Vevox’s Pedagogy Autumn 2023 Online Webinars

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.

Welcome to new staff joining Aberystwyth University

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.

All the information that you need is on the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit webpages. Our Supporting your Teaching webpages will help you with various teaching solutions.

We write a blog full of the latest updates, details on events and training sessions, and resources.

If you need to get in touch with us, you can do so using one of two email addresses:

lteu@aber.ac.uk (for pedagogical and design questions, or to arrange a consultation) or

elearning@aber.ac.uk (for technical queries regarding our e-learning tools listed below).

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Sustainability in the Curriculum: Materials Available

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.

If you’re interested in Sustainability in the Curriculum then the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal targets are a good starting place.

In addition to SDGs, the presenters also linked to the following resources:

This external speaker event builds on our Mini Conference on Sustainability held in December.

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.

Mini Conference: Virtual Reality, keynote announcement

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).

External Speaker: Dr Sarah Gretton and Alice Jackson: Sustainability in the Curriculum and Education of Sustainable Development Goals for Aberystwyth University

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.

This builds on our mini conference in December.

You can sign up for the event on our events booking page.

Resources from our previous external speaker series can be found on our blog.

If you’ve got any questions, please contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (lteu@aber.ac.uk).

Academy Forums 2023

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).

Mini Conference Programme Announced

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On Tuesday 20 December, the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit will be hosting an Academy Mini-Conference online.

The theme is ‘Sustainability in Higher Education’.

The Mini-Conference will run from 10:15-14:15.

We’re excited to confirm our programme:

  • Dr Georgina Gough – keynote speaker Embedding Sustainability Goals across the Curriculum
  • Marian Gray: Student Mobility and Cross-Cultural Skills – Global and Sustainable?
  • Dr Louise Marshall – Discipline hopping: Interdisciplinary approaches to a sustainable curriculum

For session abstracts and timings, please see the programme on our webpages.

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.

Keynote Announcement: Mini Conference on Sustainability in Higher Education

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We’re delighted to announce our keynote presentation for this year’s Mini Conference taking place online via Teams on 20 December 2022.

Dr Georgina Gough will be leading a session on embedding Sustainable Development Goals into the curriculum.

Dr Gough is Associate Professor in Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) lead at UWE Bristol. She coordinates a cross university, award-winning knowledge exchange for sustainability education (KESE) and mentors academics to incorporate sustainability into their teaching, learning and professional practice. Georgina leads a long-term project mapping academic activity against the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is actively involved in city-level work to achieve the SDGs. She was on the expert panel which developed the HE sector guidance on ESD (Advance HE/ QAA, 2021) and works in partnership with colleagues, students and external stakeholders to embed sustainability across higher education and to share good practice both internally and externally. Georgina is programme leader for MSc Sustainable Development in Practice and teaches in geography- and business-based UG modules as well as contributing to cross-university sustainability modules and academic development initiatives.

Booking for the mini conference is currently open – reserve your place online. Our full programme will be announced shortly.

Annual Learning & Teaching Conference 2022: recordings and resources now available!

Keynote announcement banner

We at the LTEU want to say a big thank you to everyone who got involved and attended our annual learning and teaching conference.

If you didn’t manage to attend not to worry, we are pleased to announce that all of the recordings are now live on the Annual Learning and Teaching Conference programme page.

If you attended this year’s conference, we would love to hear your feedback, please fill in our Annual Learning & Teaching Conference 2022 Survey. We are beginning our preparations for our 11th Annual Learning & Teaching Conference and your feedback will help us make it the best one yet!

Welcome to new staff joining Aberystwyth University

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.

All the information that you need is on the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit webpages. Our Supporting your Teaching webpages will help you with various teaching solutions.

We write a blog full of the latest updates, details on events and training sessions, and resources.

If you need to get in touch with us, you can do so using one of two email addresses:

lteu@aber.ac.uk (for pedagogical and design questions, or to arrange a consultation) or

elearning@aber.ac.uk (for technical queries regarding our e-learning tools listed below)

Read More