Full programme: Aberystwyth University’s Learning and Teaching Conference 2021

We are looking forward to welcoming you to the 9^th Annual Learning and Teaching Conference, which is just over a month away, 29^th June – 2^nd July 2021. This year’s conference theme, Improvisation within Constraint: Reshaping a Learning Community in a Time of Change aims to reflect the commitment that AU staff have to enhance the student learning experience.

We’re pleased to confirm our full programme.

You can register for the conference by completing this online form.

We’re very excited to welcome four external speakers this year:

This year’s keynote speaker is Dr Chrissi Nerantzi who is Principal Lecturer – Academic CPD, University Teaching Academy (UTA), Manchester Metropolitan University. Dr Nerantzi will focus on open and flexible pedagogies.
Our second external speaker, Andy McGregor, who is Director of edtech for JISC, will be delivering a workshop focusing on the future of assessments.
Our third external speaker is Dr Dyddgu Hywel, Senior Lecturer in Education at Cardiff Metropolitan, will be delivering an interactive presentation on prioritising student and staff well-being. (Dr Hywel’s presentation will be delivered through the medium of Welsh and we will be offering simultaneous translation.)
Our final external speaker, Joe Probert, who is Customer Success Manager at Vevox, will deliver a session on how to make effective use of polling to engage learners.

We have an exciting and varied programme this year from representatives from all faculties. In addition to our four external speakers, we will also have a presentation from students, Distance Learning forum and a Welsh-medium Business School panel.

We look forward to seeing you at the conference, and please remember to register for the conference by completing this online form.

If you have any queries, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Annual Learning and Teaching Conference – extended by an extra day

We’re really starting to look forward to our forthcoming ninth Learning and Teaching Conference. The call for proposals has now closed – thank you to everyone who submitted a proposal.

Owing to the volume that we have received, we are now starting the Teaching Conference at lunchtime on Tuesday 29^th June and running until the afternoon on Friday 2^nd July.

We’ve got a number of external speakers across the four days and we’ll keep posting further updates via our blog of upcoming speakers. I’m pleased to announce that we have got our first Welsh medium keynote session which will be simultaneously translated.

We’ve also been able to run a special panel on Tuesday afternoon on Distance Learning practices and students from the School of Education and the Psychology Department will be offering sessions based on their experiences of learning throughout the pandemic.

The full programme will be announced in due course.

The conference will be taking place online via Teams (with Zoom used for sessions in Welsh).

You can book your place online now via this form.

Annual Learning and Teaching Conference: Second guest speaker: Andy McGregor, JISC

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We are pleased to announce our second external speaker for this year’s Learning and Teaching Conference: Andy McGregor. Andy is Director of edtech for JISC.

Andy’s workshop will focus on the future of assessment and is based on JISC’s paper: The future of assessment: five principles, five targets for 2025, which ‘sets five targets for the next five years to progress assessment towards being more authentic, accessible, appropriately automated and secure’.

Andy is responsible for managing JISC’s portfolio of research and development projects which develop new services that help universities and colleges improve education and research.

In addition to Andy, this year’s keynote will be delivered by Dr Chrissi Nerantzi from Manchester Metropolitan University.

The ninth annual learning and teaching conference is taking place online between Wednesday 30^th June and Friday 2^nd July. You can book your place by completing this online form.

Keep following our blog for more announcements.

Keynote Announcement: Annual Learning and Teaching Conference

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The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit is pleased to announce that Dr Chrissi Nerantzi will be this year’s keynote speaker.

The conference is taking place online via Teams between 30^th June and the 2^nd July. Booking for this year’s conference is open and you can still submit a proposal via our online form.

Dr Chrissi Nerantzi (@chrissinerantzi), Principal Lecturer – Academic CPD, University Teaching Academy (UTA), Manchester Metropolitan University

At Manchester Met, Chrissi developed the openly-licensed practice-based professional developmental programme FLEX which incorporates formal and informal pathways of engagement utilising digital professional portfolios and open development opportunities including cross-institutional collaborative initiatives. FLEX has inspired further initiatives internally and externally with staff and students. She is the founder of the the cross-institutional Creativity for Learning in Higher Education community (#creativeHE), the Teaching and Learning Conversations (TLC) webinars and the co-founder of the open courses Flexible, Distance and Online Learning (FDOL), Bring your Own Devices for Learning course (BYOD4L) and the Learning and Teaching in Higher Education tweetchat (#LTHEchat). Chrissi teaches on the MA in Higher Education at her institution and leads Recognising and Rewarding Teaching Excellence and the Good Practice Exchange. She also co-ordinates the NTF and CATE submissions and regularly mentors colleagues. CChrissi contributes to further academic development activities within UTA, including the institutional PSF scheme and supports colleagues in creative curriculum design and is one of the Faculty Links for Arts and Humanities.

