The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit is pleased to announce its final event of the year.
On Wednesday 18 December (10:00-14:30), we will be hosting an online Mini Conference looking at Exemplary Blackboard Presence.
We’re delighted to be joined by two external presenters.
Carol Chatten is from the University of Edge Hill and will be showcasing their Medical and Education Course. This course recently won Blackboard’s ECP.
Robert Farmer from the University Northampton will be sharing their course on Critical Thinking which also won Blackboard’s ECP.
Also joining us to share their winning courses are School of Education’s Panna Karlinger and Law and Criminology’s Lauren Harvey. Both entered our internal Exemplary Course Award last year.
We’re hoping that this event will inspire attendees and give colleagues ideas as to how they can develop their courses ahead of Semester 2.
We’re also using this event as a springboard to start thinking about an enhanced Blackboard presence.
And finally, we’ll be sharing the latest AI Design Assistant tool that we’re looking to enable in January: AI Conversations. This builds on the other AI Design Assistant tools that we already have enabled in Blackboard.
Colleagues can book for this half day event via the online booking system and a Teams invitation will be sent out.
We’re the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit. Based in Information Services, we work with staff across the university to support and develop learning and teaching. We run a wide range of activities to do this.
Each module has its own dedicated course in Blackboard. These courses contain online content, such as reading lists, and teaching staff details. This is the main point of information for your students for any given module, including access to lecture recordings and assignment submission. The University has a Blackboard Required Minimum Presence policy for all modules. Please see our staff guide for further information.
Lecture Capture: Panopto
When teaching in person, be aware that all lectures (that is, teaching where the focus is on information being transmitted from staff to students) should be recorded using Panopto, our Lecture Capture software. See details of our Lecture Capture Policy.
E-submission: Turnitin and Blackboard Assignment
At Aberystwyth University, students must submit all text-based and word-processed work electronically as outlined in the University’s E-submission policy. For this, we use our e-submission tools: Turnitin andBlackboard Assignment. Turnitin provides an automatic text matching functionality.
Polling tool: Vevox
Vevox is Aberystwyth University’s polling tool. Polling can be used in learning and teaching activities as well as meetings to make the session interactive and collaborative with many different possibilities for use.
Resources and further help
We have a number of Guides and FAQs to help you use our software.
Training Provision
To support all staff with their teaching, the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit runs a series of training sessions. These include:
practical sessions to familiarise staff with the different elements of the VLE,
the Active Learning agenda,
assessment and feedback,
accessibility,
presentation skills, and more.
artificial intelligence
We also offer a range of events and training programmes. You can find details of our annual CPD programme and book your place to attend via our Book a Course page. We deliver some sessions ourselves, while others are delivered by university staff whose teaching features good practice in those areas. Look for (L&T) in the session title.
Events
The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit runs a range of events, including the Annual Learning and Teaching Conference, Mini-Conferences, Mini-Fests, and Academy Forums. All of these are great opportunities to meet people from across the university and discuss Learning and Teaching issues and developments.
Information Services is pleased to announce a special half-day event looking at ways in which Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be used in academic contexts.
The event will be held on Thursday 11 April between 09:00-13:00 in the International Politics Main Hall.
The aim of the event is to look across the 2 academic functions:
Research
Learning and Teaching
And to reflect on ways in which AI can be used to enhance these activities, increase productivity, and save time.
We’d also like to explore the challenges and obstacles that you face in using AI in these contexts and establish ways in which the University can best support you.
The session will be interactive, with participants encouraged to share their own experiences and examples of best practice. All colleagues are welcome to attend – from those who have been using AI for a while to those who haven’t used it before.
Attendees are welcome to join the session throughout the morning and a timetable for those who have registered will be circulated closer to the event.
Vevox is the University’s polling software which can be used to make teaching more interactive, engage large groups, check knowledge and understanding, and receive feedback.
In addition to their training sessions, Vevox run a series of online webinars showcasing innovative ways in which polling is used at other institutions.
The next online webinar is from the University of South Wales, where Dean Whitcombe is running a session The Use of Vevox in Simulation-based Education and research. This session is at 2pm on 4 October.
On 11 October, at 2pm, University of Chichester’s James Wilson will be leading a session, Once upon a Time: Using Vevox for Interactive Storytelling.
You can sign up to attend these sessions on this webpage.
Aberystwyth University has run a series of webinars in the past for Vevox which are available on YouTube:
If Vevox is new to you, then take a look at our polling software webpage. Vevox run 15 minute Zero to Hero training sessions on Tuesday afternoons. You can sign up to them on the Vevox webpage.
Please contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (elearning@aber.ac.uk) if you have got any questions.
We’re the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit. Based in Information Services, we work with staff across the university to support and develop learning and teaching. We run a wide range of activities to do this.
On 9 March, LTEU welcomed Dr Sarah Gretton and Alice Jackson from the University of Leicester to run a session entitled How to use UN 2030 Agenda Sustainability Development Goals to frame the Curriculum.
Slides and recordings from the session are now available.
In the session, Sarah and Alice gave an overview of how they embed SDGs across all curricula at Leicester, with 100% of their programmes having a module related to an SDG.
Participants at the session were given the opportunity to reflect on modules that they teach on and whether any of the UN SDGs map to them. Participants were also asked if students were aware of this mapping and whether it was captured in the learning outcomes of modules and programmes.
