Teaching and Learning Forum

March 2013

Agenda

• Welcome• Updates• Sustainability Curriculum update 12-30-12.50• Assessment – moving forwards 12.50-1.30• Q&A AoB 1.30-1.45

Updates• QAA: UK Quality Code for Higher Education

http://www.qaa.ac.uk/AssuringStandardsAndQuality/quality-code/Pages/default.aspx

• PU next Institutional Review, 2015 at the latest! It could be sooner. New HE Review process. There is a plan

• Aligning back office structures • 2015 Evidence Base – single web site

Updates

Events http://www.plymouth.ac.uk/pages/view.asp?page=32213

• 26-27 March 2013 – ALDinHE conference,

• 15-16 April 2013– British Conference of Undergraduate Researchers (BCUR),

• 17 April 2013 – PedRIO Conference

• 28 June 2013 - VC’s Teaching and Learning

Conference 

Updates

• HEA Annual Visit - – colleagues sign up to the new discipline

newsletters http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/disciplines

– Annual report, events and workshops can be useful in framing your Action Plans

Back office paperwork

If a QAA auditor walked into the School office tomorrow could you sit them down and give them access to the papers from the last three years for:• Module and programme action plans • Staff-Student liaison committee meeting papers and the

responses from School T&LC. • Evidence of meetings with alumni, professional bodies,

employers … • External examiners appointments, reports and

responses

• L,T&SE Strategy to 2020 (with WP and PVC)

• Internationalising the curriculum: Design, delivery and depth http://www.lfhe.ac.uk/en/research-resources/published-research/index.cfm/S4%20-%2001

• Teaching Learning and Assessment handbook is getting overhauled, and put on the Teaching and Learning pages

Updates

Sustainability in the Curriculum

• University Strategy and TLSE Strategy:

‘differentiating our academic offer by ensuring issues and principles of sustainability permeate and inform our programmes and modules, learning from existing best practice so that students engage positively with sustainability issues affecting their personal and professional lives’

Assessment 2013-2016 Project

• Moving to next stage – enhancement for every student

• 12% of students are registered as having some disability

• Assessment Provision –The Plymouth position 2013

• SPACE project, 2007• Lots of good practice, sporadic and

inconsistent across programmes

Highlights

• Inclusivity • Staff concerns about designing inclusive

assessments and supporting disabled students• We have some students with worrying

experiences• We already set hundreds of alternative

assessments. Some of this is about making those opportunities available to all

• Benchmarks and Professional Bodies• Costs of invigilators section 6.

Assessments must fairly evaluate a student’s ability to meet module and

programme learning outcomes

• There are many alternatives• We already have many complex

assessments made available to students with specific needs

• Assessments at resit do not have to be in the same style as in first attempt

Challenge

• To put the report recommendations into action

• Use this as an opportunity to revisit learning outcomes to check alignment

• A Marked Improvement (HEA Report) http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/documents/assessment/A_Marked_Improvement.pdf

• Move to assessments that can be taken at any time, anywhere. (ODL friendly)

• Make 2013 the last year when we have summer resit examinations?

• Broaden our use of instant resits.• Volunteer your module – programmes to work with the ED team

to move our practice in line with our stated policy.