NEW Welsh-medium Teams site and CPD (March ’21)

Posted on Tuesday March 16th, 2021 by Sioned Llywelyn [sil12]

NEW Teams Site:
We have set up a new Teams site, Dysgu ac addysgu cyfrwng Cymraeg. This site is for staff at the University who teach through the medium of Welsh or who can speak Welsh. It is an informal place for us to share information about Welsh-medium training with you and a place for everyone to share good teaching practice.

*To be added to the site, please e-mail lteu@aber.ac.uk *
Welsh-medium Learning and Teaching site
Welsh-medium training (March):
The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit offers several sessions for Continued Professional Development (CPD) covering a range of topics. We are holding two Welsh-medium sessions during March.

Hanfodion E-ddysgu Uwch: Beth allaf ei wneud gyda Blackboard

Fforwm Academi: Addysgu grwpiau bychain

*Open to staff from other universities in Wales

For a full list of all sessions (both English- and Welsh-medium) and to book a place on any course, please visit the staff training website. If you have any questions about any of the sessions, please email lteu@aber.ac.uk.

Student Digital Experience Insights Survey

Posted on Tuesday March 16th, 2021 by Lauren Harvey [lah26]

Aberystwyth University is taking part in the Digital Experience Insights project aiming to explore our students’ experiences of technology. The project is based on online surveys designed by Jisc and used by different institutions across the UK.

It allows us to gain insight into how students use technology and to benchmark our results against other HE institutions in our sector.

We would appreciate your help in promoting the Digital Insights Survey to all students

Weekly Resource Roundup – 15/3/2021

Posted on Monday March 15th, 2021 by Mary Jacob [mhj]

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.

15/3/2021 12:30 Enhancing Digital Teaching & Learning in Irish Universities IUADigEd: Join the Conversation – student collaboration, recording of previous webinar Student Collaboration
23/3/2021 WonkHE, The academic experience of digitally enabled learning during Covid-19
25/3/2021 LTEU Aberystwyth University, Embedding Well-being in the Curriculum
31/3/2021 Future Teacher, Getting savvy with digital tools and resources
7/4/2021 Transforming Assessment, Lessons Learned from Systemically Implementing Competency Based Assessment
15/4/2021 University of Warwick, Interdisciplinary Learning and Teaching Conference booking / programme
3/5/2021 Post-Pandemic University, Digital Divide in the Post-Pandemic University: “If you would like to take part in this online workshop on the Digital Divide in the Post-Pandemic University, due to take place on May 3rd from 1pm to 5pm BST, please send the following information via this online form by March 31st: a theme you would be interested in speaking about, a brief account of your work and how it relates to the theme and biographical details including your social media handle (if applicable) and affiliation.”
Hinton, D. (17/9/2020) Exploring the Anatomy of an Online Discussion Board Activity, National Teaching Repository
Knight, S. (8/3/2021) Over 27,000 students share how colleges and universities could improve digital learning, Jisc News
Mote, K. & Kelly, J. (3/3/3021) Video captioning and accessibility regulations, Jisc
Wilson, H. SCULPT – Shaping your documents and content for accessible and inclusive practice, Worcester County Council

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.

Mini Conference: ‘Embedding Well-being in the Curriculum’, Thursday 25 March, 09:30am

Posted on Friday March 12th, 2021 by Sioned Llywelyn [sil12]

Mini Conference Banner
On Thursday 25th March, the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit will be hosting the second Academy Mini-Conference online of this academic year. The theme will be ‘Embedding Well-being in the Curriculum’, where will explore the links between mental well-being and learning and how this could help to maximise success for both students and staff. The Mini-Conference will run from 09:30-16:50.

We’re excited to confirm our programme:

• Flourishing at Aberystwyth – Putting Positive Education into Practice

Keynote

• Online Communities and Student Well-being

Keynote

• Well-being in the Curriculum at Aberystwyth University

• Well-being in the Curriculum – a Foundation Year Pilot

• Supporting Students in Building a Resilient Approach to their Learning

• What Can Lecturers Do to Get Students to Embrace Mistakes?

• Building Resilience

• Meeting Students’ Needs (using simple tools)

• Resilience – a Valuable Student Skill

We will also be running an optional yoga and meditation session during two of the breaks for all conference attendees.

