The Teaching Rooms Finder web pages have been designed to provide up-to-date information about centrally managed and supported teaching rooms so that you can quickly find out which facilities and furniture are in the room that you have been allocated.
For teaching rooms across campus you will find:
A location map of the building where the room is located, including the university map reference
Photographs of the teaching wall and the furniture layout
Information about the capacity and room type
Information about the AV
Information about accessibility
Making informed choices:
A search option provides you with filters that will enable you to find a teaching room type or style that meets your pedagogic requirements. This information can then be used when completing a timetabling request so that the timetabling team will have a better understanding of your needs.
Let us know what you think:
The Teaching Room Finder web pages have been designed by a cross-disciplinary team and we really hope that they provide a useful service. However we would like feedback from users so that we can make any necessary improvements.
Any comments can be made via the form provided on the feedback page.
Workshop: Exploring career development via teaching and learning
3rd July 2017 – The Core
This one-day workshop is for all academic staff interested in developing their career on the basis of teaching.
This interactive day will involve: identifying activities that may lead to reward and recognition, reflections from successful colleagues both internally and externally, and developing action plans.
It will be a space to discuss approaches to building your career, gaining internal, or external, validation of excellence and to consider your individual development path.
LTDS hosted the first of our Feeling Connected events last week. The series is all about how to help to engage large students cohorts in the classroom and beyond. In this initial session we considered how to engage students in the lecture.
Tony Chapman-Wilson brought an actors perspective on how to get the best out of, and look after our voices. He had us humming, thinking about our diaphragms and tripping over tongue twisters.
Sue Gill spoke about Powerpoint as an aid; we presented feedback from the recent TEA awards from NUSU on what student appreciate; heard top tips from colleagues via podcasts and Dr Alison Graham rounded the session off with real examples and insights from her use of the OMBEA student response system.
Thanks to all who attended and contributed to a lively session, and to and to colleagues who gave up their time to contribute before and after.
Insights from NUSU Teaching Excellence Awards (TEAs)
Rowan South and Dr Joe Barton from NUSU talk about what students value:
Next in the series…staying connected
Our next Feeling Connected event will focus on how to stay connected between lectures. It will take place on Tuesday 19 September in the Herschel Learning Lab and have a hands-on feel. You can book via our web-page: http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ltds/about/training/feelingconnected/
Come along to the Lindisfarne Room on 25 April 2017
Anyone is welcome to come along to this exciting student trade fair.
Designed in response to industry and employer requests for graduates that can apply their learning, and who are entrepreneurial in their approach to developing new approaches, products and services for industry.
A chance for students to showcase their problem solving, innovation, product design and commercial awareness skills through problem-based, demand-led design.
This is about design and selling; in industry you need to present to clients and get their buy-in through a sales pitch. It takes students outside their comfort zone to look from the point of view of a client
(MWH/Stantec)
Mechanical Engineering Trade Fair
25 April 2017
2pm to 4.30pm
Lindisfarne Room
Kings Road Centre
There is another Trade Fair for Computing Science on 2 May: Computing Science Trade Fair
2 May 2017
2pm to 4.30pm
Lindisfarne Room
Kings Road Centre
NUTELA’s annual Peer Recognition awards will be presented on Friday 24th March, 3-5pm, History Room, Students’ Union.
The awards recognise staff who go above and beyond the call of duty to help their colleagues, schools and units to adopt forms of technology-enhanced learning (TEL).
All are invited to join us to celebrate.
There will be pizza, pop and plonk and awards shall be presented by Professor Philip Bradley, Chair of eLSI (eLearning and Student Information Sub-Committee).
NUTELA (Newcastle University’s Technology Enhanced Learning Advocates) are a peer network of colleagues who promote the use of technology in teaching. The group’s focus is on providing practical, practitioner-informed support. They meet termly at lunch time events to share practice over pizza and pop.
Do you often feel frustrated with rooms which are ill-equipped or badly set up for your teaching?
Do you want to have your say on teaching spaces around campus?
Estates, NUIT and researchers from the Research Centre for Learning and Teaching have come together to offer academics across the University the opportunity to do just that.
The Teaching Sandpit, to be set up in King George VI Building will give academics the opportunity to try out a new kind of teaching space and to feedback to decision-makers in NUIT and in Estates on what sorts of facilities they would like to see rolled out across the University.
Dave Allsopp from NUIT explained: ‘Usually when decisions are made about what sorts of technical equipment available in or even the basic layout of teaching rooms, we don’t have time to consult with teaching staff, the staff who will use those rooms.
‘This will give us the opportunity to find out what people want and to really engage with academics across campus to find out what sorts of technologies they may want to try out, even what sorts of furniture might work in common teaching rooms and what they might expect or need from spaces across campus.’
The idea came out of research conducted by Ulrika Thomas of the Research Centre for Learning and Teaching, who completed a study with colleague Pam Woolner looking at how students and staff perceived teaching rooms across campus and what the expected from them.
Ulrika explained: ‘Our study was really well-received and its findings have now been referred to the Executive, who want to act on our findings.
‘The sandpit is one idea which has come out of this research, giving staff an opportunity to see what might be available to them, to try it and to feedback on what works.’
The idea of a sandpit came, as Dave explains, from a similar exercise undertaken at Wolverhampton University, in which staff were given the opportunity to feedback based on their use of a sandpit space in which new technologies and layouts could be trialed.
Here at Newcastle the project is looking for:
Academic colleagues to deliver one-off small group teaching sessions and road test new ways of teaching using different styles and new technology
Professional Support Services to deliver specific training to colleagues in use of new and existing technology
Professional support teams to evaluate new technology and furniture engaging with academic colleagues and students to understand how it could be used in the successful design and provision of teaching and learning spaces in the future
Staff can volunteer by filling out this online form, and can discuss requirement with the project team.
Support will be provided by NUIT on technologies offered within the space and all users will have the opportunity to feedback on the experience.
It is expected that the space will not be utilised for normal teaching but perhaps for one-off sessions with 10-15 students.
Colin Fahey of NUIT, who in leading on the project, said: ‘The most important thing is to get academics into the space and get their feedback.
The whole project depends on the engagement of teaching staff, we need them to come along and use the space and to tell us what they found.’
Staff are encouraged to get in touch if they:
Have any proposals or suggestions around innovative technology or furniture that you are aware of and may wish to see considered for inclusion in the space?
Would be interested in trialing the space once it becomes bookable?
The space will be made available for use shortly after Easter 2017 so interested parties should web-form by Friday 24th February 2017 and the team will contact them with further information.
Vice Chancellor’s Award-Winning JC Penet talks about good practice, employability and why he is happiest when teaching.
Jean-Christophe Penet, a teaching fellow in the School of Modern Languages has a number of strings to his bow.
An accomplished teacher, he’s seen his professional practice grow to become a huge influence on his life and on the institution.
Penet, who started life at the UWE before moving to Newcastle to take up a teaching fellowship in 2010, has won one of this year’s VC Awards, recognising his work in learning and teaching, in SML and across the Institution.
JC outside the School of Modern Languages, where he teaches.
‘These awards represent a really important way of recognising learning and teaching and the crucial role they play in the University.
‘I like especially that these awards are not based simply on module evaluations or peer review but on a more holistic approach to teaching and learning, taking in lots of elements of professional practice.’
Some of Penet’s major contributions have been above and beyond the realm of classroom teaching or delivering information, focussing on a key student concern: employability.
He’s worked on two key projects in this area for SML, each begun as a response to student demand.
‘The first was in response to a focus group report which we received about concerns students had about employability.
‘We started by running a networking event in which alumni and the companies our students have gone to work for in the past, come in to meet the students of the present.
‘Often I think SML courses are seen as vocational, that you will certainly go into translation or teaching but we wanted to show that there was lots more you could do.
‘We started a blog, run by Joss Harrison in the School called Careers Translated which looks at all the options with a degree in Modern Languages.
‘We now also have an alumni evening where alumni come back and meet with students to discuss what the options are after finishing their degrees.
‘The evening raises money for the Modern Languages Society, so that they can pay for trips etc. throughout the year.
‘We also organised an afternoon event to help students to meet with potential employers and to showcase different careers for languages students.
‘All of these events have drawn really positive feedback from both students and the businesses involved.’
As well as this event, JC is involved in recruitment in the school, running events which bring together local sixthformers, UG and PG students such as ‘Meet the Translators/Interpreters’ to look at transition and progression between school, university and postgraduate study.
Alongside these achievements JC was recognised for his contribution to teaching and learning across the University and is a familiar face on committees and in cross-faculty groups.
He is a founding member of Newcastle Educators, a group started by teaching staff across the University to provide support, advice and a forum for discussion of all things teaching and learning.
He still views this as one of his proudest achievements: ‘It’s changed my professional life having that community to draw on. Having peers to offer advice on teaching but also books, applications and career options.’
Do you have a colleague who goes above and beyond in the name of learning and teaching? Or know someone who has a particularly innovative approach to their teaching?
