Moving online with self-directed learning

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With the rapid transition that has been necessary recently due to the Covid-19 pandemic, a large number of colleagues are looking for ideas, alternatives and suggestions for developing their learning and teaching approaches online. This series of blog posts are aimed at supporting staff looking for ways to incorporate more blended or online learning teaching whether for the short term or long term. What do we mean by self-directed learning? Self-directed learning allows students to define and investigate topics of their own choosing. Students, without the help of others, determine their own learning needs and learning goals or objectives. As the motivation for this is likely to be intrinsic, it can lead to higher levels of engagement from students as they pick topics of personal… Read moreMoving online with self-directed learning

Moving Online with Reflective Practice

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With the rapid transition that has been necessary recently due to the Covid-19 pandemic, a large number of colleagues are looking for ideas, alternatives and suggestions for developing their learning and teaching approaches online. This series of blog posts are aimed at supporting staff looking for ways to incorporate more blended or online learning teaching whether for the short term or long term. What do we mean by Reflective Practice? Reflection practice means the conscious reflection on personal practices, experiences and newly developed knowledge and skill. It is often part of students independent learning and allows students time to consider their development and can aid students in critically reflecting on their practice, identifying areas of personal challenge, strengths and areas for further development. Many professional… Read moreMoving Online with Reflective Practice

Hello World

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So, it’s Monday and we are, as we keep hearing, in unprecedented times. It has been an extremely busy couple of weeks, to put it mildly and before I go any further I want to give credit to the amazing work of both the TEL unit and IT Services here at Worcester. But if this is your first full day of teaching, studying online or working from home (possibly while home schooling) then I have some suggestions below. Don’t panic if the audio doesn’t work on the first attempt at a Collaborate session/Skype/Teams meeting. Have a look at this troubleshooting guide on using Blackboard Collaborate. You can check your audio settings in Skype following these instructions and there are similar ones for Teams. Be kind… Read moreHello World

Vignette of Practice: ‘Include Me’: A Move Towards Inclusive Teaching and Assessment

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‘Include Me’: A Move towards Inclusive Teaching and Assessment by Jo Augustus; School of Allied Health and Community   On reflection my style of teaching is underpinned by two attitudes I hold; commitment to others around me and collaborative working. Through my roles in HE I have focused on leading others in activities such as; course development, teaching and scholarly activity (QAA 2017) (K2; K6). The sense of working alongside, this could be as an expert or beginner, thus leading from the front, centre and behind with both students and colleagues. At times I have found this challenging and unnatural as I am an introvert, gaining inspiration from working with others once I have worked independently. This case study will outline a variety of innovative,… Read moreVignette of Practice: ‘Include Me’: A Move Towards Inclusive Teaching and Assessment

Your handy Office 365 Accessibility Checker- Good to go

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Changing digital practice to accommodate accessibility within the range of documents and learning materials we produce can seem like a daunting task. Thankfully, there are some tools that can help you get the grips with the needs of disabled students when it comes to accessible content. In this brief post, we take a look at the Accessibility Checker in the Office 365 suite such as Word, PowerPoint etc. To note: this advice is based on the latest version of the MS Office. IT services have been rolling this out across the institution. If you don’t see the same as the images below, then contact IT who will be able to help. What is the Accessibility Checker? The Accessibility Checker is a tool that been included… Read moreYour handy Office 365 Accessibility Checker- Good to go

Personal Academic Tutoring (PAT)

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The Personal Academic Tutoring system at the University of Worcester sits at the heart of the student experience and impacts directly on student retention and attainment. We have been developing a model of PAT referred to as ‘working in partnership’ that we know is founded on best practice. As a result a number of useful resources and case studies have been produced. We have also updated the guidance on the University PAT web pages. There is also a Personal Academic Tutoring Guide with more information. The web pages include: * A link to the policy * Guidance – the role of the PAT; the role of the student; guiding principles; working in partnership; theoretical underpinning of working in partnership model *Examples of practice, including three… Read morePersonal Academic Tutoring (PAT)

Welcome

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Welcome to the Realising Teaching Excellence blog at the University of Worcester, where we hope to keep you informed about teaching and learning developments, create dialogue around developing excellence and introduce you to examples of interesting practice. The ‘Teaching Excellence’ page has the latest news on learning and teaching The ‘Interesting Practice’ page has a range of learning and teaching case studies See the ‘Resources’ page for useful guides and information including the “Busy lecturer’s Guide to Inclusive Practice” and information on student transitions and Teaching Awards The ‘Tried and Tested’ page contains examples of enhancement activities undertaken at module and course level which have been evaluated and proven to have been effective. Our ‘Projects’ page shows updates and outputs from the various learning and… Read moreWelcome

What is the Jisc Digital Capabilities Framework?

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At a recent LTSEC meeting, the university agreed to adopt the Jisc Digital Capabilities Framework. But how much do you know about digital capabilities and how do digital capabilities differ from digital skills or digital literacy. What about digital fluency? All good questions and in this blog post I’ll try and help untangle some of those distinctions and explain how the Jisc Digital Capabilities Framework can help you as an individual, within your curriculum and help your students. You say potato, I say potahto Over the last decade there has been a range of terms used to describe those practices we engage with when we are using digital technologies, software and services. Jisc in its early explorations into this area used the term ‘digital literacy’,… Read moreWhat is the Jisc Digital Capabilities Framework?

A Month of Digital Accessibility

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So, that was October. The start of term, welcoming our newest students and getting to grips with the new academic year.  We also started to raise awareness of the new Public Sector Website Accessibility Regulations. And, now, to support staff with developing accessible content we’re publishing a range of support, guidance and tips and tricks to help everyone with making their content as accessible as possible whether it’s content for a website, content for internal colleagues or learning content for our students. It can seem that creating or adapting existing content to make it accessible is quite challenging. But in reality there’s some really quick ways to achieve this. For this month there’s handy calendar of Office 365 tips and tricks which provide some ideas… Read moreA Month of Digital Accessibility

7 quick ways to make your Word docs accessible

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With the new Public Sector Web Accessibility Regulations now in place, here are seven tips and tricks to help you make your existing or new word documents more accessible whether you’re writing internal documents, learning content for students or would like to know how to make your essay or thesis more accessible. Use Heading Styles to make your document easy to navigate Using Headings makes your documents much easier to navigate for someone using a screen reader. You can create Headings Styles that match your needs and if you need to change them you only need to do it once and all the Headings in your document will be updated. Using Headings also makes it much easier to create a table of contents for any… Read more7 quick ways to make your Word docs accessible