Continued Professional Development – What’s on Offer?

Posted on Tuesday November 10th, 2020 by Lara Kipp [lak22]

The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit offers a number of sessions for Continued Professional Development (CPD) covering a range of topics. We offer sessions in both English and Welsh. Welsh-language sessions will appear in Welsh on the staff training website.
In this blog post, I will detail the range of sessions on offer for you between now and January, who to contact to find out more about them, and how to book a place for a session.
Here is what’s on offer in the coming months:

November:

Sessions aimed at Graduate Teaching Assistants, both on Developing your Teaching Practice and on Using MS Teams, Teaching Room Equipment & Synchronous Delivery (English and Welsh language sessions available)
A session on Facilitating Intrinsic Motivation in Students – the Self Determination Theory Perspective (English language only)
Sessions on E-Learning Essentials: Introductions to Blackboard, TurnitIn, and Panopto (the former in English, the latter two in Welsh)
Sessions on Creating Accessible Learning Materials, Learning Environments, and Techniques for Teaching Scientific Subjects as well as Using Jisc Online Surveys (all English language)
Two Academy forums on Why and How to Help Students to Reflect on Their Learning, and on Motivation Strategies for Online Learning Engagement

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Weekly Resource Roundup – 9/11/2020

Posted on Monday November 9th, 2020 by Mary Jacob [mhj]

As lecturer in learning and teaching responsible for the PGCTHE, I keep an eye out for new resources to help our staff teach effectively online. This includes externally-provided webinars, toolkits, publications and other resources. Because active learning is high on our university agenda, I’m particularly keen to share guidance for moving active learning online. 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.

23-27/11/2020, International Virtual Meeting of Teaching, Learning & Assessment in Higher Education – “Speakers include David Boud, David Carless, María Assunção Flores, Liisa Postareff, Ana Remesal, Pete Boyd, Phil Dawson, Daniela Bruna, Carlos González, Ernesto Panadero, Gavin Brown, Verónica Santelices, Gonzalo Cifuentes, Stephen Darwin and Verónica Villarroel.“
26/11/2020, Future Teacher Talks, “Working with Rich Media 1 – Images“
ACUE (5/11/2020), “New Resource for Inclusive and Equitable Teaching“
Education Technology, “Streamlining the virtual student experience webinar recording”
Enhancing Digital Teaching and Learning, “The Student Perspective of Online/Remote Teaching webinar recording”
Future Teacher Talks, “Inclusive Practice“
Gettin’ Air – the Open Pedagogy Podcast
Pedagodzilla, “The pedagogic podcast with the pop culture core: This podcast is an elaborate effort to boost and broaden our knowledge of pedagogic theory, practice and research. It’s a heck of a dry subject though, so we have a bit of fun by clumsily slapping geeky analogies over the top from our favorite bits of pop culture nerdery. Each episode we’ll skim just enough information to blag a chunk of pedagogy, and then give it a damn good kicking.”

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.

Potential disruption to Blackboard labels and titles

Posted on Monday November 9th, 2020 by James Woolley [jbw]

You may notice some changes to Blackboard labels whilst we update our language pack tomorrow morning (Tuesday 10.11.2020).

This will affect menu items and My Modules. Blackboard functionality and access will remain during this time and you will still be able to create content, access materials, and submit assignments. This work is scheduled to take place as part of Information Services’ Tuesday morning maintenance: https://faqs.aber.ac.uk/94.

New Content Editor in Blackboard

Posted on Friday November 6th, 2020 by Kate Wright [kaw]

A small number of users are having problems with the new Content Editor in Blackboard. This may stop you being able to add or edit text.

We are working closely with Blackboard to resolve this problem as quickly as possible.

Helping Students to Make Most of Recorded Lectures – Using Discussion and Notes in Panopto

Posted on Thursday November 5th, 2020 by Anna Udalowska [aeu]

Panopto recordings have been heavily used by students even before the move to partly online delivery. This year they rely on pre-recorded content even more. Facilitating active learning using asynchronous materials such as lecture recordings can be challenging. We have previously shared with you the guide on using lecture recordings for students outlining six key strategies helping them to make most of the recordings. In one of our previous posts we have also explored the use of Panopto captions and quizzes which enables your recordings to be more accessible and interactive. Today we would like to introduce you to two additional Panopto functionalities – discussion and notes.

The image shows where the Discussion function in Panopto is located. It is between the Contents and Notes tabs on the left hand side of the Panopto editor.

