ALT23 – 30 years of Leading People, Digital and Culture

The ALT Annual Conference is for anyone involved in learning technology in both the higher and further education sectors. This year's conference celebrated the Association for Learning Technology's 30th anniversary and took place here at Warwick University back in September. I attended day two of the three day event and delivered a presentation called 'Transforming and enhancing teacher education.' This fitted under the conference track of 'Leading people in a time of complexity,' and considered how individuals and teams had driven change to solve complex and difficult problems.

At the end of Warwick's Phase II Strategy Renewal Process, my department (CTE) established six strategic priorities to enable it to extend its portfolio and expertise. It gained Academic Resource Committee funding for a year-long Project that focussed on developing its digital distinctiveness and increasing and disseminating its wider educational impact regionally, nationally, and internationally. I discussed my work on the Project and the range of roles that I adopted (using different hats as a metaphor for this) to enable me to manage the Project and discussed some of the challenges that I had faced.

I reflected upon how I had taken the role of a critical friend for the part of the Project that focussed on Mentoring. I described how I had had to reconcile my role as Project Lead and my involvement with Project Board with the critical friend role. By stepping up and accepting the multi-faceted nature of complex project work, I was able to make what could be seen as a conflict of interest by some, work for both me and the Mentoring team.

For the Digital Communities of Practice part of the Project, I reflected upon some of the challenges of co-leading and how I had refined my persuasion skills to better represent my views.

For the Reusable Learning Objects part of the Project I reflected upon how much more autonomy I had as lead for this work and how much easier this made the work. I also talked about needing to step back and focus on planning and development rather than completing everything myself - delegation, delegation, delegation!

For the Student Experience and Quality Assurance part of the Project, I once again reflected on my role as a critical friend and discussed some of the challenges that this work entailed. I also considered how my negotiation and communication skills had improved, as well as my assertiveness and active listening skills.

This link shows a post from X (formerly Twitter) by one of the conference conveners:

https://twitter.com/Realtimeedu/status/1699406711159697573

which was lovely to receive!

Abigail Ball : 13 Nov 2023 09:00 |  Tags: Alt Itt Management Project |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Treasure Island Pedagogies

Please see the Treasure Island Pedagogies podcast series: https://www.liverpool.ac.uk/centre-for-innovation-in-education/podcasts/treasure-island-pedagogies-series/

Abigail Ball : 06 Nov 2023 09:00 |  Tags: Pedagogy |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Talking Learning & Teaching Podcast

Please see this podcast by Rachel Rochon and Martin Smith from Buckinghamshire New University on using reflection as a critical tool for learning:

Talking Learning and Teaching Podcast

Abigail Ball : 30 Oct 2023 09:00 |  Tags: Learning Reflection Teaching |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Mental Health & Wellbeing mini–series

Have a look at the Mental Health & Wellbeing mini-series on the Talking Learning & Teaching podcast:

https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/dLjRL43QGBb

Abigail Ball : 23 Oct 2023 09:00 |  Tags: Health Mental Teaching Wellbeing |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Past reflections, future outlook

Past reflections, future outlook: Update from the Warwick Learning Circle on diverse and inclusive assessment practices

by Kerry Dobbins, Isabel Fischer, Sam Grierson and Leda Mirbahai

Warwick’s International Higher Education Academy (WIHEA) has many features - one of them is that members only remain active members for three years before becoming alumni. The imminent handover of the co-leadership of the open learning circle on diverse and inclusive assessment practices made us, outgoing and new co-leaders, reflect on past initiatives and future directions.

Let’s start with an exciting future - what is new?

As we continue to move forwards with this work, we will become the ‘Inclusive Assessment Learning Circle’. This name change recognises our intention to embed the work on diverse assessments into a broader outlook which sees assessment in HE as a vehicle to promote equity and social justice. The wellbeing of students and staff will feature strongly in our ongoing discussions.

In line with our focus, the learning circle will be inclusive of:

1. Assessment strategies and methods that are diverse, authentic, applied and decolonised - this broad understanding and acknowledgement of relevant issues in teaching, learning and the designing of assessments reflects the current landscape in HE and indicates the interest of our members. We hope to support the university reimagining the assessment design narrative, taking a view from programme level through to single assessment and placing assessment at the heart of curriculum design.
2. Our members - we want members to be and feel actively engaged and involved in the learning circle.
3. Students’ experiences – the work of the learning circle will be firmly focused on working with students so that collectively we can work to understand and support students’ needs and their personal and professional ambitions through assessment.

