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University Education Development Fund

Group of students chatting

The University Education Development Fund provides grants of up to £10,000 to support the development of new approaches to learning and teaching across Newcastle University.

Two strands of funding are available: 

  • Up to £2,500 for projects focused within an individual academic unit through the Responsive strand. 
  • Up to £10,000 for projects with collaboration across academic units through the Strategic strand. 

Chaired by the PVC Education, the fund offers a fantastic opportunity to propose and deliver projects with real benefit to student education. Applications should further the aims and key themes of the Education Strategy.

Application deadlines for 2022-23:

  • Friday 18 November 2022 for semester 1 applications
  • Friday 5 May 2023 for semester 2 applications

Full information and guidance notes available online.  For queries please contact educationdevfund@newcastle.ac.uk.  

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2023 National Teaching Fellowship and Collaborative Awards for Teaching Excellence Scheme: Internal application process now open

  • Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence logo

We are pleased to announce the launch of the University process to determine our nominees for the 2023 National Teaching Fellowship (NTF) and Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE) Scheme.

​The NTF Scheme is a highly prestigious award celebrating excellent practice and outstanding achievement in learning and teaching in higher education. The awards support professional development in learning and teaching and provide a national focus for institutional teaching and learning excellence schemes. The CATE awards celebrate collaborative work that has had a demonstrable impact on teaching and learning.

In previous years, Newcastle University has had 16 NTFs awarded and three CATE award winning teams. Read more from previous year’s National Teaching Fellows and CATE award winners.

Nominations are welcomed from all members of staff who feel their/their team’s work has a major, positive impact on student teaching and learning. Staff and teams who would like to be considered need to submit a maximum of 1000 words which address the following criteria:

  • Your personal practice/Your team’s practice and why this should be recognised as outstanding
  • Your/your team’s impact on colleagues, both internally and externally
  • Your reflection on the above.

Nominations should be sent electronically to ltds@ncl.ac.uk by 12pm on Friday 11 November 2022.

Find out more
Full information is available on the Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle website. You can also sign up to a webinar for more information and the opportunity to ask questions about the scheme. For any questions, please get in touch with ltds@newcastle.ac.uk.

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New to NU Reflect: structured reflective templates

Example of Templates area of NU Reflect

You told us that reflective templates would help you to make more of students’ learning. Structured reflective templates give students prompts to enable them to record their learning and add tags that will help look back and build up a portfolio of learning to demonstrate competencies, knowledge and skills that secure that next step.

Following demand from colleagues and students, and a successful pilot in academic year 2021/22, structured reflective templates will be available within NU Reflect from the 1st August 2022. The Templates area will allow you to create bespoke reflective templates or choose from predefined templates, to support structured student reflection within your programme/module contexts. 

Each template will offer guidance text to support students to write qualitative, impactful reflections in different context, e.g., for personal development, against course specific competencies, etc., providing a meaningful way to engage with reflection, leading to a developed understanding of the reflective process and more autonomy to engage with it throughout the learning journey. 

More information on the Templates area of NU Reflect is available on the Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle website. Case studies from pilot participants highlighting the positive impact the templates had on teaching and learning will be available soon.

If you would like to find out more about how you can implement reflective practice within your programmes/modules, please contact LTDS@newcastle.ac.uk  

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Learning Analytics system usability testing

Are you interested in using student engagement data to support the student learning journey?

The University has entered a tender process to acquire a Learning Analytics system that informs and supports students’ attainment, engagement, and wellbeing journeys in one centralised interface, putting students at the heart of decision-making about their ongoing development.

We are looking for volunteers to take part in usability testing as part of the system procurement process. Testing will take place between 1st August to 12th August 2022, and you can complete the testing tasks at any time over this period.

If you are interested and have capacity to participate, your contribution will be a key part of the evaluation stage of the tender process and will have a direct impact on which Learning Analytics system the University introduces from next academic year.   

Usability testing is open to all University colleagues. To participate you need to commit to test all systems that meet the University’s mandatory requirements, which we estimate may be between 2 and 4 systems, to ensure that the evaluation process is fair. We will be able to confirm the number of systems being tested the week before testing begins.   

Full instructions will be provided for each testing task, and you can complete the tasks at any time that suits your schedule over the usability testing period.

To register your interest please complete this form by Wednesday 27th July 2022.  Please contact LTDS@newcastle.ac.uk with any queries. 

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Learning and Teaching Conference: Review

Education for All: Learning Together

The Newcastle University Learning and Teaching Conference took place on March 31. This year’s theme was all about learning together, sharing effective practice, and exploring an education for all.

