The 2024 Learning and Teaching Conference – Education for Life 2030 – A Vision for Education and Skills at Newcastle, will take place on 18th April 2024 in the Hershel Building in the heart of the Newcastle campus.
You can now register for the conference and submit proposals for consideration by the Conference Committee. The deadline for submissions is Friday 26 January 2024.
The conference is all about learning together, sharing effective practice, and exploring Education for Life 2030. Themes for the conference include:
Equity
To provide a core, universal offer for all students, including tailored provision where needed, to ensure equity of access, experience and in outcomes for all, regardless of background, identity, nationality, location, or mode of study.
Fit for the Future
Students – Embodied by our Education for Life Framework, provide an educational experience that ensures our students are fit for their future and the world in which they will live and work.
Teaching, learning and support – To ensure that our approaches are informed by developments in pedagogy and best practice and can meet the University’s ambitions for its evolving portfolio, size, shape, and modes of delivery.
Colleagues – To provide an enabling environment that supports colleagues to have the skills and capacity to embrace the possibilities present in the future world of higher education.
Encounters with the Leading Edge
To put at the heart of our curriculum and learning experiences encounters with our world leading research and the leading edge of industry and practice.
You can share your experiences in these formats:
Workshops (50 minutes)
Presentations (15 minutes)
Lightning talks – live or via video (5 minutes)
Posters
More information can be found on the Learning and Teaching Conference page of the Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle website and look out for conference updates in future newsletters.
Remember you can sign up or submit a proposal, the deadline for submissions is Friday 26 January 2024.
The Learning & Teaching @ Newcastle University podcast was launched in the 2021 Art of the Possible week Blended learning: effective practice. This monthly podcast celebrates the great things we are doing in learning and teaching here at Newcastle University.
In each episode we hear from a wide range of guests, and guest hosts to discover more about their stories and the work behind their stories. These can be long form conversations, magazine style articles, and much more.
In the latest episode (episode 37), Ben Steel from LTDS sat down with Pro Vice Chancellor Education Professor Ruth Valentine and Dean of Digital Education Dr David Kennedy.
AI text generating technologies have been around for a long time, but they have made significant advances in recent years. Most are trained on extensive data sets and are capable of producing human-like written content quickly and easily. There has been a lot of media coverage of these tools recently (in particular ChatGPT) with concerns raised about the risk they present to academic integrity.
As with all emerging technologies, it is our role as educators to explore and investigate the opportunities they provide to our students’ educational experience, as well as to consider any potential negative impacts. Ben, Ruth and David discuss Newcastle University’s response to these tools, with a focus on the five principles for the use of AI at Newcastle.
You can find this episode (and our back catalogue) at the following places:
Next time we are going to look at our 2023 Art of the Possible week AI in Education, with highlights from our sessions.
So, remember to download, like, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts from. If you are new to podcasts, you will see some useful links on each episode page.
The Jisc Digifest 2023 was held on 7-8 March at Birmingham ICC (it was also online) and I was fortunate enough to attend this year’s event.
According the Digifest website Digifest is:
‘a celebration of the creative minds who think differently, who introduce new ideas and technologies to their organisations. Whether it’s the researcher at the cutting edge of vaccine development, the lecturer inspiring the next generation or the manager leading digital transformation, Digifest is for the innovators of tomorrow.’
Ben, our man on the inside
The two days both had a packed agenda of exciting talks, presentations, discussions, and great catering. The agenda was based around celebrating innovation in all its forms using three key tracks:
Learning, teaching, and resources
Research
Leadership and culture
The agenda was so packed, you couldn’t get around everything. Here are some of my highlights from the event and some useful links to follow up if you wanted to know more.
The event started on the Tuesday with Heidi Fraser-Krauss, chief executive of Jisc, welcoming everyone to Digifest 2023.