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.

Kate Exley Workshop Summary

Posted on Friday March 12th, 2021 by James Woolley [jbw]

Last month the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit invited Dr Kate Exley to run a workshop for Aberystwyth University Staff called Moving your (PowerPoint) Lecture online.

What emerged from participants were lots of useful strategies for engaging students whilst teaching online. We’ve summarised some of the discussion below.

Learning Design:

Simple strategies were most effective, such as using word document and uploading into chat
Make use of Polling Software to engage students in their learning
Build in ice-breaker activities to establish initial engagement
In longer sessions, set a task and factor in a screen break
Include tasks for students to do in advance and use the live sessions to scaffold their knowledge
Include social tasks as well as formal tasks
One department are running day long workshops with the option to ‘dial’ in the staff member if they’ve got any questions
Stick to one or two large scale activities in a 40 minute session
Be aware that students might be entering the synchronous session not having engaged with all tasks beforehand
Use collaborative tools such as shared document, whiteboard or Padlet to collectively generate notes
Being more informal in recorded lectures
Offering weekly live q and a drop in sessions
Asking students to meet in groups outside of timetabled activities
Share real life examples / case studies in teaching and ask students to contribute with their own examples
Ask students to look things up / research in the synchronous session

Continue reading →

Reflections from Academy Forum: How can I make my teaching more inclusive?

Posted on Thursday March 11th, 2021 by Anna Udalowska [aeu]

What does insivity mean to you wordcloud

Last week’s Academy Forum on inclusivity was one of the best-attended sessions this year. It was great to see so much interest and commitment in developing more inclusive teaching. This session was delivered in partnership with Student Support Services. Accessibility Advisor Nicky Cashman provided staff with information on demographics at AU as well as support available to students.

The session started from a broad question of ‘what does inclusivity means to you’ (see the word cloud we created above). After Nicky’s introduction, we moved onto a scenario-based activity. Each group was given one scenario to work with. Every few minutes each group received and an additional piece of information providing them with a broader perspective of the situation.

The scenarios can be found at the bottom of the post.

The activity was followed by a whole-group discussion. Staff talked about a ‘duty of care’ towards their students and the extent to which they are expected and should be monitoring their students. We also talked about the balance between taking care of individual students and the needs of the entire cohort. The group looking at scenario one rightly pointed out that more inclusive practice would be to ensure that students are pre-assigned to groups, to avoid situations when someone is excluded. A discussion on when alternative assessments are appropriate and where additional support in completing existing assessments would be more suitable. Finally, the importance of establishing trust with students as well as checking in with students who may show early signs of difficulties was discussed.

We are very grateful to Nicky and all staff who attended and contributed to this session.

Continue reading →

Weekly Resource Roundup – 8/3/2021

Posted on Monday March 8th, 2021 by Mary Jacob [mhj]

11/3/2021 ALT-ELESIG, The student voice on Active Blended Learning
24/3/3021 ALT-ELESIG, How are students experiencing learning online? What the data from our digital experience insights 2020-1 student surveys is telling us
Collins, M. (26/2/2021), The Pedagodzilla Pedagogic Poetry Slam, Pedagodzilla – The pedagogic podcast with the pop culture core
Developing Practice Podcast (5/3/3021), E38: Dr Monica Chavez: Building communities of practice for educational development, The Academy, University of Liverpool
Gonzalez, J. (15/10/2015), The Big List of Class Discussion Strategies, Cult of Pedagogy
Harvard, B., Downloadables, The Effortful Educator – applying cognitive psychology to the classroom
Jones, K. (3/3/2021), Retrieval Practice In Action In The Classroom – A Summary, TILE Network
Mihai, A. (29/1/2021), Active learning online? Yes you can!, The Educationalist
O’Toole, R. (26/2/2021) Digital Arts and Humanities Programme design challenge, Inspires Learning
Sheridan, N., Adventures in Academic Development
Toro-Troconis, M. (26/2/2021), Learning Design Bootcamp – Supporting Higher Education institutions before, during and after COVID-19, The SEDA blog

Call for Proposals: Learning and Teaching Conference 2021

Posted on Wednesday March 3rd, 2021 by James Woolley [jbw]

We are now inviting proposals for the 9^th Annual Learning and Teaching Conference, Wednesday 30th June – Friday 2nd July 2021.

