Registration for the twelfth annual Learning and Teaching conference is now open.
This year’s Learning and Teaching conference has the theme Equipping for Excellence: Pioneering Learning and Teaching Design and will be taking place between Tuesday 10 and Thursday 12 September 2024.
Staff, postgraduate teaching assistants, and students are invited to submit proposals for the 12th Annual Aberystwyth University Learning and Teaching Conference held 10-12 September 2024.
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.
Monthly series European Network for Academic Integrity, ENAI monthly webinarsfree open webinars on various topics related to academic integrity.
Subscribe to SEDA’s mailing list for email discussions about educational development and emerging teaching practices. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
Follow University of Birmingham’s Higher Education Futures institute HEFi on Twitter for daily posts with links to pedagogical literature and more. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
Join the #LTHEchat on Twitter Wednesday nights for one hour of lively discussion about learning and teaching in HE. I often find out about good resources for the Roundup from the chat.
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.
The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit is pleased to welcome our next external speakers on 2 and 3 May 2024, Pedagodzilla, the pedagogic podcast with the pop culture core, to Aberystwyth University. They are running a very special series of in-person events and CPD sessions on 2nd and 3rd May 2024.
2/5/2024 10:00-12:00 Powering professional development with Pedagodzilla
Staff can book on our CPD booking system. Interested students should contact the LTEU team to be added.
The Pedagodzilla visit to Aberystwyth starts with an introduction from the team, on who we are, what Pedagodzilla is – and includes us giving away free copies of our newly launched book, Pedagodzilla: Exploring the Realm of Pedagogy.
The book aims to demystify and disentangle the domains of pedagogy, using the lens of pop culture in a playful and accessible way. The book stems from episodes of the Pedagodzilla Podcast, which has now been running for five years, and has led to collaborations and conversations across the world, conference pieces and journal papers.
We feel that the book will be useful to anyone interested in education practice – and how theory can inform how we teach. In particular, this book is aimed at practitioners who may be suffering from the common higher-ed occupational hazard, imposter syndrome – giving them an accessible way to use the language of pedagogy to discuss and develop their own practice. We will talk about the book – share a QR code for people to access the pdf – and share some print copies until they run out.
We then move to a workshop, starting by discussing the development and framework of the Pedagodzilla Podcast as a professional development tool, and then inviting attendees to form groups to ideate their own powerful professional development projects within a framework. We draw it all together with a discussion of the underlying pedagogies, and tips for powering up your own professional development with creativity and authenticity.
In the Aber Takeover session, we invite attendees to form a team (using self-described roles to break up groups) to design a short segment of a show within a playful structured framework. Groups will record their contributions, which will go into a special Aberystwyth Takeover episode, published on the Pedagodzilla podcast feed. If you’re not a confident speaking or being recorded then don’t worry! This format includes options for non-speaking contributions.
On the second day, join Pedagodzilla for a recording session! An experiment with our format where we invite attendees to submit their own Pedagodzilla Style ‘pedagogy meets pop culture’ questions, to see if our flustered panellists can somehow blag a legitimate answer within a tight time limit, in a recorded podcast.
In the final session, we invite the good folk of Aberystwyth to pick the brains of the Pedagodzilla team – HE professionals from high profile universities across the country. Possible topics include but aren’t limited to:
Learning Design theory and practice (All)
The ups and downs of distance learning (All)
Experiential learning in virtual worlds, and the pedagogy (or not) of VR (Mark)
Podcasting for dummies (Mike)
Education futures, and innovations in pedagogy (Rebecca)
Learning behaviours (Elizabeth Ellis)
About Pedagodzilla
Pedagodzilla is the pedagogic podcast with the pop culture core, that looks to playfully understand and explore pedagogies and education practice through the lens of pop culture. The Pedagodzilla team will be officially launching their first book, Pedagodzilla: Exploring the Realm of Pedagogy at Aberystwyth.