Our next external speaker event is on 19 April, 14:00-15:30, where James Wood from Bangor University will be running a session on Improving Feedback Literacy. You can book this session via the Course Booking page.
The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit is hosting a mini conference on Tuesday 28 March looking specifically at Virtual Reality. We’ll be showcasing colleagues’ work in this area from a variety of different disciplines. The event will be taking place in person. Booking for this event is already open via this online form.
In addition to this, we’re delighted to have Chris Rees from University of Wales, Trinity St. David’s (UWTSD) join us.
Chris is the Executive Head of Digital Creativity and Learning unit, with a background in teaching and learning across many age ranges. He has always had a keen interest in pedagogy and the use of digital technology to enhance the delivery of content and therefore, enrich learning. With 12 years’ experience of teaching and taking leaderships roles in schools across South Wales, Chris moved to a take a position of Strategic Lead in Digital Learning for a local authority. Within this 4 year tenure, Chris continued to research and implement digital pedological approaches including blended learning, synchronous and asynchronous delivery, VR and flipped learning with the goal of improving teachers skills and student experience
Within his role in UWTSD, Chris utilises his strategic, governance and management skills across the recently formed DCL unit, which includes the Digital learning team, Graphics, Print and Multimedia team, and the Web team. The position facilitates new approaches to digital creativity and learning within the institution, making use of the newly created team to develop innovative creative digital content for learning. More recently, Chris has been leading the team to develop the use of mixed reality and design content for specific use cases across the institutes. This includes the launch of the university’s immersive rooms, which are a similar design to a VR cave, but utilising the latest AV and Immersive technology to create a collaborative VR experience.
Keep an eye on our blog as we announce other contributors.
If you’ve got any questions about our mini conference then contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (lteu@aber.ac.uk).
LTEU is pleased to announce our next external speaker event. On 9 March 14:00-15:00, Dr Sarah Gretton and Alice Jackson from University of Leicester will be running an online workshop on Sustainability in the Curriculum.
Abstract
Sustainable development can be adopted as a driver for change within higher education institutions and as an opportunity to transform curricula (as seen with the recent revisions to QAA Subject Benchmark Statements). This workshop will discuss practical ways to embed Education of Sustainable Development (ESD) and specifically the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into the formal curricula. Dr. Sarah Gretton – Institutional lead for ESD and Alice Jackson – Sustainability Academic Engagement Officer at the University of Leicester – will bring their experiences in integrating the SDGs into teaching and learning and will guide participants on how to evaluate their modules in relation to the goals. During this session, participants will be asked to associate their module’s intended learning outcomes with the UN SDGs and associated targets, to understand how existing learning objectives can support sustainable development.
Biographies
Sarah Gretton is an Associate Professor in Biological Sciences, Director of University of Leicester’s Natural Sciences programme, and Academic Lead for Education for Sustainable Development at the University of Leicester. Sarah is Senior Fellow of HEA. Sarah has over a decade’s experience in educational development, working on internally and externally funded projects (HEA, Advance HE, Royal Society for Biology, QAA). Her research interests include sustainability, skills development and interdisciplinary science education and have resulted in multiple publications (https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=xv8W6lIAAAAJ&hl=en). She leads the UK Society for Natural Science Scholarship of Teaching and Learning sub-committee and is member of national organising committee for the UK Horizons in STEM Higher Education Conference. Her educational work has been recognised by a number of accolades which include reaching the finals of the 2017 Green Gown Awards (Sustainability Champion), winning the University of Leicester’s Teaching Excellence award (2017), and receiving a National Teaching Fellowship in 2021.
Alice is a sustainability professional working to deliver the ESD strategy at the University of Leicester. She comes from a sociology background and has previous experience working in employability and graduate skills which has informed her work in engagement and strengthening the sustainability content in the curriculum. She leads on the collection and analysis of data for an annual ESD audit and is enhancing those processes for the institution as part of a QAA funded ESD project. She has worked on the development and teaching of an interdisciplinary sustainable enterprise module to connect students with local SMEs in order to create lasting sustainable impact and has recently been recognised for this work at the 2022 Green Gown awards with a Highly Commended project. She has also developed and delivered Carbon Literacy Training to over 200 staff, students and local businesses as an accredited Carbon Literacy Facilitator.
Thank you to all who have attended Academy Forums in Semester 1. We’ve had some great discussions around wellbeing in the curriculum, student induction activities, how students are using technology at Aberystwyth University, and Digital Capabilities (Part 1).
All our handouts from our Academy Forums are available on our webpages.
You can now book your place on our Academy Forums for Semester 2.
24 January, 14:00-15:30: Academy Forum 5: Strategies for Feedback Engagement (In-person, E3)
16 February, 10:00-11:30: Academy Forum 6: Using Technology for Reflective Activities (Online)
6 March, 10:00-11:30, Academy Forum 7: Designing Group Assessment using Technology (Online)
19 April, 10:00-11:30, Academy Forum 8: Digital Capabilities (Part 2) (Online)
17 May, 14:00-16:00, Academy Forum 9: Equality and Diversity in the Curriculum (In-person, E3)
If you have any questions, then please contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (lteu@aber.ac.uk).
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.
