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Teaching and Learning Conference 2020

Teaching in the spotlight: Creative thinking to enhance the student experience: From curriculum design to student success

On-demand tickets

Did you miss out on the Teaching and Learning Conference 2020? You can now purchase an on-demand ticket to receive access to all of our on-demand content from the conference until 6 August 2020. Tickets are available to purchase until 23 July 2020.

Across higher education the focus on enhancing all aspects of teaching and learning remains a critical issue for those seeking to provide an outstanding student experience at all levels of taught provision. At the heart of excellent teaching is curriculum design – to achieve great curriculum design requires excellent staff and the result of great curriculum design is an improved student experience and increased student success.

Advance HE’s Teaching and Learning Conference 2020 continued to position the spotlight firmly on teaching in a global context, in particular this year, the conference explored creative thinking for enhancing the student experience and improving educational outcomes and experience. The conference focussed on all aspects of teaching and learning from initial curriculum design, through improving assessment and feedback, creative initiatives to retain students, and work that results in improved attainment. All these elements along with other aspects of teaching and learning result in increased student success and satisfaction.

Join the conversation at #TLConf20

Discover the Twitter highlights from the Teaching and Learning Conference 2020 here.

Date: 7 July 2020

Venue: Online

Who: All higher education professionals

Conference platform access

Registered delegates can access the Advance HE Digital Conference platform and all digital content until 6 August 2020 here.

Purchase on-demand ticket

The Advance HE Teaching and Learning Conference 2020 – a new digital conferencing experience

This year’s Teaching and Learning Conference was re-designed as an immersive and engaging digital experience and offered delegates the following features:

  • a full day of live-streamed sessions of keynotes and panel discussions addressing current issues facing the sector today
  • Around 130 on-demand downloadable presentations from Teaching and Learning practitioners from UK and international institutions
  • a virtual exhibition space, where delegates were able to engage with sponsors and Advance HE staff about current projects
  • a virtual poster exhibition space
  • fast and furious Ignite presentations
  • opportunity to interact with hundreds of other delegates from around the world in a virtual networking space
  • full online support throughout the day
  • access to all the digital content for 30 days after the conference.

Conference themes

The theme Teaching in the spotlight: Creative thinking for enhancing the student experience: From curriculum design to student success covered the following areas and themes including the role of leadership and governance in enhancing the student experience and increasing student success and creative curriculum design and teaching practice to:

  • aid transition and retention
  • support employability
  • enhance assessment and feedback strategies
  • improve well-being and mental health
  • enhance equality, diversity and inclusion for all
  • and ensure an increasing focus on sustainability in HE.

Programme

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Teaching and Learning Conference 2020 programme

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Preview the on demand sessions

Download on demand session list

Teaching and Learning Conference 2020 On demand sessions

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On demand session abstracts

Download on demand session abstracts

Teaching and Learning Conference 2020 On demand session abstracts

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Virtual poster presentations

Download virtual poster presentation list

Teaching and Learning Conference 2020 poster presentations

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Conversational panel

How do we move from a period of emergency response to a model for sustained student success?

In March the sector transferred rapidly to a fully online mode of delivery for higher education with staff and students working in new ways and focusing on ensuring students received the best experience possible for the remainder of the academic year but with an understanding that time pressures and the speed of change did not allow for the perfect solution.

As we move towards the new academic year and ongoing restrictions on our movement and interactions how do we move to a more sustainable model that ensures students receive the best possible experience through a mix of blended and face to face teaching.

How will we ensure that students have access to all the required elements for their success not just academic taught content, what are the impacts for labs, placements, large groups, tutorials, libraries, student support, dissertations, assessment mechanism and ongoing exams?

Are these the same for undergraduate and postgraduates? What lessons can we learn and how can we share sector experiences?

Panel discussion

How can we accelerate change to ensure the inclusivity of the HE curriculum?

Is the HE curriculum truly inclusive for all? Most of us will agree that it is not and that there is room for improvement in all areas to a greater or lesser extent. Many colleagues are working across the sector to try and change this but progress is often slower than expected and not consistent between subjects, departments, faculties or institutions.

How can we accelerate this change? How can we share practice, learning, what works and what does not work? Where are the real challenges and how do we collaborate to find solutions rather than debating the issues?

In 2020 the HE curriculum should be inclusive for all, whatever your age, gender, race, disability, family situation, part-time or full-time… As part of this panel, we discussed the solutions and possible plans for action.

Why you should join us

Advance HE has acted as a nexus for thought leadership and research into learning and teaching policy and practice in HE. The underpinning evidence base has been built up by and for the sector and is used to inform the work of policymakers and practitioners. With an ever-growing global community of member institutions, a portfolio of thematic and subject-based communities with global membership and a global network of experts and teaching-focused activities, this conference sought to promote learning between global individuals with a passion for transforming teaching and growing excellence.