Heidi Fraser-Krauss, welcoming delegates to Digifest 2023
This was followed by a great keynote presentation from Inma Martinez, a digital pioneer and AI scientist, and a leading authority in the sectors of digital technology and machine intelligence. Since the 1990s, Inma has been a revolutionary figure within the technology industry and has become well known for her talent to create social engagement through technology. She’s been recognised as one of the top 50 AI influencers to follow on Twitter and one of the top 20 women changing the landscape of data.
Inma’s session was called ‘How artificial intelligence will ignite human creativity and help pave the way to human and machine innovation’: AI is making incredible (and fast) inroads into the innovation processes of many creative industries. This session explored how education will benefit from an AI that enhances human creativity, and how the future of innovation is a collaborative sandbox for humans and machine intelligence. The key takeaway from Inma’s session was not to panic. Although Open AI is here and it’s probably not going anywhere, the question is, how we can use it, rather than how is it going to change everything. AI can’t replicate our own imagination and emotional intelligence. Neoteny (a new word for me) is something that only we as humans go through and this how we can use AI to our advantage rather than panicking about how AI might change our industry.
Before lunch (which was very good), I managed to catch three further sessions.
Firstly, a lightning talk called ‘Fostering authentic assessment and feedback to hone 21st-century skills’. In this session, Abdulla Dilimi showcased how TU Dublin, OsloMet, and Deakin University cultivated high-quality feedback and authentic assessment with the help of pedagogical technology. The session was very good. As you’d expect, it was giving high praise to authentic assessment, focusing on how authentic assessment could combat some of the negative aspects of open AI technology; and how personalised feedback is a key benefit to authentic assessment.
The second session was called ‘How green is your campus? Supporting a student friendly, sustainable hybrid campus’. In this 30-minute session Anne Robertson, head of EDINA services, University of Edinburgh, gave a presentation of simple and fast location data solutions that:
Support students to find their way around campus, highlighting sustainable travel solutions and helping them find and book study spaces.
Enable estates colleagues to sustainably and safely manage the physical estate.
Assist with effective energy management, in a hybrid working world.
With the use of campus maps and real time analysis, University of Edinburgh helped students to become greener and get the best out of their time on campus. To maximise the use of university spaces and ensure that students could find a space to study with friends or individually across their vast campus.
The final session before lunch was a session about using virtual reality in teaching and learning practical skills. Josephine Grech, biology lecturer and digital excellence leader from Cardiff and Vale College gave a demonstration of how virtual reality is used in training learners for WorldSkills competitions, but also how it is applied in the classroom to increase engagement and learning outcomes. This was really engaging as a viewer and clearly engaging for the students. It is also student-led and student-developed to enhance the learning for others.
The first session in the afternoon was a keynote panel discussion with:
Paul Burne, customer success/service lead – hybrid edge, Amazon Web Services (AWS);
Karen Cooper, senior director – offer management, Honeywell;
Gareth Piggott, major accounts manager, Fortinet;
Richard Jackson, lead cloud security specialist, Jisc.
The title for the panel was called ‘On the Edge’ and was about a cloud-based programme called Edge Computing. This session was quite interesting and went through the benefits of this product.
The final session of the day was around Micro Credentials and how these have been utilised at Abertay University. They have seemed to get the best out of micro credentials using them across multiple courses in stage one and providing students with skills outside of their discipline.
The second day opened with a truly inspiring keynote presentation by Dr Sue Black, entitled ‘If I can Do It, So Can You’. Sue told the story of her life and career, the ups, the downs, and how by putting herself out of comfort zone, she was able to achieve so much and support so many other women.
Dr Sue Black, delivering her keynote presentation at Digifest 2023
Sue talked about her passion for getting everyone excited about the opportunities that technology offers, how she brought her family out of poverty and built a successful career through education, and a determination to succeed.
This was a great way to start day two of the conference on International Women’s Day.
Here are some links to find out more about Sue, her work and how she saved Bletchley Park:
Tech Up – retraining women from underserved communities into technology careers.
#Techmums – #techmums is here to take the mystery out of technology. Whether it’s helping you to reconnect with old friends via social media, chatting to your child about online safety or finding out how to use technology to help you at work, #techmums can help!
The rest of day two I managed to take in these sessions.
