Talking Teaching archive

Although 2023 is often referred to as the ‘year of AI’, the signs are that 2024 will be even more significant in the challenges that Generative AI (GenAI) poses for staff, students and HE institutions. This session will offer our analysis of developments in the technology and their uptake, and aim to identify the most important implications for our educational approaches, using examples of developing practice across the UK. For example, following the example of the OpenAI company with their ChatGPT and ChatGPT Plus, many GenAI applications are now offered in two or more versions – the ‘free’ and the ‘professional’.  Can HE afford to provide students with the ‘full professional’ experience? If not, how do we plug this gap?

Speakers: 

• Sue Beckingham, Associate Professor and National Teaching Fellow at Sheffield Hallam University
• Peter Hartley, Independent Consultant, Visiting Professor at Edge Hill University, and National Teaching Fellow

Ronanki, Editorial Assistant, Pickatale (children’s publisher)

In this webinar Sravya, who in her time at Oxford Brookes University was an Inclusive Curriculum Consultant, will be in discussion with Martha O’Curry from the Centre for Academic Development at Brookes. Sravya will reflect on the emergence of GenAI and the impact it has had on her journey both in education and then into the world of work.

Sravya Ronanki, Oxford Brookes 2023 Masters graduate in publishing, now works as an Editorial Assistant at Pickatale, children’s publisher. During her time at Oxford Brookes Sravya was also an Inclusive Curriculum Consultant.

Video and slides coming shortly. 

Gary Fisher, University of Derby, UK

Gary is a Senior Learning Designer at the University of Derby. He uses his own HE teaching experience to help colleagues use technology effectively to support their roles. In this discussion he will share research that examines the use of generative AI to produce teaching and learning content and help us decide how we may best use these materials to enhance student learning outcomes and experiences and boost our own productivity.

Video and slides coming shortly. 

Dr Martin Compton, Kings College, University of London

Martin blogs as the heducationalist 

Martin is programme lead for the open access course on understanding the impact of generative AI on Higher Education. The course is based on the premise that rapid change needs fast, connected learning, that critique is more compelling if done from a position of knowledge that enables us to drive narratives, as opposed to being reactive, and that we all have a responsibility to consider ethical issues. He  discussed how we can use the course as part of a broad approach to developing our AI literacy.

• Session video 
• Session slides (via Menti, text)
• Discussion points and links

Dr Mary Davis, Oxford Brookes Business School, Oxford Brookes University.

Mary discussed simple ways to incorporate oral tasks into assessment so that it is fit for the purpose of assessing student learning in the age of AI.

Mary Davis, Oxford Brookes is academic integrity lead and has been a researcher of academic integrity for nearly 20 years.

• Session video 
• Session slides
• Discussion points and links

Dr Mary Davis, Oxford Brookes Business School, Oxford Brookes University.

Mary discussed ways to provide guidance to help students navigate AI and make good decisions about how they use it in their study and assessment. She drew on examples from an online institutional course she developed for all students.

Mary Davis, Oxford Brookes is academic integrity lead and has been a researcher of academic integrity for nearly 20 years.

• Session video 
• Session sides
• Discussion points and links

Dr Tarsem Singh, University of Birmingham and Dr Charlie Simpson, Health and Life Sciences, Oxford Brookes University.

Two academic colleagues discuss their approaches to making AI work for their academic practice. We asked:

• why they are embracing AI,
• how they use it,
• how they involve colleagues and students, and
• what advice they have for us?

Dr Tarsem Singh Cooner, University of Birmingham, has explored approaches to digital learning for many years and has a YouTube channel dedicated to this. 

Dr Charlie Simpson, Oxford Brookes University, is an enthusiastic adopter of AI and technology to support student learning inside and beyond the classroom.

• Session video
• Session slides
• Discussion points and links

Martha O’Curry and Stefani Goga, Centre for Academic Development (CAD), Oxford Brookes University.

In this short presentation two members of the Centre for Academic Development Academic Language and Literacies Team talk through how they approached a review of assessment practices in a first year undergraduate writing module in response to the challenges of generative AI to the integrity of the assessments.

Martha O’Curry Deputy Head of the Oxford Brookes Centre for Academic Development and Stefani Goga, Lecturer in Academic Language and Literacies. Stefani and Martha work across Oxford Brookes working with students and collaborating with colleagues to embed academic literacies in programme content. They also run the university’s Academic Language and Literacies modules which are available to all students.

• Session video
• Session slides
• Discussion points and links 

• Dr Jenny Lawrence, PFHEA. NTF, Oxford Brookes University
• Prof Letizia Gramaglia, PFHEA, NTF, Warwick University
• Dr Marios Hadjianastasis SFHEA, University of Birmingham
• Professor Martha Caddell, Heriot Watt University
• Dr Christine Haddow SFHEA, Edinburgh Napier University
• Dr Kimberly Davies, SFHEA, University of Glasgow

In this panel a group of colleagues, from different institutions, who have worked with programme leaders across the UK and those that support programme leaders across the globe will discuss the professional challenges and personal rewards of this important role. We will explore how programme leaders might use their experience to shape the institutional structures they work in, and consider the evidence outlining how this important role can be brought into the light so it might be fully recognised and rewarded in our institutions and across the sector (Caddell, Ellis, Haddow, Wilder-Davis, 2022). 

