[2003]

The Learning, Teaching and Assessment Newsletter of the Faculty of Science, LJMU

Ab

stract #2.4

23^rd April 2018

1849

… to be no more than 739 words.

Blended learning approaches to support the development of professional skills and identities

Dr Anne Osterrieder (Oxford Brookes University) visited the School of Natural Sciences and Psychology on Wednesday 18 April to present a Research and Practice in HE seminar. She made a compelling case for the use of social media in teaching with powerful examples and good humour. Of particular note were the ‘unexpected impacts’ of her social media assessments, where external parties were drawn into students’ projects, enhancing their experience and emphasising connections to the real world. Her observation that she was introduced to contemporary (biology) research findings through her students’ social media projects distinguishes her approach as an educative exercise in every respect.

Anne has kindly shared her resources and these are available via this link.

Consultation: BS/324

Room 324 of the James Parson Building is a classroom with four tables, each of ten seats. It is designed for use in group teaching, but can be used for lectures as each desk has clear sight lines to a dedicated monitor (with PC). Screens can be controlled either remotely by the lecturer, or locally by students on each desk.

The timetabling team report that the room is under-utilised at the moment and staff are invited to comment on the room here by Fri 27^th April. Outcomes will be passed on to timetabling and summarised in the next edition of Abstract.

Consultation: The Alternative Assessment (AA) form

The AA form was introduced this academic year. If you have any comments on the AA form or process then please submit them here by Friday 4^th May. Outcomes will be summarised in the next edition of Abstract and any actions arising would be considered by Faculty Education Committee in June.

The Faculty of Science Online Collaborative Space

Twenty Nexus pads are available for use in class after booking and collection from the third floor IT helpdesk. The main menu of the devices includes a link to online collaborative space; a Googledoc that can be edited simultaneously by all twenty pads. Click here to explore this resource.

Forthcoming events (thanks to Virendra Mistry)

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Student Experience Conference 2018, 3 May 2018, University of Derby.

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Horizons in STEM Higher Education Conference: Making Connections, Innovating and Sharing Pedagogy, 28/29 June 2018, University of Hull.

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Unravelling Assessment and Feedback Literacy Symposium, 18 June 2018, University of Surrey.

Resources

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A new wireless microphone (shown) has been permanently installed in the Cherie Booth Lecture Theatre, connected to the PA system and Panopto.

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A reminder that MeeToo is the institutional classroom response system and that our licence for Textwall will end July 2018.

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Report on HE applicants’ decision-making processes.

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Flyer from the LJMU Careers Team summarising future developments of the online CareerSmart resource.

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Abstracts of the HEA STEM Conference 2018: Creativity in Teaching, Learning and Student Engagement

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Psychology Day 1 and Day 2

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Sciences Day 1 and Day 2

Tips and polite reminders
>	Two issues have been raised by staff:
	>	Please return IT suite door slider signs to green after completing teaching and respect the ‘No Entry’ setting when used by staff.
	>	Please clean whiteboards at the end of taught sessions and use the liquid spray provided.
>	The University’s academic feedback policy stipulates that students should be able to understand and use assessment feedback that they are given, in the context of the published assessment criteria.
>	Right-clicking on a YouTube video allows you to ‘Copy video URL at current time’. Adding #page=2 to the URL of a PDF will open the file on the second page. In either case, students provided with these links can skip immediately to content that you wish to direct them to.
>	You can set up a rule in Outlook to tag emails with e.g. ‘Urgent’ in the subject line as ‘High Importance’. It is straightforward to switch your Inbox to order by ‘Importance’ so that these messages are on top.
>	Marks for assessed items should be submitted to School Offices exclusively as integers between 0 and 100.
>	For differentiation, use upper case for assignments in Canvas Grades that contribute to the module mark e.g. REPORT.

Phil Denton, Faculty of Science Associate Dean (Education)

Maintained by SCSADE@ljmu.ac.uk. Last Update: 23/04/2018.