Facilitators
Mike Collins: Producer and host of the Pedagodzilla podcast, and Senior Learning Designer at The Open University. Mike also provided the illustrations for the book.
Dr Mark Childs: Mark is a Senior Learning Designer at Durham University. He has a PhD in Education and was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2021 for his research and teaching using virtual reality and videoconferencing.
Prof Rebecca Ferguson: Professor Rebecca Ferguson is an editor-in-chief of the Journal of Learning Analytics, academic coordinator of the FutureLearn Academic Network (FLAN).
Elizabeth Ellis: At The Open University, Elizabeth develops digital learning experiences for OU students as well as OpenLearn and FutureLearn.
The April update to Blackboard Learn Ultra includes a much-requested feature; Anonymous posts for discussions. Additionally, there are improvements to feedback and Gradebook calculations.
Anonymous posts for Discussions
Discussions play a pivotal role in nurturing peer-to-peer interaction and critical thinking. Students need to feel free to express their ideas and opinions without fear of judgement. To support this, Blackboard have added an option for instructors to allow anonymous posts in ungraded discussions. This feature provides flexibility for instructors. They can toggle anonymity on or off as the discussion progresses. Any existing anonymous posts keep their anonymity.
Image below: Setting to turn on anonymous posts
Note: When intending to post anonymously a student must tick Post anonymously.
Image below: A student making an anonymous post with Post anonymously ticked (highlighted)
Image below: An anonymous post in a discussion
Add question feedback when grading by student
Instructors can now provide contextual feedback by student on all question types. Question level feedback promotes deeper understanding and personal growth among students. Question level feedback complements the existing capabilities of overall submission feedback and automated feedback for auto-graded questions.
Note: Blackboard are targeting the May release for per-question feedback when grading tests by questions rather than by student.
Image below: Instructor view of adding per question feedback
Image below: Instructor view of question with saved feedback
Once students have submitted their tests and scores are posted, students can access the feedback. Students can access both overall feedback and question-specific feedback.
Image below: Student view of feedback added to an essay question
Student feedback remains visible to students regardless of release condition settings
Instructors may want to control access to course content using release conditions. This is helpful for providing custom learning paths through course content. The release conditions include an option to show or hide content to/from students before they meet release conditions. Blackboard have modified how these settings impact the students’ view of feedback from instructors. Now instructors can set release conditions without any impact to feedback to students.
In the past, when an instructor selected the option to hide content, students could view associated grades but not the feedback. Blackboard have corrected this to ensure that students can always review feedback.
Image below: Instructor view of release conditions settings with date/time release condition set in combination with Hide state in “When will content appear?”
Image below: Student gradebook view with display of student’s feedback and grade regardless of the release condition setting in the above image.
Persistent navigation for Learning Modules
To improve students’ navigation in a learning module, Blackboard have updated the navigation bar. Now the navigation bar is sticky and remains visible as students vertically scroll through content. Students no longer need to scroll back up to the top of content to access the navigation tools.
Image below: The navigation bar is always visible
Calculations changed from using BigDecimal to BigFraction
Instructors need a gradebook that supports diverse grading scenarios. Blackboard are changing the software library used to perform calculations in calculated columns and the overall course grade.
Example: A course contains 3 assignments worth 22 points each. The student scores 13/22 on the first assignment, 14/22 on the second assignment, and 15/22 on the third assignment. An instructor creates a calculated column to calculate the average of these assignments.
Using the new software library, BigFraction, the average will calculate as 14/22.
With the former software library, BigDecimal, the average would incorrectly calculate to 13.99/22. The new software library ensures calculations compute as expected.
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.
Abril, D. (26/2/2024), I used AI work tools to do my job. Here’s how it went. Does AI save you time or create more work? We put Microsoft’s Copilot and Gemini for Google Workspace to the test., The Washington Post
Monthly series European Network for Academic Integrity, ENAI monthly webinarsfree open webinars on various topics related to academic integrity.
