Category: Events and Awards

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The Year Abroad Conference 2018: Still time to register

Are you  involved in the  preparation, support, management, organisation or assessment of the Year Abroad?

Register for the Year Abroad Conference which will take place on 14th September 2018 at Newcastle University.

This is a unique opportunity to meet colleagues working in this area to share ideas and expertise. A number of topics will be covered including mental health, assessment, employability and more. Please take a look at the full programme here.

The conference is organised by Newcastle University School of Modern Languages, in collaboration with colleagues from the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at the University of Warwick.

The deadline for registration is 26th August 2018. To find out more and to register please visit The Year Abroad Conference Website.  If you can’t attend the whole day but would be particularly interested in one or two sessions, please do get in touch with the conference organisers Sandra Salin or Damien Hall.

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Make your learning and teaching resources more inclusive – two free online courses

Home Office poster on inclusive design.
Inclusive design is better for everyone.

Following on from the interest shown in a session, run by Ruth Graham and Sandy Alden, at the 2018 Learning and Teaching Conference, on designing inclusive learning, you can now sign up for two free online courses.

Inclusive Learning and Teaching Environments and Digital Accessibility: Enabling Participation in the Information Society are both from the University of Southampton.

Inclusive Learning and Teaching Environments runs from Sept 3rd for three weeks and is specifically for those working in Higher Education and interested in making elearning accessible to all.

Explore the barriers experienced by disabled students and learn how to overcome these barriers through inclusive practices.

Digital Accessibility: Enabling Participation in the Information Society runs from Oct 8th for five weeks, and has 8 universities discussing different aspects of digital technologies and accessibility from the developer and user’s point of view. It features case studies, new technologies and the latest news about legal standards and guidelines for web, mobile, documents, IoT etc. When there is:

“a better understanding of users’ needs, technologies can be developed to be accessible & provide a more inclusive environment”

Both courses are free, and offer practical hints and tips you can use straight away to make your own resources more inclusive.

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Success for Dr Hélène Tyrrell at the Northern Law Awards

Dr Helene Tyrrell receiving her award

Congratulations to Newcastle University Law Lecturer, Dr Hélène Tyrrell, who won the Law Teacher of the Year award at the Northern Law Awards 2018.

To be eligible for the award individuals were expected to have demonstrated a number of excellent teaching qualities including innovative teaching practices, an interest in student development and the ability to enhance the student learning experience through scholarly activities.

Dr Tyrrell stood out to the judges who noted that she:

“..consistently demonstrated a high level of achievement across all of the criteria with clear evidence for genuine warmth and ability to build rapport with students”

Northern Law Awards Winners Guide 2018

One of the nominations highlighted a number of Dr Tyrrell’s key achievements including:

  • Redesigning and running the PARTNERS Summer School resulting in exceptional feedback from participants.
  • Successfully engaging over 200 students with detailed case and statute reading in a lecture setting . Read more about this in Dr Tyrrell’s case study.
  • Incorporating research knowledge into her teaching from her time researching in Parliament and her work on the UK Supreme Court. This ensured that students greatly benefited from her expertise.

The award was open to any law teacher working in Higher Education in the North of England so a fantastic achievement for Dr Tyrrell to win the award.

Dr Jennifer Stephens, also a lecturer here at Newcastle, was shortlisted for the award recognising the excellent work she has carried out with student support services.

There was further success for Newcastle Law School at the awards with the student-led Street Law initiative winning the Pro Bono/ Community Initiative of the Year.  Read more on the University website.

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Learning and Teaching Conference 2018: Legacy Resources

Education for Life: celebrating partnership, encouraging innovation

This year’s Learning and Teaching Conference took place on the 21 March 2018.  Staff from across the University came together to explore the following questions:

How do we provide education for life, across all of our campuses?

How can we engage, challenge and support our students to discover and fulfill their potential in Newcastle, London, Singapore and Malaysia?

This conference  highlighted partnerships, encouraged innovation, and celebrated effective teaching. Full legacy resources are available below:

Continue reading “Learning and Teaching Conference 2018: Legacy Resources”

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NUTELA weeding and seeding

The last NUTELA 3Ps (pizza, pop and practice) of this academic year took place last week . It’s been a productive year for the group and we are looking forward to arranging another exciting programme of sessions for next year.

Our excellent presenters showed everyone the new online reading lists system, gave tips about cleaning up Blackboard modules, as well as well as how to explore new ways of adding value with collaboration tools, groups and tests. There was time for attendees to ask lots of questions and give some of the technologies a go.