An extended abstract and further details about the panel members is available here.

Dr Petia Petrova is an Associate Director of Academic Practice at UWE Bristol and leads UWE’s Programme and Module Leader Development Programme

Dr Elizabeth Staddon is Reader in Higher Education Practice and Development at St George’s University of London, with a special interest in discipline-based teaching and learning.  

This session will share the findings of a Heads of Educational Development Group (HEDG) funded project into the programme leader role. 

We will outline how we have used two theoretical models on professional development to design and test a staff development template specific to the programme leader role, and discuss how it might be used for structuring bespoke programmes for novice course leaders within institutions.

Louise Maddock SFHEA is a Senior Learning & Teaching Consultant in the Centre for Learning Futures at Griffith University, Australia. She leads strategic university-wide learning and teaching initiatives and academic development programs for Program Directors focusing on academic middle leadership practice enhancement. Louise’s research interests include academic middle leading for learning and teaching and critical educational praxis.

Programme leadership is recognised as being crucial for enabling learning and teaching innovation in universities. 

This session is based on our chapter ‘Developing programme leadership in an Australian university: An institutional approach to professional learning and development’ (Maddock et al., 2022) and subsequent research. 

We will explore how a holistic approach to academic professional learning and organisational development led to purposeful, collaborative and inclusive programme leading practices and practice conditions that enabled transformative educational change in our university.

Dr Bethan Wood FRSB, CBiol, PFHEA is a Senior Lecturer at the Dumfries Campus, University of Glasgow. She created, and led, two degree programmes (undergraduate and postgraduate) at the School of Interdisciplinary Studies. Her research interests include employability and graduate attributes - primarily through credit-bearing placements.

This session is based on one of the case studies in the book (6) where I explain the process of creating a degree that meets the benchmarks and expectations of stakeholders.

• Key factors in designing an undergraduate programme as the future programme lead. 
• Adhering to the benchmarks.
• Making consultations count, meeting expectations, and on-going monitoring.

• Eva Malone SFHEA is an Associate Professor within the School of Applied Sciences at Edinburgh Napier University, and National Teaching Fellow. She leads a suite of biological sciences undergraduate programmes accredited by the Royal Society of Biology (RSB) and contributes to the immunology teaching within the suite.
• Steve Yorkstone is an internal coach and consultant for Edinburgh Napier University. He has published on humanising higher education and chairs Lean HE the worldwide continuous improvement community for universities and the International Association of Facilitators (Scotland). He co-hosts a weekly facilitation vlog: #BærekraftigFacilitation.

In our chapter we focus on the impact that creating a responsibilities matrix, based on a RACI model, had in creating space for educational leadership. This enabled the team to clarify what they needed to do (and not do) and when. We learnt that the process of creating the tool was essential.

In this webinar we will give you the backstory behind the tool, show it in action, and invite you to consider how you could apply what we learnt to your practice.

• Dr Jenny Lawrence PFHEA & NTF is the Director of the Oxford Centre for Academic Enhancement and Development at Oxford Brookes University, UK.
• Dr Sue Morón-García SFHEA is a writer, researcher and educational developer who has designed, led and advised on a variety of programmes.
• Dr Rowena Senior SFHEA is a Reader in Higher Education within the School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Education, University of Hertfordshire, UK.

Our work draws together a variety of chapters, case studies and commentaries about the experience of being and supporting course and programme leadership in higher education (HE) across the globe. We use the evidence-based approaches generously shared by colleagues to postulate a manifesto for the sustainable development of programme leaders:

We take the position that this is a collaborative mission employing the whole HE community. This requires all those involved with programme leaders and leadership (senior leaders, programme leaders, heads of department/faculty/school, programme team members, professional and support service staff, educational developers) to ask a number of questions of themselves and the context in which they work.

• Session slides
• A manifesto for programme leadership discussion document

Dr Sue Moron-Garcia, Senior Lecturer, OCSLD

Making effective use of breakout rooms unpacks what we are doing when we use breakout rooms, how this relates to effective learning and draws on the lived experience of colleagues in wranging the technology and working with students in these large to small group settings. Watch this session to find out what we discussed and some of the tricks we use to build engagement. 

Session files

• Session slides
• Discussion document
• Padlet PDF
• Examples of good practice

Hazel Rothera, Academic Development Team Leader and Academic Liaison Librarian, Education

In this webinar, explore how to drive up engagement by embedding weekly readings in Moodle and consider strategies for getting students more engaged with the readings on their modules.