The conference aimed to:

  • provide the opportunity for delegates to engage with creative thinking around teaching and learning issues to enhance the student experience
  • increase knowledge and confidence of delegates to enhance their teaching practice and have a positive impact on the success of their students
  • allow delegates to engage with leaders and influencers from across the HE sector who share a passion for continuous improvement and enhancement of teaching and learning in HE.

Keynote speakers

Professor Paul Miller

Professor Paul Miller, PhD, is Professor of Educational Leadership & Social Justice and President - Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration & Management. He is the first black person to be appointed a professor of educational leadership at a UK university, and he is currently the only black Head of School of Education in the country. He has been a secondary school teacher in Jamaica and in London, and he has written extensively on race discrimination among overseas trained teachers and teachers of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) heritage in England.

His research on teacher progression/ discrimination have been listed in UNESCO’s Etico database, and in 2017, the UK Cabinet Office acknowledged that it was using his work in [anti-racist]  policy development. Paul is an invited member of the Department for Education's (DfE) Diversity in Teaching Roundtable, and President of the Commonwealth Council for Educational Administration & Management (CCEAM). He is Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching; Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences; and Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. 

Paul Miller

Professor Bugewa Apampa

Professor Bugewa Apampa is one of 25 Black (African/Caribbean, 2019) British female professors working in UK Universities. Her strong belief in the power of education to change lives for the better saw her take on her current role at Birmingham City University, as the Professor of Access and Participation working with staff and students across faculties on projects designed to ensure that disadvantaged students, many of whom are Black and Minority Ethnic, realise the transformational power of Higher Education. 

Previously, Professor Apampa was Director of Teaching and Learning, Director of Pharmacy and Professor of Pharmacy Education in the School of Life Sciences at the University of Sussex. With a vision that the transformative power of education can be unleashed through a systematic and evidence-based design of teaching, learning and assessments, she led teams of academics and a range of stakeholders in the collaborative design and development of outcomes-focused, integrated core curriculum for Pharmacy first at the University of Kent then at Sussex. 

At the University of Sussex, she adopted a contemporary approach to curriculum design based on Pareto’s principle of ‘focusing on the vital few, and ignoring the trivial many’, in an attempt to avoid fundamental problems that limit student engagement with meaningful learning. These include too much content and insufficient opportunities for the development of critical analytical skills, cultural competency and a joy for learning in students. The resultant integrated curriculum enabled the creation of dynamic communities of learning in which staff and students worked together to attain deep, relevant and meaningful learning. Additionally a reduction in the breadth of content facilitated students’ creativity since it provided space for their engagement with authentic metacognitive learning activities within diverse teams thus inspiring their passion for learning. 

Her work has been recognised with awards such as the University of Kent Faculty of Science Teaching Prize (2013), the University of Sussex Vice Chancellor’s Teaching Excellence Award for outstanding and innovative undergraduate teaching (2017) and Fellowship of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society for distinction in the Profession of Pharmacy (2017).

Professor Bugewa Apampa

Panel Speakers

Prof. Mohammad Dastbaz - Deputy Vice-Chancellor at University of Suffolk

Mohammad joined the University in January 2017 from Leeds Beckett University where he was Pro Vice-Chancellor for Arts, Environment and Engineering. Mohammad is Professor of Computer Science who has published over 60 refereed Journal, and Conference papers, books and book chapters. His latest set of publications includes a series of four edited volumes on “Smart Futures and Sustainable Development” published by Springer. Mohammad is a Fellow of the BCS - The Chartered Institute for IT, Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Fellow of Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and Fellow of Institute of Knowledge Management (IKM).

Prof Mohammad Dastbaz

Megan Ball - President – Winchester Student Union, 2019-2021

Megan Ball is a two-term President at Winchester Student Union, representing approximately 8,000 students at the University of Winchester. In her role she directly oversees demographic student representation, democracy, community relationships, equality & diversity and housing.

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Megan has taken the lead on various campaigns at Winchester to help secure the student experience. These include: successfully lobbying the University for a rent freeze and the early termination of housing contracts, no-detriment policy discussions, working on a ‘COVID safe’ campus and what that may look like for the Student Union, lobbying landlords in the private housing sector, transparent communications, and supporting hundreds of student queries.

Meg Cathedral

Mari Cruz García - Independent Digital Learning Consultant

Mari Cruz García is an expert in digital education and a former international telecom consultant. Working for Telefónica Móviles International, she was the founder of the Interconnection Department at the start-up company Group 3G-Quam (Germany). In the United Kingdom,  she has worked in three top-ranked universities and was part of the initial team that started the Kuwait Scotland eHealth Innovation Network (KSeHIN), an educational partnership between the Dundee Medical School and the Dasman Diabetes Institute. She is a Higher Education Academy (HEA) Fellow and currently works at Heriot-Watt University (Scotland).

Maria Cruz

"It was a fantastic opportunity to both share and learn about best practice and innovative ways of learning and teaching from a global perspective. It is also a fantastic networking opportunity" 

- T&L Conference 2018 delegate