New Year, New Tools: Technology Transformation at Coventry University Group

02-08-2023 | 09.30 - 13.15 | Online

This online workshop is aimed at staff who will be actively involved in the delivery of courses in the coming academic year (2023/24) and will need to use one of the following systems: Engageli, Inspera and AULA. The workshop  will create interactive opportunities for showcasing enhancements, tools, approaches, and processes and for users to develop a far better understanding of how any changes will impact them.

Links to access the sessions can be found within the agenda

Support sessions for applying for Advance HE Fellowship

22-08-2023 | 10.00 - 12.00 | Online 

This session will offer guidance for colleagues considering to apply for Associate Fellow (D1), Fellow (D2) or Senior Fellow (D3) through the Coventry Universiry Framework for Professional Accreditation (CUFPA) 

A new foundational online and self-guided course on digital fluency is now available for new and existing educators within the Coventry University Group (CUG).

The aim of this short course is to provide all of our educators with an overview of our teaching principles and the core digital tools available, to deliver high quality teaching and assessment.

The summer months are a great time to reflect on the  academic year that passed and plan ahead for the new one by exploring resources from our institutional memberships.

Quality Assurance Agency (QAA)

Coventry University has renewed their QAA membership and staff can benefit from a wide range of resources including podcasts, toolkits and events that address everything around teaching and learning in Higher Education. Examples include: inclusive teaching practices, artificial intelligence and curriculum design. 

Association for Learning Technology (ALT)

At Coventry University we have an institutional membership for ALT, an association for staff with a professional interest in using technology for teaching, learning and assessment. As a member institution we have free access to several online events and resources. 

Erika Hawkes, FHEA,  Dr Christina Magkoufopoulou, SFHEA and Sonia Ritter, AFHEA from the Academic Development Team led the design and delivery of two academic practice sessions during the CU Scarborough Staff Development Week.

Session 1: Introduction to Academic Development Team and available support

This session aimed to offer colleagues the opportunity to get to know the Academic Development Team as well as the different ways that they can get involved with the wider Coventry University Group initiatives focusing on academic practice (New Academics Network Programme , the Active Learning Community of Practice, the Nano-conference, and more.  The first session also encouraged colleagues to start thinking about their professional development needs.

Session 2: Best Practice in block teaching 

This 3h-block delivery session demonstrated teaching strategies for engaging students during block teaching and supporting the development of a sense of belonging. The session enabled participants to explore their academic identity, experience first-hand playful and outdoor learning, identify ways of supporting students with group work, as well as creating their classroom presence and building their confidence. 

Colleagues experienced first-hand activities including black-out poetry, dice-based idea generation and outdoor learning walks. They recorded reflection points and 'what’s next’ actions in individual zines and also received a resource bank of evidence-based practice examples.

Mathew Butterworth, Head of Academic Studies  at CU Scarborough, said: "The training session was delivered over a morning which emulates how we deliver the block-based model at CU Scarborough and supported food for thought around improving and maintaining high quality delivery during the next academic year.  The session which was delivered by an enthusiastic  team of academics with complementing skills was well structured and promoted active learning with opportunities for people to work with colleagues outside of their direct course team, thank you Christina, Erika and Sonia "

The Academic Development Team are always looking for new ways to support colleagues. If any of the above sounds interesting for you or your colleagues, please do get in touch!

Magic tricks, paper aeroplane races and feet made out of carrots! These were just some of the creative and innovative approaches to learning on display at the Playful Learning Conference. Playful learning can be a powerful approach to support active, social, inclusive and applied learning, as well as being for educators as well a learners! Look out for workshops on playful learning beginning in the Autumn term, or if you can't wait, contact Erika Hawkes for her conference notes.