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:

• Teaching Online? How to make Blackboard Activities more interactive with Adaptive Release
• Blackboard Tests: Creating Online Assessment Activities for your students
• Tips for Discussion Board Engagement
• Monitoring Student Engagement while teaching online
• Tips for Teaching with MS Teams
• Taking part in lectures, seminars or tutorials via Teams (students)

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 19^th of January and 4^th of February). Links to the drop-ins are available on our blog.

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

• Content Organisation in Blackboard
• Motivation strategies for online engagement – reflections from the last Academy Forum in Semester One
• NEW feature – Breakout Rooms in MS Teams
• NEW Recurring MS Teams Meeting Feature in Blackboard
• Alternative activities to in-person teaching
• Helping Students to Make Most of Recorded Lectures – Using Discussion and Notes in Panopto
• Using Podcasts for Teaching
• Tips for monitoring chat for online and in person sessions
• Engaging students with asynchronous online tasks: Self-Determination Theory (SDT) Perspective

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.

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.   

• 11/1/2021 start, FutureLearn MOOC, Blended and Online Learning Design with Diana Laurillard
• 15/1/2021, Digitally Enhanced Education webinar series
• 18/1/2021, Enhancing Digital Teaching & Learning in Irish Universities, Student Feedback on Online Learning
• 3/2/2021, Institute of Education Observatory, Teaching, Learning and Assessment in a Digital World  
• Brown, N. & Leigh, J. (2021) Ableism in Academia: Theorising experiences of disabilities and chronic illnesses in higher education, UCL Press
• Developing Academic Practice journal, Liverpool University Press
• Guest, J. & Riegler, R. (2021) Knowing HE standards: how good are students at evaluating academic work?, Higher Education Research & Development
• Kukulska-Hulme, A., Bossu, C., Coughlan, T., Ferguson, R., FitzGerald, E., Gaved, M., Herodotou, C., Rienties, B., Sargent, J., Scanlon, E., Tang, J., Wang, Q., Whitelock, D., Zhang, S. (2021). Innovating Pedagogy 2021: Open University Innovation Report 9. Milton Keynes: The Open University
• Li, X., Yang, Y., Chu, S.K.W., Zainuddin, Z., Zhang, Y., 2020. Applying blended synchronous teaching and learning for flexible learning in higher education: an action research study at a university in Hong Kong, Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 0, 1–17.
• University of Rochester Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Learning Activities for Synchronous Online Classes 

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.