Special thanks to Paula Fitzpatrick and Stephen Harding from Digital Library Services and Rebecca Gill and Carol Summerside from LTDS for delivering such informative sessions.

We’ve included some resources  below but please feel free to get in touch with LTDS@ncl.ac.uk with any questions.

Online Reading Lists

Quick instructions for creating your own reading lists.

Blackboard Weeding and Seeding resources

Session presentation: Covering student feedback, Blackboard Baseline,  enhancement and mobile accessibility

Blackboard module checklist: A handy resource to help you consider whether your module meets the recommendations set out in the Blackboard Baseline.

Interested in NUTELA

We are always looking to engage with more members of staff and we have a mailing list which we use to keep people up to date with events and opportunities. Anyone who would like to sign up to the mailing list can email  nutelaops@newcastle.ac.uk

Also if there are any technologies that you would like to try or find out more about let us know. We can try to include these in our Pizza, Pop and Practice Programme next year.

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Teesside University Learning and Teaching Workshop: Minecraft as a teaching tool

If you’re interested in the use of games in learning and teaching sign up to this workshop exploring the use of Minecraft, particularly how it can be used in Biosciences.

The programme includes a keynote from Joel Mills,  Minecraft Mentor & Deputy Director of Learning & Teaching Enhancement, Hull University,  as well as lots of opportunities to use the software and trial the virtual field trip exercise.

Thursday 12th July 2018
10am-4pm
Teesside University

To find out more and book your place please visit http://www.tees.ac.uk/sections/whats_on/events_details.cfm?event_id=10172 

 

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Vice Chancellor’s Education Excellence Award Winners

Dr Simon Tate, Dr Alison Graham, School of Biomedical Sciences Professional Services Team and Dr Patrick Rosenkranz

The winners of 2018 Vice Chancellor’s Education Excellence Awards have now been announced after careful consideration of a number of excellent submissions.

Congratulations to Dr Alison Graham, School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Dr Patrick Rosenkranz, School of Psychology and  Dr Simon Tate, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology for their outstanding achievements which resulted in them winning an  individual award.

A valued addition for 2018 was the introduction of the team award. Congratulations to the School of Biomedical Sciences Professional Services Team who won this all new award for their exceptional achievements when dealing with new challenges.

The winners have demonstrated a marked impact on the experience of students here at Newcastle University, with the panel commending the winners on a wide range of projects in which they have played an instrumental role. Professor Suzanne Cholerton, Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Education highlighted the excellent achievements of all of the winners:

“The Vice-Chancellor’s Education Excellence Awards celebrate outstanding contributions to our students’ educational experience. The winners of the awards have demonstrated a sustained record of innovation and creativity in supporting students’ learning and shown exceptional dedication and commitment to support their students. Congratulations to the award winners on this well-deserved recognition.”

Continue reading “Vice Chancellor’s Education Excellence Award Winners”

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Celebrating even more success

Lisa Fishburn

Lisa Fishburn, Learning Enhancement and Technology Adviser, was also invited to the  Celebrating Success event as a result of her fantastic work with the School of Dental Sciences transforming 15 years of unmanageable Blackboard content into the accessible, consistent structure that is in place today.

The self named ‘crack task force’ of both dental academics, Lisa and colleagues in LTDS worked together to ensure that the changes had a hugely positive impact on both the student and staff experience.

Christopher O’Connor, Clinical Fellow in the School of Dental Sciences was the lead academic member of staff for this project and you can read about his experience in this blog post

For more information or if you have any questions about Blackboard get in touch with LTDS@ncl.ac.uk 

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UKAT Annual Conference 2018 – Workshop: Staff and Student perspectives of Personal Tutoring

Workshop: Staff and Student perspectives of Personal Tutoring – Gemma Taylor – University of Derby

MA dissertation research on personal tutoring with a small case study conducted between Jan and March 18 on a UG Programme. Consider student perspective on if the tutorial scheme was fit for purpose and if this enhances the student experience, and for staff to identify any training of changes. Improvement for EDI, widening participation, retention and support. Tutors are frontline for pastoral support; create sense of belonging with relationship with tutor; influence on student engagement; effect on satisfaction, wellbeing and retention rates; development of self-motivation. Continue reading “UKAT Annual Conference 2018 – Workshop: Staff and Student perspectives of Personal Tutoring”