Firstly, Richard Buckley and Kate Whyles from Nottingham College delivered a session called ‘What does that button do?’ Shifting digital culture and growing innovation, engagement, and attainment at Nottingham College. The presentation went through how a small but perfectly formed team of six is at the forefront of developing and promoting a culture of digital curiosity, innovation, and increased collaboration to help drive up standards in teaching, learning and assessment in one of the UK’s largest FE colleges. My key takeaway was the phrase Positive Nuisance, I like that concept. How can you be a nuisance to others but in a way that will positively affect our students.
The second session was about how good AI and using things like the WHO5 can be for supporting students with their mental health and allow us to safeguard our students. Professor Peter Francis, deputy vice-chancellor (academic), Birmingham City University, took us through how their project developed a ‘predictive analytic system’ that integrates data from across university sectors and generates a predicted likelihood score for students experiencing poor wellbeing in the following month.
Implementing a model of student consent for this system, approximately 70% of the student population consented and this predictive system has shown over 80% accuracy in identifying students at risk of poor mental wellbeing. Through this identification they were able to intervene proactively through tailored messages to students that highlight wellbeing services that are proportionate to their level of risk.
The final session before I braved the snow and the long train journey home was about why you should consider student-led learning for your future education.
The session focussed on four key areas to fuel activity and deepen learning for our students. These were:
Challenge
Curiosity
Control
Fantasy
This will help students to develop job-readiness and learn to take responsibility themselves.
Digifest 2023 was a fantastic conference, and I would recommend getting along next year if you can. Please get in touch if you would like to know more, and thank you for reading.
With the new academic year fast approaching, we at LTDS are offering a week of online interactive learning sessions to help you get ready for the new academic year.
Here are more details about the new and exciting sessions. You can enrol on each of the six sessions below.
Learning from strategic digital education projects
This session will take place on Thursday 9 September, 12.00 – 13.00.
This session will outline the achievements made in three strategic blended learning projects in the School of Engineering, Newcastle University Business School and the School of Biomedical, Nutritional and Sports Sciences. It will demonstrate the changes made to programmes and provide an opportunity to ask how it was done in a Q & A.
This session will take place on Friday 10 September, 13.00 – 14.00.
Newcastle University Learning and Teaching podcast was launched recently. The appetite for podcasting in education is going through a surge in interest in using this engaging medium with students. This workshop will take you through everything you need to know to feel confident and capable to make your own podcast.
Saving time and enriching your courses with Canvas Commons
There are two sessions available on Tuesday 7 September, 14:00 – 15:00 and Thursday 9 September, 11:00 -12:00.
Canvas Commons gives us a really easy way of sharing, finding and importing course content into Canvas courses. We can use Commons to share a whole range of content types including, assignments, pages, quizzes, images as well as entire modules.
This hands-on webinar provides an opportunity to explore Canvas Commons. You’ll add content from Commons to your sandbox course. We will consider what you need to do before sharing content and discuss examples of how sharing content can save time and enrich your courses.
The aim of this short webinar is to support you while you create your new Canvas courses for the 2021/22 academic year. You will learn the process for new course creation, how to build your canvas course, and how to check your content is accessible.
The topics that are covered include, blueprints, content and assignment import from the previous year’s course. As well as homepage, curse navigation menu, accessibility, and publishing your content and your canvas course.
There are three H5P sessions over the course of this week. Monday 6 September at 13.00, Wednesday 8 September at 9.00, and Thursday 9 September at 14.00.
What is H5P? H5P is a resource that lets you create simple interactive content like interactive videos, quizzes, games, presentations, and more.
This training webinar offers a 30-minute introduction to H5P looking at some of the benefits in using this tool, followed by an optional 30-minute task where you can try creating some H5P content, with guidance.
Digital assessment – outlining the possibilities and processes
This session will take place on Thursday 9 September, 15.00 -16.00.
Assessing students in new ways and delivering feedback remotely during the pandemic has given us as a community of educators and learners a wealth of new experiences and ideas. As we begin to return to campus, further digital assessment opportunities open up with the introduction of the Unversity’s new digital exam system Inspera Assessment.