Subscribe to SEDA’s mailing list for email discussions about educational development and emerging teaching practices. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
Follow University of Birmingham’s Higher Education Futures institute HEFi on Twitter for daily posts with links to pedagogical literature and more. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
Join the #LTHEchat on Twitter Wednesday nights for one hour of lively discussion about learning and teaching in HE. I often find out about good resources for the Roundup from the chat.
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.
Information Services is pleased to announce a special half-day event looking at ways in which Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be used in academic contexts.
The event will be held on Thursday 11 April between 09:00-13:00 in the International Politics Main Hall.
The aim of the event is to look across the 2 academic functions:
Research
Learning and Teaching
And to reflect on ways in which AI can be used to enhance these activities, increase productivity, and save time.
We’d also like to explore the challenges and obstacles that you face in using AI in these contexts and establish ways in which the University can best support you.
The session will be interactive, with participants encouraged to share their own experiences and examples of best practice. All colleagues are welcome to attend – from those who have been using AI for a while to those who haven’t used it before.
Attendees are welcome to join the session throughout the morning and a timetable for those who have registered will be circulated closer to the event.
Lauren Harvey and Caroline Whitby, from the Department of Law and Criminology, have been awarded the Exemplary Course Award for the module LC31520: Dispute Resolution in Contract and Tort
In addition to the winner, the following module achieved Highly Commended:
Panna Karlinger from the School of Education for the module ED20820: Making Sense of the Curriculum
The aim of the Exemplary Course Award, now in its ninth year, is to recognise the very best learning and teaching practices. It gives staff members the opportunity to share their work with colleagues, enhance their current modules in Blackboard, and receive feedback on to improve.
Modules are assessed across 4 areas: course design, interaction and collaboration, assessment, and learner support. The self-assessed nature of the award gives staff the opportunity to reflect on their course and enhance aspects of their module before a panel assesses each application against the rubric.
The panel and the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit would like to thank all of the applicants for the time and effort that they have put into their applications and modules this year.
We’re looking forward to receiving more applications next year and many congratulations to the recipients of this year’s award.
This month Blackboard brings us the ability to see Gradebook item statistics, being able to set assessments with no due date and some tweaks to message notifications.
Gradebook item statistics
Item statistics give insight to course members’ overall performance on a graded content. Now, instructors can select a column in the gradebook to access summary statistics for any graded item. The statistics page displays key metrics such as:
Minimum and maximum value
Range
Average
Median
Standard deviation
Variance
The number of submissions requiring grading and the distribution of grades also displays.
Image below: Access to item statistics from the Grid view.
Image below: Access to item statistics from the Gradeable Items view.
Image below: Item Statistics page.
No Due Date assessment option
Due dates are an important aspect of the teaching and learning process. In some scenarios, such as self-paced learning, an instructor may not want to apply a due date. To make the option for not having a due date more evident, we’ve added a “No due date” option for Tests and Assignments.
Image below: Test Settings panel showing the new “No due date” option.
We also updated the default due date and time to tomorrow’s date at 11:59 pm.
Image below: Test Settings panel displaying the new default due date and time.
There may be cases when the “No due date” selection conflicts with the Assessment Results settings. When this occurs, the instructor is prompted to review the settings.
Image below: A warning banner appears when the “No due date” selection conflicts with Assessment Results settings.
Instructors can navigate to the Assessment Results section in the Settings via the link in the banner.
Image below: Assessment results timing options when there is no due date.
Please note that for summative and high stakes assessment, we still advise having a due date and time. To discuss your requirements for test settings, please contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Unit (elearning@aber.ac.uk).
Announcement indicators and mark announcements as read/unread
Announcements are an important communications channel within a course. It is important to help create awareness of new announcements and read/unread controls.
Now, there is a number indicator next to the announcement tab in the course. The indicator signals the number of unread announcements available.
Additionally, students can now mark announcements as read or unread. On the New Course Announcement pop-up, users have the option to mark the read state. Students can also mark announcements as read or unread from the Announcement page.
