Author: Claire Burnham

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Canvas december update

Canvas logo

The project team have been busy over the last couple of weeks and early adopters of Canvas have now been confirmed. The team have started delivering training to make sure that early adopters get the most out of this new University Virtual Learning Environment which will launch across the whole University for the 2020/21 academic year.

We are also pleased to announce that the Canvas team will be here on the 20-22 January delivering a number of roadshows giving  you the chance to see the new opportunities that Canvas brings and ask any questions that you might have. We are looking forward to sharing more details about this in the next couple of weeks. To find out more about the transition to Canvas please visit the Digital Learning Website If you have any questions or would like to invite the project team to speak to colleagues in your school/service, please email canvas@ncl.ac.uk

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Transnational Educational Research Experience in TEL Project

By Bhavani Veasuvalingam, Newcastle Medicine Malaysia (NUMed).

Assessing Technologically enhanced learning (TEL) quality is a multifaceted method that, built on theoretical perspectives and on organised data collection, analysis and interpretation, leads to a decision that should promote a better understanding of quality of TEL and the enhancement of its quality (Casanova,2011). The Newcastle University’s education strategy attracts a great emphasis on bringing an educational experience supported and enhanced by technology. In this context, Newcastle University with its existing international branch campuses in Malaysia and Singapore triggers another element adding to TEL study, that is the transnational education.

Transnational education is defined as programmes located in a country other than the awarding institution (McBurnie and Ziguras, 2007, p.21). Newcastle Medicine Malaysia (NUMed) and Newcastle University Singapore (NUS) are international branch campuses who shares the same technologically enhanced learning tools from its parent institution and qualifications bear the name of the parent institution. Though branch campuses adopt much of its practices from its headquarters, the different location and the cultural differences may provide an added perspective to understanding TEL in higher education, considering globalization impacts every aspect of our lives. Mazzucato believes, local anchoring is crucial to obtain an in-depth knowledge of and this is important for our project TEL to gauge how globalized it has become.

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NUTELA 3PS (Pizza, pop and practice)

Group of students in a lecture theatre

Technology for Large Group Teaching

11 December 2019, 12-2pm , G.56, Frederick Douglass Centre

Are you interested in using technology for large group lectures?

The next NUTELA pizza, pop and practice event will look at a variety of technology-based strategies to increase interactivity, offer real time feedback, and reinforce learning.

You will hear more about a range of tools that are being used well across the University. We will also be welcoming lecturers from HaSS, SAgE and FMS who will each deliver a 10 minute interactive session giving you the opportunity to experience the technologies first hand, as a student.

Come along for some pizza, pop and the chance to practice in one of our newest large lecture theatres. Book your place now.

We will be sharing resources and keeping the conversation going in our NUTELA Team after the event. Everyone is welcome to join the team.

Remember to bring your own device to the session so that you can take part in the interactive aspects. Any questions please get in touch with nutelaops@ncl.ac.uk

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Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET)

In an effort to streamline stage and module evaluations, changes to the way we conduct surveys across the University are coming into effect from 2019/2020.

Individual module evaluations will no longer run in the academic year 2019/20, except through consultation with LTDS for new modules or to support accreditations. Stage evaluations will continue but from academic year 2019/20 will be run once per semester and managed centrally by LTDS. Schools will no longer be required to set these up.

Find further information about Student Evaluation of Teaching on the Learning and Teaching website.

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Accessibility in practice, workshop feedback

Do you want to hear about quick wins to create accessible documents, use accessibility checkers and experience how some of your learners adapt and work with digital content?

The Accessibility in Practice workshop covers this and more. You can book your place now from a range of dates over the next couple of months.

Victoria Rafferty, Learning Development Officer in the Writing Development Centre came along to one of these workshops. Find out what she thought below.

‘The accessibility training sessions provided the timely opportunity to become more aware of issues and techniques when making resources accessible.  By working with techniques demonstrated and discussed in the workshops, we’ve constructed a new range of study guides.  These sessions were important as we need to ensure that our study guides are suitable for students across the university’.

Victoria Rafferty, Learning Development Officer, Writing Development Centre

Victoria Rafferty

View an example of one of the study guides developed following the workshop, demonstrating good practice in designing accessible documents.

If you need further information about accessibility take a look at the LTDS website or get in touch at LTDS@ncl.ac.uk

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Canvas update

Canvas logo

Since we announced that Canvas will be replacing Blackboard as the University’s Virtual Learning Environment from the 2020-21 academic year, the project team have been busy attending a range of Faculty and School meetings to update colleagues on the plan for the coming months. These will continue throughout November and December to ensure we communicate with as many people as possible.

