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Final Academy Forum session of the year

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We would like to invite you to the final Academy Forum session of the year taking place on 24th of May.  

This session will be an opportunity for us to look back on this year’s Academy Forum programme, designed specifically to support staff in teaching in different ways in a response to the pandemic and reflect on what we can take forward.  

Topics we covered this year were: 

  • Creating a Learning and Teaching Community 
  • Creating Podcasts in Panopto 
  • Why and how to help students reflect on their learning 
  • Motivation Strategies for Online Learning Engagement 
  • How can I plan online and in-person activities? 
  • How can I make my teaching more inclusive? 
  • How can I embed wellbeing into the curriculum? 
  • Preparing students for assessments 

We hope that you will be able to join us.  

Book on the session 

Can Aberystwyth University become a Positive University?

WordPress User [aeu] Mini Conference 2021 Well-being Leave a comment

Frederika Roberts, our keynote speaker at the mini-conference on Embedding Well-being in the Curriculum concluded her presentation by asking ‘Can Aberystwyth University become a Positive University?’ (to watch Frederika’s talk please visit the mini-conference website).

The idea of a positive university is one that focuses on ‘the development of educational environments that enable the learner to engage in established curricula in addition to knowledge and skills to develop their own and others’ wellbeing’ (Oades, Robinson, Green, & Spence, 2011). This definition has been proposed by the authors of Towards a positive university article published in 2011 which includes a useful framework for building Positive Universities based on the PERMA model (Seligman, 2011). Seligman’s PERMA is among the most well-known well-being theories which distinguish five key aspects of well-being:

PERMA model: P - positive emotions, E- engagement, R - Relationships, M- meaning, A- accomplishment

Source: https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/learn

Although much progress has been done on embedding well-being in the curriculum, not many institutions, especially in the higher education sector, implemented a whole-institutional approach to well-being (Oades et al., 2011). The first Positive University in the world was Tecmilenio University, a private institution in Mexico, established in 2002. Following their lead, in 2017, the University of Buckingham became the first Positive University in Europe.

What would have to change for Aberystwyth University to become a Positive University?

The Positive University status is achieved by implementing the well-being in institutional policies and procedures, but also through an individual commitment to the values of positive education. Although Oades and colleagues (2011) mention the importance of senior leadership, they also offer a range of simple activities that are consistent with the ethos of positive education and that could be implemented by teaching and professional staff as well as students (see Table 1. p. 434). Following the recent mini-conference, we would like to call all staff to take an active stand towards their well-being and the well-being of their students and colleagues.

To find examples of how you can embed well-being in your teaching please refer to the Towards a positive university article, recordings from the conference as well as the Wellbeing in the curriculum factsheet created by Samantha Glennie, the Student Wellbeing Service Manager. We would also like to encourage you to share the following resources with your students:

Supporting your Learning Blackboard module

WordPress User [aeu] Blackboard, Resources and Webinars, Teaching Continuity Leave a comment

[:en]At the beginning of this academic year, various departments across the University contributed to creating Supporting your Learning web pages. Although gathering all essential information in one place has been useful, we were looking for a way to present it in a more interactive and accessible format.

We created the Supporting your Learning organisation on Blackboard which includes all information from the web pages with some additional resources such as the Quick Guide to Student Success as well as practice submission points.

Supporting your Learning module has a menu on the left hand side that you can navigate the different pages from

We conducted several ‘Helping Students to Make Most of Online Learning’ training sessions with Peer Guides, Residential Assistants, Student Representatives and Student Support staff showing them the Supporting your Learning organisation. We received positive feedback and made changes based on their comments. We have also asked for feedback from the Directors of Learning and Teaching.

All students and staff can find the Supporting your Learning organisation under ‘My Organisation’ tab.

Supporting your Learning module is located under My Organisations on BB

We hope that it will support them in findings essential information in a more efficient way as well as enhance various induction processes. We would greatly appreciate if you could share this resource with all students and staff in your departments and utilise it where appropriate.