As for ‘past reflections’: What are the existing features of the learning circle worth keeping? There are in particular four features that worked really well in the past:

1. Since its inception membership has grown steadily for three reasons: The membership of this particular LC is open to WIHEA as well as non-WIHEA members from across Warwick and other institutions, also internationally. The open membership has enriched the discussions and enabled establishment of networks nationally and internationally. Secondly, creating sub-groups not just raised interest, it also offered leadership opportunities to more members. The most popular sub-group was AI in education which in turn was split into six further strands / interest groups: Artificial Intelligence in Education (warwick.ac.uk). Lastly, the topic of the learning circles (assessment in its broadest term) has significant implications not only for educators but also for our learners.
2. Many of our invited keynote speakers at the start of the bi-monthly meetings and at our mini-conference on assessments, captured the essence of their talks in blogs. Most of the blogs were published within WJETT (see the end of this blog for some examples, others were in other outlets, such as SEDA and SCiLAB. Even if not captured in blogs, did the keynote speeches result in interesting discussions and network opportunities.
3. Extensive student corporations, with students supported by two WIHEA grants. One of the student participants even drafted an academic article based on her learning about assessments during her membership.
4. Hosting workshops enabled dissemination of our findings and new resources, including the outputs of our funded projects. It also provided a platform to encourage co-learning and sharing amongst participants and facilitators (including student facilitators). Overall we hosted three workshops with the details of the workshops available from our webpage.

Finally, this is blog 15 in our diverse assessment series, some of the more recent blogs can be found here (with further links to previous blogs shown within some of the blogs below):

• Using AI for Formative Feedback: https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/wjett/entry/using_ai_for/
• Assessments: Capturing Lived Experience and Shaping the Future
• Blog 7: Democratising the feedback process (Linda Enow): https://blogs.warwick.ac.uk/wjett/entry/democratising_the_feedback/

Abigail Ball : 16 Oct 2023 09:00 |  Tags: Assessment Isabel Fischer Kerry Dobbins Leda Mirbaha Reflections Sam Grierson Teaching |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

#Take5 CPD blog

The Learning Development in Higher Education Network is aimed at those working in learning development so there may be some cross over with wider educational CPD that readers may find useful:

https://aldinhe.ac.uk/blog/

Abigail Ball : 09 Oct 2023 09:00 |  Tags: Pedagogy Teaching |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

JISC podcasts

The JISC podcast series covers a wide range of topics related to using technology in FE and HE teaching. Although not directly relatable to primary or secondary education it does give wider sector information that you may find interesting:

https://beta.jisc.ac.uk/podcasts

Abigail Ball : 02 Oct 2023 09:00 |  Tags: Digital Teaching Technology |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

L&T Chatshow

Check out the Roger Saunders L&T Chatshow podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/landtchatshow

Although aimed at HE, they do talk about practical methods for enhancing academic activities and student engagement which may translate well into primary or secondary scenarios.

Abigail Ball : 25 Sep 2023 09:00 |  Tags: Learning Roger Saunders Teaching |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Just make it up as you go along? Improvisation and adaptive expertise for teachers

In this SEDA blog post Richard Bale explores the space where adaptive expertise meets improvisation:

https://thesedablog.wordpress.com/2022/09/28/just-make-it-up-as-you-go-along-improvisation-and-adaptive-expertise-for-teachers/

SEDA is the Staff and Educational Development Association.

Abigail Ball : 18 Sep 2023 09:00 |  Tags: Adaptive Expertise Improvisation Seda Teaching |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

Do we really know how to take digital education forward?

In this SEDA blog post Gloria Visintini, University of Bristol discussed how HE Institutions are dealing with digital education:

https://thesedablog.wordpress.com/2023/01/25/do-we-really-know-how-to-take-digital-education-forward/

SEDA is the Staff and Educational Development Association.

Abigail Ball : 11 Sep 2023 09:00 |  Tags: Digital Education Seda |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem