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)

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Academy Forums 2022-23

We’re really excited to announce our forthcoming Academy Forums for 2022-23. Building on the success of last year’s sessions, and based on feedback, we’ve increased the number of Academy Forums on offer, with 10 running across the academic year.

For those of you unfamiliar with Academy Forums, they’re informal discussions that bring colleagues together from across the University. In each session, we’ll look at a particular topic related to Learning and Teaching. We’ll facilitate the discussion and also provide resources and guidance following the Academy Forum. We then make these available on our webpages. Take a look at last year’s Academy Forum topics:

This year, we are seeing a return of some in person Academy Forums as well as having some run online via Teams. You can view the dates, session descriptions, and book your place on our booking page for the first three sessions – keep your eye out for future sessions.

We’ll be starting our Academy Forums with a discussion around Student Induction. We’ll be thinking about how you prepare students to study. What types of activities do you run in week 1 of your module to familarise your students with the content? Also, we’ll be asking colleagues to share with us how you might use technology in these interactions.

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Academy Forum Materials 2021-22 are available on our webpages

Our Academy Forums for the academic year have now finished. We’d like to thank our attendees for participating in the discussions.

We’ve made the handouts from this year’s forums available on our webpages.

The handouts contain key theoretical frameworks as well as practical case studies and colleagues’ reflections on their own teaching.

Topics discussed this year:

Owing to the success of the format and the attendance, we’re looking to increase the number of academy forums on offer next academic year. If you’ve got a topic related to learning and teaching that you’d like to discuss with colleagues, then drop us an email (lteu@aber.ac.uk).

UKGCE Good Supervisory Practice Framework

A suite of online training sessions on the 5th and 12th April has been added to the LTEU pages for staff working within supervisory roles. Staff are welcome to attend as many sessions in suite as they wish depending on availability: each session is independent.   


Book online:.https://stafftraining.aber.ac.uk/sd/list_courses.php

These sessions are aligned to the UKCGE “Good Supervisory Practice Framework”: more information can be found here.
 
For enquires please contact Dr Maire Gorman, mng2@aber.ac.uk.

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. We have recently worked intensively with academic colleagues to develop solutions in response to the Covid 19 pandemic. 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

2020/21 External Speakers and Resources

As part of this year’s CPD programme, we hosted a number of external speakers who provided us with new perspectives and unique expertise in various aspects of learning and teaching. In preparation for the upcoming year, we would like to briefly remind you of some of the topics discussed and the resources available to you. We hope that by building on these and other sessions the Unit organised this year you will feel fully prepared to adapt and innovate your teaching in the upcoming year.

Professor Ale Armellini: The Journey towards Active Blended Learning

Last summer’s conference keynote speaker, Professor Ale Armellini, shared his insights and advice on learning innovation and online pedagogy.

Recording


Dr Naomi Winston: From Transmission to Transformation: Maximising Student Engagement with Feedback

In the first mini-conference of the year, we had an opportunity to listen to Dr Naomi Winstor who argued that maximising students’ engagement with feedback is fundamentally an issue of design, where opportunities for students to develop the skills required for effective use of feedback, and opportunities to apply feedback, can transform the role of students in assessment.

Recording


Frederika Roberts: Flourishing at Aberystwyth – Putting Positive Education into Practice

In this mini-conference keynote speech attendees learnt about key elements of positive psychology in the context of higher education and practical strategies for enhancing their own wellbeing.

Recording


Kate Lister: Online Communities and Student Well-being

Kate Lister from Advance HE explored how to create effective digital communities that can support students’ sense of belonging and purpose, facilitate meaningful connections, and provide support without relying on a campus environment.

Recording


Dr Kate Exley: Taking your (PowerPoint) Lectures Online

Dr Kate Exley was invited to deliver a workshop on moving our lectures, previously delivered in large lecture theatres and classrooms, to online platforms.

Summary


Dr Sally Brown & Dr Kay Sambell – Improving assessment and feedback processes post-pandemic: authentic approaches to improve student learning and engagement.

During our Mini-Fest on assessment, Dr Sally Brown and Dr Kay Sambell led a workshop designed to build on lessons learned during the complex transitions academics made last year and explore the concept of authentic approaches to assessments.

