies and assessments. The session will share a range of tools that Aranee has developed through her work with academic and professional services teams in this area; all of which can also be found in the QAA-funded toolkit for Inclusive Employability Development through the Curriculum that she led with colleagues at City University and University of London.
Dr Aranee Manoharan, PhD, SFHEA, FRSA
Aranee is Senior Associate Director for Careers & Employability at King’s College London. With experience across the areas of teaching, student experience, and educational development, as well as EDI and governance, she specialises in taking a whole student lifecycle approach to improving student outcomes. An Advance HE Senior Fellow, she specialises in inclusive approaches to curriculum design to support student and graduate outcomes and has significant experience working with academic teams to facilitate real-world learning, using high-impact pedagogies and assessments, delivered in collaboration with community and industry partners.
A committed advocate for equity and inclusion, Aranee serves on a number of advisory groups, including the Institute for Student Employers (ISE) EDI Working Group; Royal Society of Biology HUBS Awarding Gap Network; Advance HE’s Race Equality Charter Governance Committee; and as a Board Director for AGCAS, where she leads the social mobility, widening participation, and regional inequality portfolio. Aranee is also the Director of AM Coaching & Consulting, a consultancy that supports organisations to establish inclusive working, learning, and research cultures.
In the March update, Blackboard has changed how release conditions work with due dates and included the ability to copy banners from one course to another. Other updates include enhancements to Tests, Assignments, & Gradebook, and Discussions.
Release conditions panel: due dates now included
When instructors customise release conditions for a content item, the due date for the item is now included with the date and time fields.
Image 1: The due date of a content item now displays after the date and time fields
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This means that due dates must be between the release conditions of Date/Time that have been applied.
Copy banners between courses
Instructors now have the option to copy banners between courses. Banners can be copied from Ultra or Original courses.
Image 1: The Copy Items page now has the option to select the course banner under Settings
The following enhancements are grouped under tests, assignment, and gradebook activities.
New student submission review page for tests
A new and enhanced student-facing submission review page for tests has been developed.
The new layout means that all feedback is clearly laid out and easy for students to identify.
Image 1: The student view of the graded test submission includes a submission timestamp, submission receipt, and feedback for individual questions.
If the test is visible and feedback has been posted, students can access the review page from:
The gradebook feedback button for the test
The small panel that displays when students access a test from the Course Content page
If a student submits multiple attempts, they can review each attempt on the submission review page. The instructor defines which attempt to grade in the test’s final grade calculation setting.
Please note that this does not affect online exams as we advise that the test is hidden from students to prevent them seeing their results.
Show/hide calculated columns in the gradebook
Instructors can now configure visibility for calculated columns from Items Management in the Gradebook by click on the associated calculation:
Pop-out rubric with Blackboard Assignment
Grading rubrics on Blackboard Assignments can pop out into a separate window as part of the assignment workflow.
Image 1: Instructors can pop out the rubric by selecting the expand icon in the rubric panel.
When the pop-out rubric is open, the ability to add Overall Feedback and grade with the rubric in the main grading interface is inactive. This prevents an instructor from editing the same information in two separate places simultaneously.
We recommend using two screens with this enhancement.
Discussions
Usability improvements for Discussions
Several improvements have been made to Discussions:
Improved visibility: Posts now have a grey background to stand out better against the page.
Full post display: Long discussion posts are now fully visible without the need for scrolling, enhancing readability.
Image 1. A long discussion post displayed in its entirety with a grey background.
We made several changes to enhance the accessibility of key features on the discussion home page.
Participation metrics: The number of posts and replies is now listed directly on the discussion home page, replacing the total response counter. This change makes important information more immediately available.
Direct edit option: The Edit button is now directly accessible from the post, saving instructors time.
Image 2. The changes made to the discussion home page included the addition of an Edit button and a count of posts and replies.
Hidden Discussions tab from student course view
The Discussions page will only be available to students if any of the below conditions are met:
Students have permission to create new discussions
The instructor has created a discussion or discussion folder on the course
Anonymous discussions: New privilege to reveal author
System administrators can now reveal the identity of the author of an anonymous discussion post or reply. If you are running an anonymous Discussion and need to de-anonymise a comment, contact elearning@aber.ac.uk outlining the course, discussion, and post, as well as the rationale for requesting it be de-anonymised.
If you have any enhancements to request from Blackboard, please get in touch with us via elearning@aber.ac.uk.
As Ramadan starts, we wanted to highlight a guide for educators that has been led by Oxford Brookes’ Professor Louise Taylor (along with several other collaborators).
During this time, those observing Ramadan, will abstain from food and drink during daylight hours.
The full guide can be accessed and downloaded from this webpage.
The guide outlines the potential impact of Ramadan on students’ learning and offers some adaptions that may want to be considered. Oxford Brookes have produced a 7-minute video of students sharing their experience of Ramadan. The guide draws on surveys from HE professionals to provide an evidence-based approach and offers 6 ways in which we could adopt more inclusive learning:
Acknowledge Ramadan
Avoid assumptions and ask
Adjust assessment timings
Offer asynchronous learning
Raise awareness and celebrate
Be inclusive and make sustainable change
The guide concludes that its key message places importance on initiating discussions with Muslim students.
As a community, we hope to build on this work for next year, using this guidance as a starting point.
We are passionate about inclusive education practices and would love to showcase them at the forthcoming Annual Learning and Teaching Conference. If you adopt inclusive practices in your teaching, then do consider submitting a proposal for the conference.
