CELT Newsletters

HEA Fellowship: PgCAP and PASSPoRT

Training for new mentors

We are holding training and information sessions for any staff beginning roles as mentors for our HEA Fellowship routes. Dates and events are scheduled as:

Wednesday 1st December 2021 11.00 - 13.00 [online] Click the link to book your space. 

Wednesday 1st December 2021 14.00 - 16.00 [on campus] Click the link to book your space. 

PASSPoRT Writing retreats and panels

If you want to gain Associate, Fellow or Senior Fellowship from Advance HE, you can join the PASSPoRT portfolio route, by registering to one of the upcoming writing retreats for 2022 to join a cohort. The dates for the upcoming retreats and panels can be found here, and further information about PASSPoRT is available in this guide 

For any informal enquiry, please contact Dr Javiera Atenas

New Academic Staff Informal Network

We are launching a new informal network for academic staff joining the University. The network provides new colleagues with an opportunity to come together, begin to develop networks and find out more about our University, our approaches to learning and teaching and to discuss and share their practice. The events are hosted by Dr Javiera Atenas and Dr Jo Trowsdale. 

The first get together will be on Thursday 2nd December, on campus. You can book your place here: https://uos.libcal.com/event/3821523 

Making taught sessions accessible

The Student Life Disability Team support students to access taught session through note taking which is delivered both synchronously and asynchronously. The team access virtual classroom recordings to complete this work and students are signposted to the recordings as part of their inclusive student experience or reasonable adjustments. With block delivery students recognise that being able to revisit learning as quickly as possible after delivery is a supportive way to embed concepts and developing understanding. 

Guidance for staff teaching and designing for Apprenticeships

We have launched a new section of our website which is focussed on learning, teaching and assessment for apprenticeship programmes. Currently, this includes information on the learning, teaching and assessment framework, peer review and enhancement of learning and teaching and completing attendance registers. 

Peer Review and Enhancement of Learning and Teaching

In the coming weeks we will be delivering training for staff who will be included in the completion of learning walks and other practice observation as part of the Peer Review and Enhancement for Learning and Teaching  of apprenticeships. This activity forms a part of our commitment to the delivery of learning in line with the expectations of OFSTED. We will also be running two observation weeks of staff delivering learning, and these will be the weeks of 7th and14th February 2022. We will share information with course teams and request teaching schedules etc from you in the coming weeks in preparation for these activities. 

Attendance registers

Registering attendance of students at taught sessions is a requirement of apprenticeship delivery. Noting that some students may currently have legitimate need to attend online, a process has been created in Brightspace which enables all staff teaching on apprenticeships to register attendance as 'in person', or online. It also enables staff to capture authorised or unauthorised attendance. 

Understanding Engagement in an Online Environment

As we continue to work through a global pandemic and following the move to a new Block and Blend pedagogy, we need to better understand student engagement with online learning.  We need to think beyond attendance as a metric for engagement, the data that is collected within Brightspace, we are able to see where students are not only accessing, but spending time with content and activities.

We can also setup notifications to either email the student with with a nudge or prompt to access, we can also setup for a notification to be sent to the module team or academic administrator to alert you to non access.

The links below guide you through the setup and understand of the engagement data:

• Module Engagement Insights and Module Reports (including recorded VCs)
• Monitoring Individual Student Engagement
• Engagement with Live Virtual Classroom Sessions
• Promoting Engagement with Intelligent Agents

Learning Innovation Hub (LiH)

The Learning Innovation Hub, located in L107 within the Library is now open to all.  It has already seen many visitors popping in to discuss the use of Brightspace as well as hosting a number of the new Course Design Events.  An official launch is currently in planning to allow for the completion of the new recording studio that will be bookable by course teams to make use of the space for res-recording video and/or audio sessions.  The allows for high quality video and audio to be captured making use of teleprompter software as well as green screen facilities.

The LiH is home to the learning design team, with a staffed presence each day to ensure there is quick response to support requests, the team are available to help with:

• Brightspace queries
• Blended learning approaches
• Instructional design
• Classroom technologies
• Audio / Video support and guidance
• Live streaming and pre-recorded content
• 3D printing
• Virtual reality / 360 video immersive simulation

Take a look at the video below to see what the LiH is all about:

CELT Sponsored Projects for 2021-2022

I am delighted to be able to announce that we have sponsored three projects for the year ahead. The outlines of the projects and the project leads are as follows: 

The Suffolk Inclusivity and Diversity Survey

Dr Louise Carter, Dr Sebastian Cordoba, Maureen Haaker, Dr Pallawi Sinha

Learning Hubs: development and evaluation

Dr Ivana Lessner Listiakova, Dr Wendy Lecluyse, Carolyn Leader

The exploration of stealth assessment and immersive learning through Technology Rich Environments

Dr Adam Clayden

Each project will present at the University Learning and Teaching Conference in the summer. 

New colleagues in the CELT team

Dr Jo Trowsdale joined the University in October 2021 and is the professorial lead for our APP work and the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching Research Centre. Jo is an educational sociologist. Her research interests focus on how arts-based and creative practices can promote learning and development. She is concerned with innovative education practices grounded in the relationships between human subjects: their practices, knowledges and ways of developing understanding. Her recent research also explores some of the challenges involved in navigating the interrelationships between quantitative and qualitative research.

She has a lifelong interest in the education and the development of young people. She has taught in schools, developed teacher education courses at primary and secondary level, led arts education programmes for a major arts centre and a regional arm of a national creative learning programme. She has also spent time embedded in a local engineering company researching apprenticeship training.

Jo’s current research, drawn from a five-year study, is concerned with the practice of ‘art making’ as a site for transdisciplinary, more personally meaningful learning; one which stimulates the affective as well as cognitive dimensions of learners. This work advances a particular role and value for the arts in developing broader educational objectives and is thus of interest for STEAM (science, technology, arts, mathematics and engineering) education. Her earlier research into artists in education recognises the contribution of non-teacher professionals to education.

Paulo Vieira Braga joined the team in August 2021 and is our Learning Data Analyst. With the growing importance of understanding our data and using it to make evidence-based decisions, this role couldn’t have come at a better time to offer key insights and help our university achieve it’s ambitions.

Since starting in August, Paulo has contributed towards the NSS qualitative analysis, identified correlations for course re-approvals and module audits, and analysed the impact that bursaries had at reducing withdrawals. Furthermore, Paulo played a role in automating processes for the functional skills team and established evidence-based rules to support the Recharge week Initiative’s interventions.

Being a new role in the CELT team, there are many more areas to explore and much more data to analyse, so welcome and good luck, Paulo!