This week, the Canvas team will be on site to finalise the project plan and start work on the implementation of the system and data migration. This will be followed up next week with another onsite visit during which colleagues in LTDS, NUIT and the FMS TEL team who will be designing and delivering the training for staff and students will receive three days of intensive training from the Canvas training team.

To find out more about the transition to Canvas please visit the Canvas project site. If you have any questions or would like to invite the project team to speak to colleagues in your school/service, then please email canvas@ncl.ac.uk

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Students as lecturers

Helene Tyrrell, School of Law

The spring of 2018 was an unusual period in the life of the law school. Here, as in most departments, classrooms were left empty and lecturers relocated themselves to picket lines. My own teaching timetable at that time would have placed me in our lecture theatre, delivering first year lectures on a compulsory module. The timing of the strike meant a number of these would be lost and while I didn’t want to dilute the impact of the strike, I did decide to run an experiment: I offered one of the affected lectures up to the students. As usual, I had uploaded the lecture slides (on non-strike days) in advance of the lecture and I followed that up with an e-mail:

“… while I will not be delivering the lecture, the lecture theatre will still be scheduled for our use. So my offer is this: If any of you (or indeed all of you) would like to run the lecture for yourselves, with the notes that I have given you, you are welcome to give this a go! Recap will still be recording for the time, so if anyone is willing to take up this offer then I will offer to listen to the recap recording when I am back at work and to give you feedback on what you discuss. … Recap starts at 09:05!”

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Undergraduate research: present at BCUR, sponsorship available, CV points

If you are an undergraduate  with a piece of  research that you’re proud of—or you’re a lecturer with students like that—please read on!

Newcastle University is looking for students to represent us at the British Conference of Undergraduate Research 2020 and Posters in Parliament 2020.

You might be working on a dissertation, or you may have devised your own topic for an assessment. You might have worked with an external company, or worked with a researcher over the summer to help them with their research project. All types of research are welcome.

Postgraduates are also welcome to apply as long as the research was completed while they were an undergraduate and they graduated within the last 12 months.

Practical, transferable skills! Taking your learning outside the University! CV points!

British Conference of Undergraduate Research

  • What: the UK’s premier conference for research done at undergraduate level
  • Where: University of Leeds
  • When: 6-7 April 2020
  • How: presentations or posters

Posters in Parliament

  • What: an opportunity to present your research in the prestigious surroundings of Westminster Palace
  • Where: Houses of Parliament
  • When: tbc
  • How: posters

Continue reading “Undergraduate research: present at BCUR, sponsorship available, CV points”

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COULD YOU HELP REVIEW UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH ABSTRACTS?

Students attending this year's BCUR conference

Reviewers are sought to help select students with the best undergraduate research to represent Newcastle University at British Conference of Undergraduate Research (BCUR) events.

Successful students will represent Newcastle University with a poster or oral presentation at the main BCUR conference in the Easter vacation, or with a poster at Posters in Parliament in February / March.

What you need to know:

  • You will need to have time the w/c 25 November to review approximately five to ten 250 word abstracts.
  • Staff from all disciplines are welcome, as specific subject knowledge is not required to review the abstracts. BCUR’s events are generalist, so contributions are expected to convey findings and their importance to a non-specialist audience.
  • Rating criteria will be provided.
  • The reviewing panel will not convene physically; it will be done electronically.

Find out more about last year’s successful entries on the Newcastle University BCUR website. To volunteer, please get in touch with thebcur@newcastle.ac.uk

This opportunity to submit an abstract to the conference will be promoted to students soon. If you have any questions, or know of any students with some impressive undergraduate research, feel free to contact the organising team at thebcur@newcastle.ac.uk.

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Education for All: Learning and Teaching Conference 2020

2nd April 2020

Newcastle University Campus

How do we deliver Newcastle’s educational vision, meet the needs of all our students and support and develop our staff? 

This one-day conference will explore these questions and more.

All are invited to join the conversation on the 2nd April 2020.

Join us – Registration is open

You can book your place for the conference now.

Hear from the two exciting keynote presenters and be inspired by the work of your colleagues and students across Newcastle University’s campuses.

Keep up to date with how the day is developing by visiting the conference website.

Call for submissions

Why not share your own practice? The call for submissions is also open.

Proposals are encouraged from everyone involved in learning and teaching at all Newcastle University campuses – students, academic staff, professional services staff, technicians and external collaborators.

There are full details about how to submit, formats, themes and criteria on the conference website.

The deadline for submissions is 10 January 2020.

Spread the word

Tell you colleagues about the conference and how to register – all are welcome.

Are they doing some interesting work that deserves to be known more widely, and just need some encouragement? This is their chance, why not suggest they submit a proposal.