Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to this the last issue of the ERDP Newsletter for 2017.

In this issue of the newsletter we have articles from colleagues on projects and periods of study leave that have been supported by the ERDP small grant scheme.  As ever the projects themselves are diverse reflecting the wide range of educational interests within the Faculty.  The extent of that diversity can also be seen in the range and scope of education publications so do take a look at that as well.  An innovation for the newsletter is a Think Piece.  I am often asked about publication in HE Journals and following a recent article in Higher Education Research and Development I have written a short item on publishing in education journal.  I would like to see more of this kind of article in the newsletter so please feel free to submit articles on any topic that you think would interest other readers.

Next year looks to be a busy one in our events programme with seminars and workshops focussed around aspects of the university education strategy and a number of national meetings being held in Newcastle alongside our own Learning and Teaching conference and the Three Rivers Conference.  In January we have Dave Lewis from Leeds speaking on final year projects while in March Stella-Devitt Jones will deliver a seminar and workshop on Uses and Abuses of Student Voice and Gavin Knight will be speaking about assessment.  The Newcastle Learning and Teaching Conference date has been announced and there has been a call for submissions to deliver hands on workshops, presentations, lightning talks and posters.  The keynote speaker is Camille Kandiko Howson who will be talking on learning gain which is an especially hot topic at the moment.  There is also a call for submissions to the Three Rivers Conference.

Please consider submitting a proposal to one or both of these conferences as they provide a good opportunity to speak to colleagues locally or wider in the region.  With two national meetings being held in Newcastle there are plenty of opportunities to talk about your work or simply to attend to hear what is going on.  As if this was not enough our newly-arrived Pharmacy School is hosting a conference in July and having seen the provisional list of speakers this promises to be of interest to many and not just those in Pharmacy education.  Make sure you save those dates in the diary.

All that remains now is to wish you all and very Happy Christmas and New Year and a restful break after what is always a very busy semester.

Prof Steve McHanwell, Director, FMS Unit for ERDP