What else could we do to support student learning? (according to students themselves!)

WordPress User [aeu] Online Teaching, Teaching Continuity, Training and Support Leave a comment

We have recently had an opportunity to deliver ‘Make the most of your online learning’ sessions to Peer Guides, Student Representatives as well as Residential Assistants. These sessions focused mainly on introducing students to resources which are available to them: Supporting your Learning module on Blackboard (which will shortly be rolled out to all students); and the Quick Guide to Student Success.

We have also taken these opportunities to ask students: ‘What else can we do to support your learning?’. We would like to share with you some of the feedback we received along with suggestions on how these could be addressed:

Assignment extensions 

Although this is not something that can be resolved by teaching staff, it may be worth including a link to the Course Extensions information along with other assessment related information.

Clear structure

Some students expressed difficulties in navigating their workload related to online learning and a need for a clearer structure on how and when the content will be released to them. Therefore, we would like to encourage staff to include a short table with content release dates (it can be included in Module Information) and sticking to dates and times of seminar and live sessions which have been timetabled.

A table showing dates on each content being released on Blackboard

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Reflections from Academy Forum: How can I make my teaching more inclusive?

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What does insivity mean to you wordcloud

Last week’s Academy Forum on inclusivity was one of the best-attended sessions this year. It was great to see so much interest and commitment in developing more inclusive teaching. This session was delivered in partnership with Student Support Services. Accessibility Advisor Nicky Cashman provided staff with information on demographics at AU as well as support available to students.  

The session started from a broad question of ‘what does inclusivity means to you’ (see the word cloud we created above). After Nicky’s introduction, we moved onto a scenario-based activity. Each group was given one scenario to work with. Every few minutes each group received and an additional piece of information providing them with a broader perspective of the situation.

The scenarios can be found at the bottom of the post.

The activity was followed by a whole-group discussion. Staff talked about a ‘duty of care’ towards their students and the extent to which they are expected and should be monitoring their students. We also talked about the balance between taking care of individual students and the needs of the entire cohort. The group looking at scenario one rightly pointed out that more inclusive practice would be to ensure that students are pre-assigned to groups, to avoid situations when someone is excluded. A discussion on when alternative assessments are appropriate and where additional support in completing existing assessments would be more suitable. Finally, the importance of establishing trust with students as well as checking in with students who may show early signs of difficulties was discussed.

We are very grateful to Nicky and all staff who attended and contributed to this session.

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External Speakers: Mini-Conference: Embedding Well-being in the Curriculum

WordPress User [aeu] Conference, Events and Networks, External Speakers, Mini Conference 2021 Well-being, Training and Support 2 Comments

Mini-conference: Embedding Well-being in the Curriculum

As announced last week, on Thursday 25th March, the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit will be hosting second Mini-Conference this academic year. The theme will be ‘Embedding Well-being in the Curriculum’, where will explore the links between mental well-being and learning and how this could help to maximise success for both students and staff.

We are pleased to announce that two excellent external speakers accepted our invitations to present during the conference:

Flourishing at Aberystwyth – Putting Positive Education into Practice

Positive Education is the intertwining of educating for academic outcomes and for well-being and character development in order to enable the learner to flourish. Embarking on a course of academic study, whether at undergraduate or postgraduate level, full- or part-time, is a major life event that can impact on mental health and well-being. The current academic year has been unlike any other and a determined focus on well-being for students and staff – teaching and non-teaching – is more important than ever.

In this highly interactive keynote, participants will learn about key elements of positive psychology in the context of higher education, including:

  • The importance of positive relationships
  • The use of character strengths in teaching, feedback and staff development
  • How time perspectives may influence motivation

Aberystwyth University staff attending this session will have the opportunity to explore how their everyday practices can support their students’, colleagues’ and own well-being. The session will include elements of reflection, discussion, and practising activities that support well-being. Whilst the focus will primarily be on supporting student well-being, this is best achieved when staff are well.

The session will therefore also provide participants with the opportunity to develop their own well-being strategies and to consider how the University’s systems and procedures can underpin a culture of well-being.

