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Who are Newcastle Educators?

Newcastle Educators is a peer-led community of educators, who value the opportunity to get together and discuss common interests and who are committed to continued professional development and peer review.

Newcastle Educators bring together this community through a series of events called EduBites.

These lunch-time sessions cover a wide range of topics related to learning and teaching, and are a chance to hear from colleagues, make connections with other educators and share ideas, all over a spot of lunch.

We also run an informal and supportive peer observation scheme – get in touch to find out more.

Follow us on twitter: @NewcastleEduca1
We blog at: https://ncleducators.wordpress.com/ 

Who is Newcastle Educators for?

Newcastle Educators community is for all academics and professional service staff with an interest in learning and teaching at the university. From those just embarking on their careers to those with a wealth of experience to share.

How do I get involved?

Newcastle Educators Teams Page

Join the Newcastle Educators Teams Page to:

  • Access materials from Edubites sessions
  • Find out about conferences and meetings
  • Get information on pedagogic opportunities
  • Have conversations with colleagues

All are welcome to join us.

Mailing list

To join the mailing list complete this quick form: Join our mailing list.

Notifications about upcoming events and opportunities will be sent to the mailing list.

Have you got something you want to share?

Have you got an idea for a session, or something you’d like to share?

Or do you know of interesting work from colleagues that you think the wider network would benefit from hearing about?

Contact us at Educators@newcastle.ac.uk

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Edubites by Newcastle Educators – 2016 Programme of Events

EduBites Poster 2016With increasing developments and discussions around teaching excellence in the sector, the Edubites sessions this year will be delivered as a Teaching Excellence Series to discuss this topic from a range of perspectives.

Everyone is invited and welcome to attend as many of the sessions as they wish.

As always, Edubites offers you the opportunity to share your practice and discuss issues or points of interest with other colleagues, so please do come prepared to contribute.

Lunch will be provided, so please register if you wish to attend.

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EDUBITES – Flipping the Curriculum

In a neat follow-on from Nutela’s latest event on flipped classrooms, Edubites will be running a flipped curriculum event next week.

Edubites

Edubites is an educator-led network based at Newcastle, encouraging collaboration and cooperation between peers to share ideas and good practice in teaching. You can find out more by reading founding member Katie Wray’s guest blog about the inaugral EDUBITES.

The event, drawing on the flipped classroom model, will look at how to put students in control of what they study, allowing them to design or influence curriculum design.

The session will question whether this approach is feasible or even desirable in the academy, allowing teaching staff to compare notes and ideas.

The event will take place next Wednesday 8th June 12-1pm in Bedson 1.19 and lunch will be provided.

You can register for the event online.

Lunch will be provided.

 

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EDUBITES Supporting Reflective Practice event

Guest blog by Katie Wray on behalf of EDUBITES:

Newcastle Educators held their inaugural EDUBITES event over lunch on Wednesday 27th January 2016. Dr James Field (Lecturer in Restorative Dentistry) kicked off the sharing events with a look at how we can support reflective practice.

James simulator 3

Across all disciplines, for learners and for ourselves as ‘learner-educators’, self-reflection plays an important role in enabling us to articulate what we have really learned through our study and practice by examining ‘where we have been’ and ‘where we are going’. ‘Supporting Reflective Practice’ was a great topic to begin the series of EDUBITES events, which are intended for educators to gather and discuss issues of importance to practice and personal development.

Furthermore, James demonstrated to us how we can map what we do to the UKPSF, in order to support us in obtaining recognition from the Higher Education Academy, which is becoming even more important in light of new measures such as the forthcoming TEF.

Key to this is the ability to evidence what we do, and how we do it, as we seek to achieve higher recognition for our work by demonstrating support for others, and for the leadership of teaching.

Many of you will be aware that LTDS link their development sessions to the UKPSF standards, so if you are looking to fill some gaps, you could find a relevant session here.

The Case Studies LTDS have collected are also useful. The ePortfolio can help you to record and share evidence with others, and also has a mapping to UKPSF (quite a number of the group did not know this).

James, and his colleagues have undertaken some research which shows that 96% of educators feel that reflection is important, whilst only 2% currently use a framework for reflection. Without doubt, the most important tools to help educators and their students with reflective practice are ‘being able to record and sort through evidence and commentaries, getting into the habit and sharing your experiences’.

Through his research, James has identified a gap in the availability of a dedicated reflection tool which enables you to understand and practice the various levels of reflective practice, and conduct that practice within your work/lifestyle. They are working on a reflection toolkit which could address this gap, so watch this space. At this point in the event, a lively discussion was had. We look forward to inviting you to help trial the toolkit during its development.

Finally, if you are looking for a guide for Reflective Writing to use yourself and with your students, we would recommend the 2012 text ‘Reflective Writing’ (Pocket Study Skills) by Williams et al. available in the Robinson and Walton libraries.

Are you involved in the use of reflective practice at Newcastle? You can get in touch with members of the EDUBITES group directly or contact ltds@ncl.ac.uk who can pass information on.

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EDUBITES – Teaching Forum Inaugural Meeting 27th January

Edubites1

Teaching colleagues from across the University have launched a new educator-led forum to share good practice and provide support.

The group – which is open to anyone with an interest in teaching at Newcastle – will hold its inaugural meeting on 27th January.

This first EDUBITES session will include a talk on ‘Supporting Reflective Practice’ by Dr James Field (Dental Sciences) and will include lunch.

Although the group has existed in a range of guises in recent years (Teaching Fellows Forum, NUTS Forum), this year’s coordinators are determined to provide a space for the support and discussion of teaching practice and teaching staff across the University.

The group is run by teaching staff for teaching staff and organisers are drawn from across the three faculties; James Field (Dental Sciences), Sara Marsham (Marine Sciences), JC Penet (Modern Languages), Phil Ansell (Maths and Stats.), Lindsey Ferrie (Biomedical Sciences) and Katie Wray (SAgE Faculty).

The group is partially funded by a grant from Pro-VC for Learning and Teaching, Suzanne Cholerton.

Sara said: ‘We really started it as a space for Teaching Fellows and other early career teaching staff to support each other and answer each other’s teaching related questions and queries.’

‘It can often be intimidating to come into a department and start teaching, and quite isolating too.’

‘Early career or new colleagues don’t necessary want to ask more senior staff when they’re unsure or worried about something, so we want to create an informal space for them to raise those queries, get advice from others, and share good practice.’

Although the origins of the group were around the establishment of teaching-only roles in the University, all colleagues are welcome to attend the sessions.

‘We hope everyone will be happy to come along, find out what is happening across the campus, and even propose a session to share their ideas and their practice.’

The meeting takes place on Wednesday 27th January, 12-1 in Bedson Rm 1.19. To register, fill out this form.

To find out more, or to propose a session email: educators@ncl.ac.uk.