Link to recordings & resources


Professor Mick Healey & Dr Ruth Healey: Engaging students through student-staff partnership

We invited Professor Mick Healey and Dr Ruth Healey to deliver a workshop on student-staff partnerships and consult them on engaging students in projects and provisions we currently deliver.

Recording

Dr Dyddgu Hywel: Blaenoriaethu Iechyd a Lles Staff

The first external speaker of this year’s Learning and Teaching Conference talked about prioritizing the health and well-being of staff.

Recording


Andy McGregor: What will assessment look like in five years?

We also had an opportunity to listen to Andy McGregor from JISC on the future of assessment. A talk 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’.

Recording


Dr Chrissi Nerantzi: Breaking Free

Lastly, our keynote speech for this year’s conference was delivered by Dr Chrissi Neratzi who talked about open and flexible pedagogies.


Joe Probert & Izzy Whitley: Using Vevox to engage learners.

Joe Probert and Izzy Whitley from Vevox, our university polling software, delivered a session on how to make effective use of polling to engage learners.  

Recording

Taking your (PowerPoint) Lectures Online: Kate Exley Workshop

The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit is pleased to announce a special online workshop run by Dr Kate Exley on Wednesday 7th July at 10am.

The workshop will be useful for colleagues who are modifying and transferring their traditionally delivered lectures for on-line learning.

Please book your place online [link]:

https://stafftraining.aber.ac.uk/sd/list_courses.php

Places are limited so please book as soon as possible.

Session Overview:

Many colleagues have been involved in providing blended or on-line learning for many years but the Covid pandemic has meant that we have all needed to quickly provide much of our teaching and learning at a distance. This has involved moving our lectures, previously delivered in large lecture theatres and classrooms, to online platforms. The speed at which this huge change has happened has in itself caused significant challenges for staff and students alike.  This blended workshop aims to provide some guidance, examples and a forum for colleagues to share their experiences and ideas for enhancing this provision.

This workshop is presented in two parts:

  • A set of 3 short videos will be made available on or before the 30th June 2021 and should be viewed independently before joining discussion forum – approximately 45 minutes independent study.
  • A discussion forum hosted via Teams on the 7th July, in which participants will have the opportunity to ask questions, share experiences and discuss the topic – lasting 1 hour.

By the end of the two hour, session you should be able to:

  • Consider the purpose of the on-line lecture in Covid times
  • Discuss a range of practical design issues when taking lectures on-line
  • Share experiences and ideas with colleagues ‘in the same boat’
  • Begin to plan your next steps & what you can implement from the workshop

This workshop is mapped primarily to A2, A5, K2, K3 on the UKPSF. 

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Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol: Online Research Conference (29 June 2021)

CIRCULAR Funding Projects in Further Education Institutions from the Coleg  Cymraeg Cenedlaethol's Strategic Development Fund

The Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol are hosting their Online Research Conference on 29 June 2021.

This conference is for anyone who is interested in multi-disciplinary academic research through the medium of Welsh. Scientists, humanists and sociologists from all over Wales and beyond are invited to share the results of their research and to meet other like-minded Welsh researchers.

The aim of the conference is to give the next generation of academics the opportunity to present their research to an audience of peers. It will also be an opportunity to network with Welsh-speaking researchers and to foster a wider community of academics who promote Welsh-medium provision in our universities.

Here is the full programme for the conference, which includes the conference schedule along with contributor biographies and abstracts.

You are welcome to register for the conference by completing this registration form.

Weekly Resource Roundup – 19/5/2021

As leader of our PGCTHE programme, I keep an eye out for resources to help staff teach effectively. These include webinars, podcasts, online toolkits, publications and more. Topics include active learning, online/blended teaching, accessibility/inclusion, and effective learning design based on cognitive science. Below I’ve listed items that came to my attention in the past week. In the interest of clarity, our policy is to show the titles and descriptions in the language of delivery.   

Online events and webinars

Resources and publications

Please see the Staff Training booking page for training offered by the LTEU and other Aberystwyth University staff. I hope you find this weekly resource roundup useful. If you have questions or suggestions, please contact our team at lteu@aber.ac.uk. You may also wish to follow my Twitter feed, Mary Jacob L&T.