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Tasks function in Blackboard – easy way to allow students to track their progress!

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We have been recently approached by a member of staff seeking advice on the use of checklists in Blackboard. They brought our attention to a useful tool called Tasks. We have previously blogged about ways of tracking student progress in Blackboard by using the review and adaptive release, functionalities allowing you to create interactive, learning ‘paths’ for students in your module.

The Tasks function, which can be found on the in Course Tools on the Course Management panel allows you to create Course Tasks, set their priority, due date and track number of students who started, are in progress or completed the tasks.

A screenshot showing where you can find the Tasks tool under the course managementA screenshot showing the Tasks tool interface

Once you’ve created your course tasks you can share the Tasks tool with students in two ways. You can either make Tasks visible to students in the Tools tab on your module course:

a screenshot showing where you can find Tasks on the course menu

Or add a link to Tasks anywhere in your course (Tools > More Tools). Our suggestion would be to locate it in Module Information.

a screenshot showing where you can find Tasks under tools

When introducing Tasks to your student make sure you set clear expectations:

  • How often should students be checking for new tasks?
  • How often will you be checking for progress?
  • What is the purpose of using this tool? Be transparent on how closely will you be monitoring their progress.

As mentioned, this will allow you to see how students engage with the activities in your modules, but also give students themselves to track their own progress and stay on top of their workload. Students can simply view their tasks and set them to not started, in progress or complete by clicking on the grey drop down arrow.

a screenshot showing how students can change the status of the task

As always, we encourage you to test this functionality yourself in your practice modules (you can find it under My Organisation tabs) and contact us with any queries: lteu@aber.ac.uk

Support for teaching online – here we go again!

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As we have once again found ourselves in online teaching scenario, we wanted to revisit some of the resources and support available to you.

The best place to start would be visiting the Supporting your Teaching webpages which includes resources such as:

Secondly, please visit our training page to book a space on our upcoming training:

  • 19/01/2021 – Active Learning and Online Engagement
  • 27/01/2021 – Academy Forum 5: How can I plan online and in-person activities 
  • 09/02/2021 – E-learning Enhanced: Using the advanced features of Panopto 

We are also planning to offer additional training sessions on using breakout rooms as well as e-learning drop-in sessions every Tuesday at 10:00-11:00 and Thursday at 14:00-15:00 between 19th of January and 4th of February). Links to the drop-ins are available on our blog.

Finally, please visit our blog including further tips and guidelines:

To reiterate some of the key points from the resources above, when it comes to online teaching and engagement best are:

  • Make it shorter, students will not be able to focus on an hour-long recording.
  • Make it engaging, whether it is a Panopto recording or a live session in Teams, there are multiple functionalities and ways of facilitating active learning rather than creating transmission based content.
  • Integrate all your teaching components, in recorded lectures refer to live seminars, readings, focus on creating a continuous learning path for students.

We have no doubt that all staff will successfully meet the demands of the current situation. Please do get in touch with any queries or suggestions of needed training and resources: lteu@aber.ac.uk.

Motivation strategies for online engagement – reflections from the last Academy Forum in Semester One

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For the last Academy Forum in Semester One we chose one of the most common topics raised by teaching staff; how to motivate students, particularly when it comes to online learning?

decorative image

The first part of the session was a general discussion which started from reflection on when we feel most motivated and it revealed factors such as:

  • When there is external pressure (deadline) 
  • When it is enjoyable
  • When it involves other people 
  • When the tasks are not that difficult, important or multifaceted
  • When you receive positive feedback

Attendees also shared their strategies for keeping themselves motivated:

  • Switching between tasks
  • Breaking big projects into smaller tasks
  • Asking yourself why do you need to do it?
  • Completing a smaller, manageable task and using the ‘success high’ and motivation that comes with it to work on something else
  • Complaining less about having to do it and just getting on with it
  • Using lists and being able to cross things off
  • Setting realistic targets 
  • Looking after yourself (trying to see work in perspective)

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