We’re keen to make sure our postgraduate taught students have the best possible experience while studying with us. To do this, we need to know what they think works well and what we could do better.
The Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) is the student’s chance to tell us about their experience as a taught postgraduate student at Newcastle University.
The PTES launched in April and students will have already received an invitation from JISC to take part in the survey and also a further email on behalf of studentsurveys@newcastle.ac.uk with a personal link to the survey. To date, 13% of taught postgraduate students at Newcastle University have taken part in the survey.
The survey will close on 17 June, 2021, and is anonymous and will only take around 15 minutes to complete.
The ePortfolio system is being redeveloped and relaunched for academic year 2021/22 and we would like your feedback. We aim to develop a system that emphasises reflection and supports students to capture and develop their learning activities whilst at Newcastle University, supporting employability in the future.
After consultation with colleagues and students, prototype designs have been created to show how the key tools within ePortfolio will appear in Canvas.
The ePortfolio team will be holding 30-minute workshops for colleagues on Thursday 20 May to explore the prototype designs and to answer any other questions. To sign up, please declare your interest in this sign-up sheet.
Workshop times:
09:00 – 09:30
09:30 – 10:00
12:00 – 12:30
12:30 – 13:00
16:00 – 16:30
16:30 – 17:00
Your feedback is valuable in helping us to redevelop the system to support student reflection and enhance skills development.
If you have any questions regarding ePortfolio, please contact ltds@newcastle.ac.uk
A little while ago we started a small reading group for colleagues in the Learning and Teaching Development Service to share ideas and discuss current issues and publications related to learning and teaching in Higher Education.
We set ourselves a couple of parameters to encourage engagement, as we had tried a journal club previously to not a great deal of success.
This time we decided to limit ourselves:
to things that could be read or digested in around less than half an hour
to try too keep the readings short and digestible
to keep the discussion sessions to 30 minutes
to use small groups for discussion of themes, impressions etc
Listened to Inventions in Sound: where the poet Raymond Antrobus explored the art of translating sound for the eye, looking at the poetic possibilities of closed captions.
Our next group will explore microcredentials by looking at the recent QAA quality compass paper – which way for micro credentials.
This will be the first meeting of a slightly expanded group which includes colleagues from FMS TEL .
We have one person running the group for 6 months (Me!) and I look after collating suggestions which come in from anyone who wants to suggest something. I try to have a range of different types of materials and cover a range of learning and teaching related viewpoints as our group has people who work in policy, practice, pedagogy, quality assurance, data and governance, professional development and all the intersections thereof.
Last time we listened to a radio programme about closed captions, which really made me think about how we approach captioning in HE. Some great ideas resulted from the session and it certainly got us talking!
A team of academic and professional services colleagues have successfully applied to take part in this year’s Learning Design Bootcamp.
Introduced in 2019, the bootcamp is a fantastic opportunity for teams to work with experienced colleagues from other institutions to design and develop modules of their choice.
The successful Newcastle University team are based in the School of Modern Languages and the Learning and Teaching Development Service, bringing lots of ideas and expertise to the process. The team will benefit from a range of workshops, the chance to connect with a community of practitioners and access to their own mentor and coach.
The bootcamp will support teams with the implementation of online/blended learning covering 4 key aspects of learning design:
Student journey
Learning Design
Evaluation
Quality
Nuala Davis, Learning Enhancement and Technology Projects Adviser is part of the successful team and has shared how it is going so far:
“Even though we are now less than half-way through the Bootcamp we already have lots to reflect on and bring forward into our practice. It’s giving us the opportunity to learn more about module design in the context of a real project.”
An educational experience supported and enhanced by technology is a key theme in our Education Strategy and taking part in the programme offers a unique opportunity to develop confidence in broadening the choice of learning design approaches adopted by academic and professional services colleagues.
Following the bootcamp, the team will have lots of knowledge to share, so look out for some case studies, events and our own internal bootcamp. If you are interested in finding out more, get in touch with LTDS@ncl.ac.uk
A recent DELT Forum here at Newcastle looked at the outputs, lessons learned and what works from four strategic projects which are now running with students.
As the covid-19 crisis hit, these projects were the four which needed to carry on, as they were, about a year ago, in active recruitment.
The last three were supported by strategic investment by the University in developing capability and capacity under Priority Actions 10 & 11 of our Education Strategy (formerly known as the TEL Roadmap).
The outcomes from all four were fascinating with intriguing insights into the programme level design processes which took place, the types of content produced to support learning key concepts, and the blends of online and face to face delivery which stood the teams in good stead as they had to move to wholly online.
The teams produced videos, presentations and case studies for each project and presented headlines at the DELT Forum, for which a slide deck is available to Newcastle University staff.
Each project above is linked to a webpage where you can see finished films and case studies – which will grow in number.
If you have ideas for strategic projects, please talk to your Faculty in the first instance. Or you can contact ltds@ncl.ac.uk
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.
The University is currently exploring the use of learning analytics to support students’ learning. To find out more about our approach to analytics and how you can use analytics to enhance the student experience, visit the learning analytics pages on the Digital Learning website.
Here you will be able to find out more about the benefits of using analytics in your programmes, how you can use the analytics tools available to you, and answers to frequently asked questions.
Canvas New Analytics
As part of the learning analytics available to colleagues, Canvas New Analytics is an interactive tool that offers insights into students’ performance and engagement within courses in Canvas. The Canvas New Analytics pages on the Digital Learning website have been updated to include guidance on using New Analytics in your courses, as well as answers to frequently asked questions, and possible scenarios where analytics can be used to support student engagement and performance.
Canvas New Analytics workshop
An Introduction to Canvas New Analytics workshop will take place on 27 May 2021 at 13:00. The workshop is available to all colleagues who would like to know more about using the New Analytics tool within Canvas courses.
The workshop will provide an introduction to the tool, and explore how you can use it to measure student participation and engagement with course materials.
If you would like to know more about learning analytics at the University, please contact ltds@newcastle.ac.uk
Join us for our next NUTELA (Newcastle University Technology Enhanced Learning Advocates) events . Sessions run on May 10 and 11 – please sign up for any you like below.
Learning Analytics
Monday 10 May, 10:00-11:00
Do you know how analytics might help you in your teaching?
In this session you will find how you might use analytics in your course to support your practice. We will cover:
ReCap Analytics
Canvas New Analytics
You will also hear practical examples from colleagues who have already started using analytics.
Join the NUTELA Team to continue the conversation about using technology in your teaching. The Team includes resources, upcoming events and the chance to connect with colleagues across the University. NUTELA advocates are also on hand to answer any NUTELA related questions you might have.
Assessment guidance for students is available, including how to submit an assignment and advice about accepted file types and file size that will help answer student queries. This page can be shared with students as part of assessment instructions.
It is important that module teams agree which assignment type to use before it is set up in Canvas, and that marking is done in the correct tool. SpeedGrader (link to Canvas Orientation course) must be used for a Canvas Assignment, Turnitin Feedback Studio (link to screencast) must for a Turnitin Assignment.
When an assignment is created, the maximum number of marks available (for example 100) must be entered in the Points field. The points should never be set as zero, as this causes technical issues.
