Learning & Teaching @ Newcastle University

‘Creative Practice’ as a discipline itself can seem mysterious, and yet we enjoy the fruits of that labour all the time; whether through live performance, in a gallery, on television, radio or online, but also in the shape of the built environment, in consumer product design, in the visual and sonic saturation of our attention, every day. But how can creative practice be taught?

In this episode, we speak to Dr Pascal Stiefenhofer (Senior Lecturer and UG Director of Studies, Newcastle University Business School) about his research using games to aid those with mathematical anxiety. We also hear from Sarah Carnegie and Dr Tracy Scurry (both also from Newcastle University Business School) about a student project to create a board game to teach about the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

In this episode Emma McCulloch (Academic Practice Team Manager in LTDS) and Kevin Johnson (Disability Practitioner in Student Health and Wellbeing services) discuss the research Kevin has undertaken to develop a supportive practice toolkit to help teaching colleagues best support students with specific learning needs.

This episode introduces Newcastle University's approach to learning analytics from four interconnected perspectives.

As we approach the 2021/22 semester two assessment period, we will see the return of in-person exams for most of our students.

Spring 2022 will be the first time since January 2020 that most of our students last took part in an in-person exam. Many students have not completed an in-person exam since their A-levels or even GSCEs.

In this episode, aimed at students, our guest host Orla Thomas, a third-year history student will take you through her experience of an in-person exam journey.

Transcript available here

Hello and welcome to episode 22 of the Learning & Teaching @ Newcastle University podcast.

We look back at our 2022 Learning & Teaching Conference that took place on the 31st of March 2022.

The conference, titled ‘Education for All: Learning Together’ was a chance to bring colleagues and students together and talk about learning, teaching & education going forward and what things we can learn from a tumultuous couple of years.

Before the conference, we checked in with Pro-Vice-Chancellor Education Tom Ward who shares why he feels the conference is so important. He also picked out some of some of the key things he looked forward to such as Student Wellbeing and assessment design.We then spoke with the Prof Paul Ashwin, just after finishing his Keynote address that posed the question ‘What is an Education For’. Paul gives us some behind-the-scenes insights into the process that goes into preparing a delivering a Keynote, and how these events help his research.

We also caught up with a few colleagues of the conference, who explained what the conference means to them.

Recordings of the presentations and lightning talks are now available to view via ReCap:

https://campus.recap.ncl.ac.uk/Panopto/Pages/Sessions/List.aspx?folderID=6e3b00d5-58ad-49cf-aa2f-ae660082e8c9

If you are interested in keeping in touch with next year’s conference. Please join our Learning & Teaching Development Service Newsletter:

https://forms.ncl.ac.uk/view.php?id=2940658&_gl=1*1nrh6r4*_ga*MTI0OTgwMzg1OS4xNTIzNDg2ODk1*_ga_VH2F6S16XP*MTYxMDczNzUxNy4xMS4xLjE2MTA3NDIxMTQuMA

In this episode, we talk to Sandy Alden, team leader withing the Universities Disability and Specialist Learning team and Dr Luisa Wakeling, a Senior Lecturer at the School of Dental Sciences to explore how the university adapted to teaching students with additional learning support, disabilities, or conditions at the start and throughout the pandemic, and we talk about the what the future of learning looks like.

In this episode Dr Paul Fleet (Chair of the Academic Progress Board of Studies at Newcastle University) talks to Professor Ruth Morrow and Professor Richard Clay (Co-Heads of School X) about harnessing the collective power of interdisciplinarity and cross-sector collaboration across the University to help colleagues and students be producers of excellence, creativity, and impact.

In this episode Dr Paul Fleet (Chair of the Academic Progress Board of Studies at Newcastle University), and Kate Aitchison (Head of Student Health & Wellbeing) talk about the importance of embedding structures of wellbeing into Higher Education for the benefit of all stakeholders.

According to the Learning and Teaching Website. Feedback should be a dialogue rather than one-way communication. It should clearly link to the learning outcomes and encourage students to reflect on their learning.

In this episode, our guest host Susan Barfield a Learning Enhancement & Technology Adviser from LTDS investigates how feedback is given, received, and interpreted.