This session will share some of these new possibilities and provide an opportunity to reflect on what to retain from our recent experiences, as well as exploring how digital assessment can further enhance authentic assessment and ensure it is accessible to all our students.
Firstly, thank you to everyone who joined a session this week and engaged with the new material we released for Art of the Possible 2021. A big thank you to all our hosts who delivered wonderful online sessions to full or nearly full capacity.
The week started with a welcome message from Tom Ward to introduce the week, and continued with a really thought-provoking keynote session with Helen O’Sullivan Chair of the Association for Learning Technology, and DVC at Chester University. Helen’s session was called ‘Preparing students for their future, not our past: How the pandemic pushed us past the tipping point into education 4.0.’ And really dug deep into how education has changed and adapted since March 2020. Participants said they really enjoyed the session, the session was recorded (please note all video will require a Newcastle University log in and closed captions are currently being added) and can be viewed at any time.
Independent researcher Helen Beetham delivered a fantastic two-part session on designing online activities for university learning. This was a great opportunity for participants to learn, discuss, and reflect on some of the work they have been doing and what others have been doing, to give the best possible education to students, especially in an ever-increasing digital world. Highlights from part one and part two can be found online and viewed at any time.
Nuala Davis and Graeme Redshaw-Boxwell delivered two sessions called ‘Saving time and enriching your courses with Canvas Commons’. These sessions looked at how we can use Canvas Commons and how it can enhance our courses. Further information can found in the session slides and Canvas Orientation course.
Dr Cees van Der Land led a session entitled ‘A Series of lightning talks and Q&A about virtual fieldwork and virtual labs’ that looked at some of the inspiring, inventive, and innovative ways we have adapted our teaching to give the students great learning experiences in the absence of present in person land and fieldwork. Eight speakers did a series of lively presentations giving a cross university perspective of the work that has been done to move the hands on elements of a students experience to a digital platform. You can find all seven videos on ReCap.
Throughout the week we have been releasing a series of new case studies that will take you through some of the creative and innovative ways we have adapted since March 2020. These case studies really highlight the fantastic work we’ve achieved.
Finally, we were extremely excited to release the first two episodes of the Learning &Teaching @ Newcastle university Podcast. This fortnightly podcast will explore some of the great things we’ve been doing in Learning and Teaching here at Newcastle University.
Welcome to the art of the possible week 2021 podcast blog.
This fortnightly podcast will look at all the great things we are doing in learning and teaching here at Newcastle University.
In each episode we will hear from a wide range of guests, and guest hosts to discover more about their stories and the work behind their stories. There will be long form conversations, magazine style articles, and much more.
Visit our home podcast page for more information links to the episodes.
So, remember to download, like, and subscribe where you get your podcasts from. You can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts.
If you are new to podcasts, you will see some useful links on each episode page. You can listen and subscribe directly from there. If you are listening through a phone, there are many podcast apps like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcast, that you may need to download but ideal for listening on the go.
In this episode we have a short message from our new Pro-Vice-Chancellor Education Professor Tom Ward, welcoming you to this new fortnightly podcast.
You can find this episode on Wednesday 7th July here.
In this episode Dr Paul Fleet (Chair of the Academic Progress Board of Studies at Newcastle University) and Michael Atkinson (Lecturer in Medical Education and Mindfulness Teacher at Newcastle University) talk about how we can best integrate mental health and wellbeing into our daily lives in ways that can enhance our working practices and beyond.
You can find this episode on Wednesday 7th July here.
We hope you enjoy the art of the possible 2021. Get in touch at ltds@ncl.ac.uk
Welcome to the art of the possible week 2021. This week will focus on blended learning, effective practice, ways to share, and opportunities to learn from each other.
The art of the possible 2021 will:
Showcase the excellent practice developed across the University in blended and online learning over the past year by spotlighting case studies and interviews with colleagues across the University.
Inspire ideas for blended learning proposals for consideration by Faculties.