The event was opened by Professor Tom Ward, PVC Education, and was followed by a keynote presentation from Professor Paul Ashwin, Professor of Higher Education and Head of Department for Educational Research at Lancaster University.

As a result of the fantastic response to our call for submissions we ran several parallel sessions throughout the day, including over 40 workshops, lightning talks and presentations. Video recordings of the event presentations are now available to view via ReCap.

Conference poster and video winners
A massive congratulations to Ashley Reynolds and Eleanor Gordon who won our video competition with their demonstration of how animations can be used to enhance teaching and learning, and to Anna Reid and Vicky Gilbert who won our poster competition with Learning dogs; a winning ‘pawtnership’.

Thanks also to everyone who entered and voted for our winners. All posters are still available to view and video submissions are available in a ReCap playlist.

Conference feedback needed
If you attended the conference, or if you registered but were unable to attend, we would greatly appreciate your thoughts and feedback. This will help us improve our Learning and Teaching Conferences in the future.

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EAMS: 13 – 24 June, 2022

The School of Mathematics, Statistics & Physics will host the fifth international conference on E-Assessment in Mathematical Sciences (EAMS). The conference aims to bring together researchers and practitioners with an interest in e-assessment for mathematics and the sciences. It will consist of a mix of presentations of new techniques and pedagogic research, as well as workshops where you can get hands-on with leading e-assessment software including our own Numbas.

EAMS 2022 is an entirely online conference with a mix of live sessions and web-based activities, and plenty of opportunity for discussion and collaboration. Before the conference starts there will be a programme of optional training workshops available for participants to get hands-on with state-of-the-art maths e-assessment software.

Live talks will take place over Zoom at 9am and 4pm BST (UTC +1) each weekday, with recordings available later. The online format and longer timescale allow participants to engage more deeply with the material presented.

The call for talk and workshop proposals is currently open. If you have some research or an innovative technique related to mathematical e-assessment that you would like to present, then please submit an abstract at eams.ncl.ac.uk/call-for-speakers by 13th May. We’re actively seeking to increase the diversity of our attendees and speakers, and particularly encourage speakers from groups under-represented in previous editions of EAMS to submit proposals.

To attend the conference please register for free at eams.ncl.ac.uk/register.

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Education for All: Learning Together, Learning and Teaching Conference 

31 March 2022, Frederick Douglass Centre 

Join us for this year’s conference to celebrate learning and teaching and share ideas across the University.  We can’t wait to come together, in-person, for those much-missed opportunities to catch up over coffee and we can promise a fantastic lunch.  

Come along to: 

  • Hear from Paul Ashwin, Professor of Higher Education and Head of the Department of Educational Research at Lancaster University who will deliver the keynote ‘What is a university education for?’ 
  • Get involved in interactive workshops. 
  • Be inspired by approaches to assessment, wellbeing, student voice, changing practices and much more. 

The full programme will be ready early March so keep an eye on the conference website. There’s also lots of opportunities to get involved online and we’ll be sharing which sessions you can take part in on the website. 

All colleagues and students are invited to attend. Colleagues can book here and students can book here.

If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to get in touch nultconf1@ncl.ac.uk  

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Vice-Chancellor’s Education Excellence Awards

Colleagues shaking hands

The Vice-Chancellor’s Education Excellence Awards 2022 are now open for applications. These awards aim to raise the status of education at Newcastle University by rewarding those individuals and teams who make a marked impact on enhancing our student educational experience.

Completed applications should be submitted to LTDS@ncl.ac.uk  before 12.00pm Wednesday 13 April 2022.

The awards fall into two categories:

  • Individual award
  • Team award

The award is open to all members of staff, at Newcastle, NUIS, NUMed and NUL, whose work enhances the student educational experience. In addition, applications are welcome from staff of associated employers with direct and substantive involvement in the delivery of the student experience at Newcastle; for example, staff of INTO Newcastle University.

Groups of colleagues who work closely together are invited to apply for the team award.

Full information about the awards and the application process is available on the Learning and Teaching website.

Contact for queries: LTDS@ncl.ac.uk

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Do you have an idea that would deliver real benefits to students education?

Group of students chatting

Apply to the University Education Development Fund by the 6 May 2022, 17:00

Two strands of funding are available:     

  • Up to £2,500 for projects focused within an individual academic unit, or across multiple areas through the  Responsive  strand.     
  • Up to  £10,000  for projects with collaboration across academic units through the Strategic  strand.    

Chaired by the PVC Education this fund support projects in the development of new approaches to learning and teaching and to enable their dissemination across the University.    

Application deadline for 2021-22: Friday 6 May, 2022, 17:00    

 Full information and guidance notes available online.     

Contact for queries  educationdevfund@newcastle.ac.uk.