Newsletter – March 2017

Teaching Enhancement Seminar – Interventions in Summative Examinations – Dr Geertje van Keulen

Dr Geertje van Keulen

Dr. van Keulen will be at the Bay campus on March 15th at 14:00, to talk about interventions in summative examinations that improve the student and staff experience, namely MCQs and seen exams.

The seminar will cover some of the advantages and disadvantages of MCQs as well as some more recent work undertaken by Geertje and colleagues in Medicine looking at seen examination questions.

For more information please click here.

To book your place for this seminar, please click here to go to the event’s Eventbrite page.

New SALT CPD Page

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CPD … not always the easiest !

To assist you, we’ve got a new page on our site devoted to helping you plan, develop and evaluate your CPD. It isn’t complete, but there are a good number of resources on it already.

Check here to view the page.

SALT Conference 2017

SALT Conference 2017

This year’s SALT Conference will take place on the 5th July 2017 at the Taliesin Arts Centre Singleton Park Swansea. We are inviting proposals for conference sessions to showcase good and effective practice in learning, teaching and assessment across the University under the conference theme of “Reaching for Teaching Excellence”

The conference offers an opportunity for colleagues to come together as a community to share good practice and ideas. Whether you have an example from a pedagogic research project, feedback from a new teaching intervention or an innovation in learning and teaching which you feel could benefit other staff and students across the institution, please consider sharing these.

Click here for more information about the conference (including the detailed call for papers and registration info on the conference website).

If you have any queries please contact Debbie Baff (deborah.baff@swansea.ac.uk)

Two Recent Events (sort of) …

Danny McCarroll

Professor Danny McCarroll, College of Science, recently explained how he approached his “mission impossible” and will reflected on some of the advantages and disadvantages of the method he employed.

Misson Impossible: Teach practical classes on statistical techniques to a cohort of 240 very mixed-ability First Year students, ensuring that they receive both formative feedback and continual assessment.

Watch the videostream of the session here: https://videostream.swansea.ac.uk/view2.aspx?id=8686~4C~FdpIz7xv

That also fits in nicely with a page we’ve done recently on Blackboard tests: https://salt.swan.ac.uk/the-blackboard-test-canvas/


Also, leading on from Martin Stringer’s “in conversation with” events recently, we’ve done a bit of analysis on the characteristics of a good Swansea Teacher. It makes interesting reading and is backed up by the teaching award nominations every year. Have a look at it here: https://salt.swan.ac.uk/can-we-define-the-characteristics-of-a-good-teacher/.

Inclusivity CPD

Great oaks from little acorns grow ...

SALT would like to welcome you to our first CPD Byte. We have created a Blackboard course called CPD Inclusivity which is designed to help all teaching and support staff to develop a more inclusive approach to their role. The course contains lots of information about your obligations in terms of the law and Swansea University’s policies regarding provision for the full range of protected characteristics.

For a brief overview, click here.

The course is under development and therefore we would welcome your ideas and opinions. There is a blog section where members of staff are encouraged to post valuable, up to date information about Inclusive Practice in their particular discipline. We will also be supplementing the online content with workshops. The first one is ‘Being an Inclusive Personal Tutor’, which we are working on at the moment.

You may already be enrolled, so look out for the CDP Inclusivity in your Current Modules 1617. If you can’t see the module, follow the instructions below.

  1. First ensure that you are logged on to Blackboard
  2. Click on http://bit.ly/CPDInclusivity
  3. click on the “Click Here to Enrol” link
  4. Click on the green + Enrol button on the left
  5. Let Mandy Jack know how you get on m.j.jack@swansea.ac.uk

HEA Update

HEA Logo

Swansea University now has 269 Fellows / Associate Fellows / Senior Fellows / Principal Fellows of the Higher Education Academy, an increase of 63 (31%) since September 2016.

  • Associate Fellows: 16
  • Fellows: 208
  • Senior Fellows: 42
  • Principal Fellows: 3

There will be another round of Information Sessions on both campuses in early May – you can book here and they’ll also be advertised via email next month.

Our website outlines the support programme for submitting a Fellowship claim.

Coming on May 26th – there will be a day to which line managers will be invited to attend to find out more about how the UKPSF is a useful framework for encouraging excellent teaching. More details to follow.

Webinars

Webinar

We’ve had a few webinars recently and there is one coming up soon(ish) that may be ofinterest to you:

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