Re-focus minds on the education strategy objective for Newcastle University to become recognised nationally as a leading university for the use of technology enhanced learning to support campus-based education.
We have a week of online sessions including guest speakers, Helen O’Sullivan Chair of the Association for Learning Technology, and DVC at Chester University. Helen will be delivering a keynote session called ‘Preparing students for their future, not our past: How the pandemic pushed us past the tipping point into education 4.0.’
Independent researcher Helen Beetham will be delivering a two-part session on designing online activities for university learning.
There will two sessions focusing on canvas commons and sharing our ideas with each other.
We also have a session looking at virtual field work and how we’ve adapted during the pandemic.
You can visit elements to sign up, please note there is limited space available but please check.
The new Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle University Podcast will be released on Wednesday. This fortnightly podcast will explore some of the great things we’ve been doing in Learning and Teaching here at Newcastle University.
There is a new homepage for the podcast and on Wednesday you will find the first two episodes. Episode one is a welcome message from our new Pro-Vice-Chancellor education Professor Tom Ward. The second episode is a wonderful conversation between Dr Paul Fleet (Chair of the Academic Progress Board of Studies at Newcastle University) and Michael Atkinson (Lecturer in Medical Education and Mindfulness Teacher at Newcastle University) exploring how we can look after our mental health and mental wellness.
You can listen and download from our podcast page, or wherever you normally get your podcasts from.
Remember to download, like, and subscribe, and you won’t miss an episode.
We will be releasing new case studies highlighting how we have adapted to teaching online since March 2020 and some great stories about how colleagues are being creative and innovative with technologies, to give really effective education experiences for our students. You can view more information through the week here.
We hope you enjoy the art of the possible 2021. Get in touch at ltds@ncl.ac.uk
Welcome to the art of the possible week 2021 case study page.
This page will focus on case studies that will promote blended learning, effective practice, ways to share, and opportunities to learn from each other.
Select each link to find out more. Remember we will be releasing more throughout the week.
Case study one – The Language Resource Centre’s Online Tandem Board
In the past the Language Resource Centre used a physical tandem board, where students could come in and pin up a notice to say what languages they spoke and what languages they wanted to practice. With lockdown in March 2020 and no access to the physical centre, within a week an online version of the tandem board was set up to facilitate people being able to do language exchanges entirely remotely wherever they were.
Case study two – Peer-Assisted Learning (PAL) Language Practice Programme
Over the years the Language Resource Centre has offered a programme of student-led language learning groups during term-time. These groups provide an opportunity for informal speaking practice to all Newcastle University members who are registered with the LRC. With the March 2020 lockdown, the decision was made to continue this activity but to trial taking it online using Microsoft Teams. For the academic year of 2020-21 the programme was run entirely online and was also expanded, in terms of number of hours offered, the types of sessions and languages.
Iain Wheeldon from the School of Arts and Cultures runs the podcast Cultural Peeps; a series of interviews with Arts and Cultures professionals working across the sector. The interviews focus on their career journeys, and allow listeners to gain insight into real life careers in Arts and Cultures, and the various circumstances that influence their direction.
One of the high points for Stage 3 students is the annual poster competition normally held in a large venue with all students and supervisors simultaneously. This is something that could not happen this year due to the pandemic restrictions. Miro was used to set up a poster exhibition for around 80 posters which is simply accessible via a URL.
The Philosophy team needed a space for students where they could share important information, events and opportunities in a way that wouldn’t be overwhelming. They knew they wanted to avoid sending lots of emails, so a Canvas Community provided a great option.
Case study seven – Sustainable Futures in Focus – Global Partner Student Research Poster Competition and Forum
A collaboration with four other Universities provided students with a unique opportunity to showcase research related to UN Sustainable Development Goal 10: Reduce inequalities within and among countries.
Case study eight – Using Design Sprints to Stimulate Students Collaboration
A Design Sprint is a process condensed in time, objective and outcomes used to transform an idea into a prototype. This case study explores how this approach was used to gather students’ feedback on using data analytics to support their learning experience.