Image below: Number of unread Announcements next to the Announcement tab
Image below: Announcements pop-up with the option to mark as read/unread
Image below: Announcements page with the option to mark as read/unread.
Image below: Matching announcement and messages indicators for consistency
Reminder: Access the Course Activity Report and message students from within it.
The Course Activity report helps you understand how well your students are performing and how much they are interacting with your course. The Course Activity Report enables Instructors to:
Message students who are falling behind and encourage them to increase their course activity
Identify struggling students based on their overall grade, missed due dates, the number of hours they spend in your course, and the number of days since their last access
Congratulate students performing well in your course and ask them to be mentors
Customize your course alerts to identify struggling students when their overall grade drops below a specific value, they’ve missed due dates, or they haven’t accessed the course for a certain number of days
Download the table view to a CSV (comma-separated values) file to analyse the data with other tools
Download the scatter plot as a PDF or image to share information with other instructors or mentors of the course
To access the Course Activity Report select Course Activity in your course’s Analytics tab.
Image below: Accessing the Course Activity Report from the Analytics tab
Sending Messages
Instructors can select students and send them messages from Course Activity by selecting the Send message button. When you send a message to multiple students, each student will receive an individual message and will not know which other students were included.
Image below: A student selected to be contacted and the Send message button highlighted
It is possible to grade tests either by student or by question —making it easy to compare answers across the course and ensure fairness and consistency in grading. Marking by student is currently limited to non-anonymous submissions. Marking anonymous submissions will be included in a future update
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.
25/5/2024 Student Belonging Community of Practice, Student Belonging Conference 2024 (hybrid online and in person at UEA). Call for proposals open until 29/02/2024
Knight, C. (25/2/2024), AI 16 – Charlie does a course 3 (6-minute video), “Charlie is feeling a bit down this week as he considers what AI means for professional qualifications and professional bodies.”
Monthly series European Network for Academic Integrity, ENAI monthly webinarsfree open webinars on various topics related to academic integrity.
Subscribe to SEDA’s mailing list for email discussions about educational development and emerging teaching practices. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
Follow University of Birmingham’s Higher Education Futures institute HEFi on Twitter for daily posts with links to pedagogical literature and more. This is one of the sources I use when identifying useful material for the Roundup.
Join the #LTHEchat on Twitter Wednesday nights for one hour of lively discussion about learning and teaching in HE. I often find out about good resources for the Roundup from the chat.
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.
The recent Academic Enhancement Committee approved some changes to the annual course creation process:
Courses will be created blank with the University approved template
Course creation will always take place on the first Monday in June (this will be Monday 3rd June this year).
Some staff have asked for more information about why courses will be created blank. This blog post is designed to help explain the reasons for this decision.
Previous years’ course copy process was done using Building Blocks. Building Blocks are no longer supported by Blackboard and can’t be used (you may remember that this was one of the reasons for moving to Ultra). The Blackboard course copy tool hasn’t been updated, so we don’t have a technical way of copying courses.
The course copy workflow is easier in Ultra than it was in Original. And as we will be copying from Ultra to Ultra courses, you’ll be able to copy larger blocks of content.
Blank courses means that template updates and additional settings can be applied to courses. Blackboard has changed a lot since last summer, and there are new settings that will be useful for next year’s courses. To use these staff would need to add them to each courses manually.
Previous course copies included gradebook columns. After several years this started to get confusing for staff and made the gradebook difficult to navigate. Copying over the links for Turnitin, Panopto and Talis also has the potential for confusion – it isn’t easy to tell whether these links have been updated or not, and staff would need to check each one manually.
Some courses won’t have been created in Ultra (for example courses that only run every two years). These need to be created blank as Ultra courses anyway.
Blank course creation will also help to avoid out-of-date content being copied over as standard.
Information about how to copy content can be found on the Blackboard help site. Guidance and support will be available over the summer, but if you have any questions, please contact us on elearning@aber.ac.uk.
