Learning and Teaching @ Newcastle Blog

16 October, 201916 September, 2021

Numbas and Canvas

It’s recently been announced that Newcastle will replace Blackboard with Canvas as our main virtual learning environment from the 2020/21 academic year. We’ve had a few questions from colleagues about how this will affect Numbas, so this is a short note to say, in essence, it won’t.

Numbas is currently linked to Blackboard using the LTI standard, which Canvas also supports. When we switch to Canvas, links to Numbas will work the same way.

This is what adding a Numbas resource in Canvas looks like.

Multiple institutions around the world are already successfully using Numbas with Canvas. We will of course do our own testing before the switch happens.

15 October, 201915 October, 2019

Advance HE Innovation in Teaching Practice Workshops

During 2019-20, Advance HE will be running a series of one-day Innovation in Teaching Practice Workshops.

With teaching excellence still a major focus of the HE sector, and increasing pressures across institutions to respond to policies such as the subject level TEF in England and challenges such as the mental wellbeing of both staff teams and students, Advance HE’s workshops will provide practical guidance on improving your teaching practices working alongside peers from a range of institutions and disciplines.

Click to book onto an Innovation in Teaching Practice Workshop

As members of Advance HE, staff at Newcastle University are able to receive discounted rates for Advance HE development programmes, conferences and events. Although there isn’t central funding for such events, your school may wish to fund relevant opportunities. Whether you are near the start of your career, an academic, a member of professional services, a senior leader in an executive team or working in governance, Advance HE have timely and tailored development opportunities for you and your teams.

Find out more about Advance HE programmes and events

8 October, 201911 October, 2019

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.

1 October, 201930 September, 2019

Education for All: Learning and Teaching Conference 2020

2^nd 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 2^nd 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.

1 October, 201913 September, 2019

NUTELA Learning and Teaching Conference Award

Newcastle University Technology Enhanced Learning Advocates (NUTELA) are passionate about promoting technology in teaching and supporting colleagues to explore technology enhanced learning. In recognition of some of the fantastic work that is delivered by colleagues across the University the NUTELA Learning and Teaching Conference Award was introduced in 2018.

The award is open to anyone who is selected to be part of the Learning and Teaching Conference programme who is effectively using technology in their teaching. All eligible abstracts are judged by members of the NUTELA Steering Group and should include:

• Elements of technology enhanced learning
• Innovative teaching and learning practice
• Student engagement in teaching and learning
• Practice which can be transferable to other disciplines or areas of study.

The top three abstracts are awarded up to £150 to further the work of their projects or disseminate their findings.

2019 Learning and Teaching Conference NUTELA award winners

1st Prize: Dr Alesssio Ianetti, Teaching Fellow, School of Pharmacy Who wants to be a millionaire: A game for the Pharmacy curriculum
2nd prize: Dr Emma Cockburn, Lecturer, School of Biomedical, Nutritional and Sports Sciences Fusing team-based flipped learning and animations
3rd prize: Dr Chris Graham, Director of E-Learning, School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics Building flexible and accessible web-based course material

Dr Alessio Ianetti shares more about his project and how he used his award in this blog post.

If you are interested in finding out more about the learning and teaching conference visit the conference website. Registration and the call for submissions will open on the 1st October 2019.

9 September, 201930 October, 2024

Jointly-Taught/Parent-Child Modules

Many staff often request for modules to be joined together on the Virtual Learning Environment where the content delivered on those modules is the same. When this happens, we create what is called a jointly-taught/parent-child module. The existing modules become sub-modules of a newly created main module. Combining the modules in this way means that the content only has to be added to the main, but students continue to see the content via the sub-module they are enrolled in.

For example, a lecturer requests modules K1920-ABC2000 Introduction to Newcastle and K1920-ABC2004 Introduction to Newcastle (Erasmus Study Abroad) to be combined as all Continue reading “Jointly-Taught/Parent-Child Modules”

28 August, 2019

NUTELA Learning and Teaching Conference Award

Dr Alessio Iannetti, School of Pharmacy

At the Newcastle Teaching and Learning conference in April, I received a NUTELA award for my presentation “Who wants to be millionaire as a game for Pharmacy Curriculum”. I have used an adapted version of this game as part of my biology seminars for Stage 1 Pharmacy-students. I did this to make the seminar sessions more fun and engaging thanks the competitive nature of the game, but at the same time to test a new approach to facilitate student knowledge retention on a difficult topic of biology, such as immunology is.

The game worked well and the data collected showed that it augments student knowledge retention. Student feedback showed that the game activity was very engaging and that students appreciated working in teams for the game. Therefore, a second aim to keep this game in the seminar sessions, is to help students to practise the team-work skills that they will need in their career. In the feedback form, students acknowledged that they prefer a game activity to a seminar and underlined how enjoyable this is. One student said: “Much better than seminars” Another student said: “Thoroughly enjoyed the session”.

Thanks to the NUTELA award, I was able to fund part of my journey to the Biennal Monash Pharmacy symposium in Prato (Italy) last July, where I presented my work to Pharmacy educators coming from all the world. It was a great experience, I networked with a number of colleagues who expressed interest in the game and in applying it in their own institutions.

Read the full case study on the Case Studies Website.

Find out more about NUTELA.

13 August, 201914 August, 2019

National Teaching Fellows

The Advance HE National Teaching Fellowship scheme is a prestigious, national competition where nominees submit a reflective account of their approach as an educator, hoping to be one of the 55 NTF’s created annually. The University is delighted to announce that all three of the institution’s nominees have been awarded National Teaching Fellowship.

Dr Lindsey Ferrie, School of Biomedical Sciences

Dr Lee Fawcett, School of Mathematics, Statistics and Physics

Dr Helen Webster, Writing Development Centre

Find out more from the winners on the Newcastle University website.

12 August, 2019

Reducing Contract Cheating – International Opportunities For Action Webinar

Turnitin have organised an interactive webinar on contract cheating, presented by Dr. Thomas Lancaster and Dr. Irene Glendinning.

The webinar will discuss contract cheating, including recent developments in the contract cheating industry and consider why we need to take action to address contract cheating.

The webinar will launch the fourth International Day of Action against Contract Cheating, which takes place on October 16, 2019, and provide opportunities for you to make suggestions and ask questions about the event.

The first webinar will be on Wednesday 14th August at 11:00 British Summer Time. Register here.

The second webinar will be on Monday 16th September 14:00. Register here.

Anyone interested is most welcome to join.

25 July, 201925 July, 2019

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.

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?

2nd April 2020