Call for Proposals – closes on Friday

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Staff, postgraduate teaching assistants, and students are welcome to propose sessions on any topic relating to learning and teaching.

Submit and view the call for proposals online. Please complete this form no later than 30^th April 2021.

Conference Registration now open

Registration for the ninth annual Learning and Teaching conference is now open. This year’s Learning and Teaching conference has the theme Improvisation within Constraint: Reshaping a Learning Community in a Time of Change and will be taking place between Wednesday 30 June and Friday 2 July 2021.

You can register for the conference online.

Can Aberystwyth University become a Positive University?

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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:

Reflections on the March 2021 Mini Conference

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On Thursday, 25th of March, the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit held their second mini conference of the academic year. Focussed on the theme of embedding wellbeing in the curriculum, the conference brought together internal and external speakers on three strands: recognising barriers to student well-being, building resilience in students, and encouraging students to flourish.

The conference boasted a range of speakers from across Aberystwyth University, as well as an external speaker from Coleg Cambria. Topics ranged from the ongoing work on wellbeing by the Student Support team, wellbeing in foundation year programmes, and building student resilience to reframing of mistakes as a learning opportunity, and personalising approaches to engaging with students and their work. Our two keynote speakers, Frederica Roberts and Kate Lister focussed on positive education and online communities respectively. In the spirit of the conference, the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit also organised two activities during the morning and afternoon breaks: desk yoga and a guided meditation with local yoga teacher Regina Hellmich, which several delegates identified as a conference highlight. The day concluded with a plenary session in which everyone was encouraged to reflect on their insights and identify concrete applications of best practice going forward.

If you missed the mini conference or could only attend parts of it, you can now access recordings of most presentations here. Simply log in with your Aberystwyth ID and password. In addition, we strongly encourage you to sign up to our next Academy Forum on the 20th of April, entitled “How can I embed wellbeing into the curriculum?” – we look forward to seeing you there.

Conference Registration now open

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You can register for the conference online.

Call for Proposals

Staff, postgraduate teaching assistants, and students are welcome to propose sessions on any topic relating to learning and teaching.

Submit and view the call for proposals online. Please complete this form no later than 30^th April 2021.

Last chance to register! Mini-conference, 25 March 2021

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Mini Conference Banner On Thursday 25th March, the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit will be hosting the second Academy Mini-Conference online of 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.

You can see our full programme here. The Mini-Conference will run from 09:30-16:50.

We hope that you will be able to join us. *You can register to attend the Mini-Conference by clicking on this link*. If you have any queries, please email lteu@aber.ac.uk.

Mini Conference: ‘Embedding Well-being in the Curriculum’, Thursday 25 March, 09:30am

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Mini Conference Banner
On Thursday 25th March, the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit will be hosting the second Academy Mini-Conference online of 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. The Mini-Conference will run from 09:30-16:50.

We’re excited to confirm our programme:

Flourishing at Aberystwyth – Putting Positive Education into Practice (Frederica Roberts – Keynote)
Online Communities and Student Well-being (Kate Lister – Keynote)
Well-being in the Curriculum at Aberystwyth University (Samantha Glennie)
Well-being in the Curriculum – a Foundation Year Pilot (Sinead O’Connor)
Supporting Students in Building a Resilient Approach to their Learning (Antonia Ivaldi)
What Can Lecturers Do to Get Students to Embrace Mistakes? (Marco Arkesteijn)
Building Resilience (Alison Pierse)
Meeting Students’ Needs (using simple tools) (Panna Karlinger)
Resilience – a Valuable Student Skill (Sadie Thackaberry)

We will also be running an optional yoga and meditation session during two of the breaks for all conference attendees.

We hope that you will be able to join us. You can register to attend the Mini-Conference by clicking on this link. If you have any queries, please email lteu@aber.ac.uk.