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Using Podcasts for Teaching

Posted on Wednesday November 4th, 2020 by Anna Udalowska [aeu]

The second Academy Forum session this year focused on creating podcasts in Panopto. The discussion emphasised podcasts’ unique potential for facilitating a sense of connection. Usually based on informal monologues, interviews and discussions podcasts provide their users with opportunities to listen in to unconstructed reflections and conversations. As explained by Street (2014) audio storytelling creates a ‘partnership between imagination and memory’ triggering a unique and personal reaction to it (as cited in McHugh, 2014, p.143). Podcasts can provide us with company; unlike with videos or written texts, we can listen to them during other daily activities.

These unique properties of podcasts hold great potential for its use in education. University of Cambridge created a collection of short podcasts from various subject areas. Podcasts are also used by individual educators, Ian Wilson, a Senior Lecturer in Education at York St John University Ian Wilson created a series of podcasts aimed at supporting learners on placements. His podcast focused on providing students with instructions on what the students should be doing the following week, answering any of their questions and providing some motivational advice. Although podcasting may not necessarily be the best solution for delivering the key learning material, as discussed during the Academy Forum session, it can complement your current teaching practice by fostering reflection, increasing learner’s engagement and foster a sense of community.

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An Updated Content Editor for Blackboard

Posted on Tuesday November 3rd, 2020 by Robert Francis [rsf09]

On November 5th, 2020 Blackboard is rolling out an update to the Content Editor (aka WYSIWYG editor). This is the primary input method in Blackboard.

This is what it looks like:

The new Blackboard Content Editor

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Weekly Resource Roundup – 2/11/2020

Posted on Monday November 2nd, 2020 by Mary Jacob [mhj]

3/11/2020 SEDA. “Transitions Into, Through and Out of Higher Education: Supporting Students”
5/11/2020 University of London. “Experiences in Digital Learning Webinar Series: Adventures in synchronous online teaching”
ACUE, “Inclusive Online Teaching”
Beattie, T. (27/10/2020) “Digital Learning In Our New Normal – A Reflection“, TILE Network
Davis, J. (19/6/2020) “An experiment in the socially-distanced classroom” Counting from Zero
Ferlazzo, L. (22/9/2020) “Strategies for Promoting Student Collaboration in a Distance Learning Environment“, Education Week Teacher
Harvard, B. (22/10/2020) “Studying 101“, The Effortful Teacher, applying cognitive psychology to the classroom
International Journal for Students as Partners (19/10/2020) (4)2
Kaminske, A. N. (30/10/2020) “VLOG: How To Take Notes In Class – A Video for Students” The Learning Scientists Blog
Lederman, D. (27/5/2020) “Can Active Learning Co-Exist With Physically Distanced Classrooms?“, Inside Higher Ed
Stachowiak, B. (25/10/2020) “Structuring Synchronous Classes for Engagement“, Teaching in Higher Ed

Flags and the Insight Panel in Turnitin Feedback Studio

Posted on Friday October 30th, 2020 by Robert Francis [rsf09]

Staff who have graded assignment submissions via Turnitin will be familiar with the Similarity Report the Feedback Studio. The Feedback Studio interface highlights matches with online sources.

Turnitin have updated the interface of the Feedback Studio to now highlight for review textual inconsistencies in submission. These highlights are termed Flags.

Flags pick up potential integrity issues such as:
•Replaced text characters which could be inserted to circumvent a similarity match.
•Hidden text such as quotation marks that could impact the percentage of quoted material and enable the passing off of such content as original.

Continue reading →

Vocal Warm Ups and Techniques for Recording at Home

Posted on Thursday October 29th, 2020 by Lara Kipp [lak22]

Speaking into the void of your computer for pre-recorded materials is hard. Without an audience to interact with, it is difficult to know whether the delivery of materials is clear and engaging. On top of that, we use our voices very differently depending on the circumstance we speak in – recording in your office, or at home, your use of voice when recording will differ from your normal in-person delivery. Here are a few tips aimed at helping you make your pre-recorded vignettes as engaging as your live sessions:

1. Overenunciate – this will help automatic captions and emphasise individual words, making it easier to understand and follow what you are saying
2. Vary speed of delivery – take your time with the things that need it, but beware of setting into too regular a rhythm. Changes in speed will refocus your listeners’ attention onto what you are saying.
3. Use different parts of your vocal range – we’re not suggesting you act out different characters, but consciously avoid monotone: you know what you are talking about, but your students may encounter it for the first time. Monotone makes it seem boring and unimportant, when it really isn’t.

The above are ways of imitating the variances that happen in face-to-face conversations, and live events where you feed off your audience’s reactions and engagement. No one asks that you retrain as a YouTuber, but some vocal techniques used in videos like that can become useful tools for making pre-recorded materials more engaging. It takes a lot of energy and focus to speak into nothing but your own computer. The above are simple but effective linguistic and vocal tricks that help you speak engagingly to an imaginary audience.

Here’s a video to help you.