Case study nine – Assessing students innovatively via peer-reviewed small group video presentations
Students assessment through a pre-recorded oral group presentation submitted via Canvas. The assessment also included peer feedback.
Following the success of The Art of The Possible in July 2019 which focussed on accessibility, you are invited to The Art of The Possible 2021 which focusses on blended learning, effective practice, ways to share, and opportunities to learn from each other.
The Art of the Possible 2021 will:
Showcase the excellent practice developed across the University in blended and online learning over the past year by spotlighting case studies and interviews with colleagues across the University.
Inspire ideas for blended learning proposals for consideration by Faculties
Re-focus minds on the education strategy objective for Newcastle University to become recognised nationally as a leading university for the use of technology enhanced learning to support campus-based education.
The second Art of the Possible week will take place the week commencing 5 July 2021. The week of online events will include presentations, workshops, case studies, and the launch of the Newcastle University Learning and Teaching Podcast.
All delivered in a light, fun and adventurous way but with a clear link to the Education Strategy and the Graduate Framework.
The week will begin with a presentation from Professor Helen O’Sullivan Chair of the Association for Learning Technology, Provost and DVC, Chester University, who will deliver a keynote session on the lessons we’ve learned during the pandemic. And what can we take from the pandemic into the future.
Find out more about each day below :
Monday 5th July
Keynote Session with Professor Helen O’Sullivan Chair Association for Learning Technology, Provost and DVC, Chester University
Preparing students for their future, not our past: How the pandemic pushed us past the tipping point into education 4.0
A Series of lightning talks and Q&A about virtual fieldwork and virtual labs
This 90-minute session, hosted by Dr Cees van der Land, will explore how virtual fieldwork and labs have been developed over the pandemic and what effective practice we can take moving forward.
You’ll hear lightning talks from:
Dr Louise Callard, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology
Dr Cristina Navarro, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences
Dr Sara Marsham and Dr Heather Sugden, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences
Designing online activities for university learning (Part Two) with Helen Beetham Session Fully Booked
Time 12:30pm – 1:30pm
You can register for any of the sessions above through our Elements page. Please note, if you sign up to Helen Beetham’s session, you will need to sign up to both parts.
Videos have become an important medium for remote learning. Video is a great way to communicate with students and an excellent learning resource. Information and guides to support you with the creation and editing of videos that can be found on the digital learning website. But once you have created our video content, where do you host it?
ReCap
When it to comes to choosing a platform to host your videos, it is personal preference. However, we recommend that you use ReCap wherever possible. ReCap is centrally supported by Newcastle University, it’s free to use, and all videos are hosted online. Importantly ReCap is also fully integrated into Canvas which makes the process of embedding videos into a Canvas course very straight forward.
ReCap allows you to add embedded questions (e.g knowledge checks and quizzes) within the video. Videos can be sorted in group teaching folders that will make it easy for all teachers even if they didn’t create it, to embed the video content into a canvas course if you are unavailable.
Microsoft Stream
You may use Microsoft Stream to host your videos, this option comes with a couple more considerations. Embedding a video from Microsoft Stream into your Canvas course is only a few extra steps, please be aware Microsoft Stream is not fully integrated into Canvas and will required using embed codes as you will see in the video below. Students will also need to be logged into Microsoft Office 365 for any Stream videos to play. It is also worth pointing out that at this moment (December 2020), Microsoft Steam is having difficulty functioning on Safari.
Captions and Transcripts
Accessibility is essential, and ReCap and Stream will auto caption your videos quickly and with a good level of accuracy, however it is important to review them for any errors. There is more information about captions and transcripts available at the digital learning website.
Additional Resources
How or where to host your video is a very important consideration and there are various options available to you. The following page will give you more information on the three options we recommend with how to guides for using these systems including how to publish and embed a ReCap recording as well as content about streaming videos through Stream.
The videos below are a quick step by step guide to using ReCap and Microsoft Stream.
ReCap
Stream
If you want further information and guidance on ReCap and how to use it, please see our guides and videos.