Submit and view the call for proposals here.

This year’s conference theme, Improvisation within Constraint: Reshaping a Learning Community in a Time of Change, aims to reflect the commitment that AU staff have to enhance the student learning experience. The four main strands of this year’s conference are:

Flexible approaches to assessment design
Embedding skills into the curriculum
Lessons learnt from a blended approach
Active Learning

Staff, postgraduate teaching assistants, and students are welcome to propose sessions on any topic relating to learning and teaching, especially those that focus on the incorporation and use of technology. Even if your suggestion doesn’t fit a particular strand, other topics are welcome.

We seek to encourage presenters to consider using alternative formats that reflect and suit the content of their sessions. As such, we are not specifying a standardised presentation format.

Please complete this form no later than 30th April 2021.

If you have any questions, please contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit at lteu@aber.ac.uk.

Weekly Resource Roundup – 1/3/2021

Posted on Monday March 1st, 2021 by Mary Jacob [mhj]

2/3/2021 Jisc, Supporting wellbeing through inclusive use of technology and inclusive digital pedagogy
3/3/2021 Panopto, How to ensure pedagogy comes before technology
4/3/2021 Experiences in Digital Learning webinars, Approaches to Inclusive Online Practices
5/3/2021 Digitally Enhanced Education webinars, Pedagogy and Practice when Teaching Online
9/3/2021 Active Learning Network, A business simulation game: A framework to promote active learning in Higher Education
24/3/2021 University of Lincoln Digital Education Support, The Future of Blended Learning Conference
19-14/4/2021 Active Learning Network, Global Festival of Active Learning
9/6/2021 Generation Z in Higher Education
Guccione, K. (10/2/2021) Listening, to understand, not to reply, GCU Academic Development and Student Learning.
Lomer, S., Mittelmeier, J. & Carmichael-Murphy, P. (1/2021) Cash cows or pedagogic partners? Mapping pedagogic practices for and with international students, Society for Research into Higher Education
Mihai, A. (18/5/2020) The kaiseki approach to online learning: How microlearning helps you design online learning experiences, The Educationalist.
Plutino, A. & Alisca, E. (26/2/2021) Languages at work, competent multilinguals and the pedagogical challenges of COVID-19, Research-publishing.net.
QAA (18/2/2021) Learning from the Remote Pivot – approaches to aligning learning outcomes to assessment for student success

Why and how we manage Blackboard enrolments

Posted on Thursday February 25th, 2021 by Kate Wright [kaw]

One of the most common queries we get is from people who aren’t enrolled on modules in Blackboard. Our standard answer is that staff and students should be enrolled on the module in the module record in AstRA. Once this is done, it takes about an hour for that enrolment to make its way to Blackboard.

But we know that there are still times when students and staff are added manually to modules. We’d like to reduce this as much as possible, so we need to understand when and why it happens. Our short survey will help us do this. The results of this survey will help us to see if we need to make changes to our processes to make it easier for everyone who needs to be on a module can get access quickly and easily.

It can be tempting to just manually add someone to a module, especially if you are in a rush or can’t find someone to make the change for you. However, there are reasons why we take all our enrolments from one source:

Who has access to a module is transparent. This is particularly important for staff enrolments as staff have access to marks and student details. If all our records are taken from AStRA we know that someone should have access to the module; their enrolment has been approved. Also, there are checks within AStRA to make sure that only staff IDs can be given teaching permissions to a module. This avoids mix-ups with logins or typing mistakes which could see students accidentally being given access to grades (for example).
Students only get access to modules they are registered to. Although we encourage students to check their student record, they will often go by the modules they are registered on in Blackboard. So, if a student is manually added to a module in Blackboard, but not properly registered in the Student Record, this can cause all sorts of issues. Especially when we reach exam board season.
Enrolments can be re-built if needed. If a problem with Blackboard we can easily rebuild permissions to modules quickly and easily as there is a central source for them. Any manual enrolments will not be included in this process and could lead to delays with access.

If you manually add staff or students to modules (or ask someone else to do it for you) please take a few minutes to complete our survey.