Session files

• Session slides
• Padlet PDF

Dr Tim Fawns, University of Edinburgh

We are all working extremely hard, but we can often find it difficult to create satisfying online teaching and learning experiences because some traditional methods and skills don’t translate easily to online environments; we have to adopt a different mindset or conception of what teaching is. Fortunately, this different mindset can be of benefit to traditional teaching. I will draw on my research and experience of teaching on two fully online MScs at the University of Edinburgh in order to describe how to develop this mindset. This involves a shift from scheduled, formalised sessions, content, teacher performance, and monitoring engagement to extended, informal activity, curation, trusting relationships and making space for student creativity and expression. It requires attention to pre-course design, in-course orchestration, a holistic view of educational practice, and the ongoing nurturing of community and culture.

Speaker biography

Dr Tim Fawns holds a PhD in Digital Education and teaches on the fully online MScs in Clinical Education and Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh. He has a recent article on Online Learning as Embodied, Socially Meaningful Experience and a forthcoming book with Springer on Online Postgraduate Education in a Postdigital World. You can find Tim on Twitter @timbocop and he writes about his work and interests on his website.

Session files

• Session slides
• Discussion document

Professor Alastair Robertson, Glasgow Caledonian University

GCU had to move to Emergency Remote Learning in the spring just like almost all other universities around the world. It was a pivot point but also accelerated a direction of travel we had already begun. We wanted to take a strategic approach for the coming academic year, to build on lessons learned and to provide a high quality predominantly online student experience. We developed a new strategic framework “GCU Going Digital” to take our blended learning student experience to the next level and to allow us to capture some of the positives of this pivot. This talk will highlight the key learning points from the challenges we faced and explain the focus of our next steps as we look forward to a still rather uncertain future in the new 21/22 academic year.

Speaker biography

Alastair Robertson is Professor of Learning and Teaching and the Director of Academic Development and Student Learning at Glasgow Caledonian University. He has 25 years’ experience in the HE sector, starting with academic work in solid state inorganic chemistry and moving into quality enhancement and academic leadership roles in universities and nationally. He has strategic and policy development experience in a range of areas that impact on the student experience including technology enhanced learning, learning spaces, student engagement, and teaching excellence. Alastair is a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Session files

• Isolation life poster
• Session slides

Dr Nicola Simmons, Brock University

How can we encourage deep student engagement online? At a time when students are missing the support of the informal network of classroom peers I recommend focusing on creating online learning communities. In this interactive session, I will model this approach: using a 'flipped classroom'. I will draw on a short reading and the slides that will be shared with you via an updated calendar invite that you will receive when you book. In the webinar I will provide a short summary of the key points and then move on to a discussion when we will consider how we can implement the principles across multiple disciplines and class sizes.

Speaker biography

Nicola Simmons has won a number of awards for her teaching, including a Canadain National Teaching Fellowship. She is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Education at Brock University and creator and curator of the Brock FEO Online Teaching Group which shares strategies, tools and experiences about teaching online. You can find out more about one of Nicola's Scholarship of Teaching and Learning projects on the benefits of engaging Masters students with Wikipedia here.

Session files

• Reading: literature digest
• Session slides
• Discussion document

Professor Momna Hejmadi, University of Bath

The impact of covid has brought with it the potential to rethink, maybe radically, traditional pedagogies. However, the emergence and adoption of new technologies may not necessarily be used in a consistent manner across modules, courses and institutions. This diversity of teaching and learning situations in which learning technology might be used, coupled with the heterogeneous nature of the tools themselves, can also have a bearing on how we understand the impact of technology within education. A plethora of data (gathered through surveys or interventions) highlight the benefits of technology -enhanced learning, particularly the way in which they can facilitate student engagement both within and outside the classroom, but there is a lack of scholarly consensus on the impact of technology on student engagement with their learning. In this chat, I explore how we might define or differentiate different types of engagement with technology. For instance:

• Is academic engagement (time on task, completion of assignments) distinct from behavioural engagement (attendance in online forums) or cognitive engagement (strategies for learning, self-regulation)?
• Should emotional engagement (enjoyment, enthusiasm) be subsumed within affective engagement (a sense of belonging to an online group)

Speaker biography

Professor Monma Hejmadi is a Professor of Bioscience Education and Technology in the Department of Biology and Biochemistry at the University of Bath, is Associate Dean (Teaching and Learning) in the Faculty of Science. She oversees undergraduate and postgraduate learning, teaching and student experience for the 7 departments within the faculty. Having experienced education across three continents she is also interested in cross-cultural pedagogies. Her teaching style, for which she has received many awards, is based on encouraging academic confidence and enabling students to become independent learners by challenging their thinking. She is a UK National Teaching Fellowship (NTF).

Session files

• Session slides
• Introduction transcript
• Discussion document

• Stephen Hurt, Reader in International Relations, HSS
• Jon White, Pathways (pre-sessionals) lecturer, OBBS
• Melanie Bashor, TEL Advisor, Digital Services and Associate Lecturer in History and WP Coordinator HPC, HSS
• Kat Kwok, Educational researcher, OCSLD

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• Mary Davis, Senior Lecturer, OBBS
• Roger Dalrymple, Associate Dean (Student Outcomes)
• Louise Taylor - IT Services Support Officer
• Kat Kwok, Educational researcher, OCSLD

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