CELT: Staff & student learning and teaching collaborations enhance employability skills

CELT’s first round of Innovation Grants have resulted in 8 successful funded projects, supporting teaching developments of 5 staff and work-experience for 10 students over the next year.  CELT Teaching Innovation Grants provide funding to support staff-led projects, which also employ at least one student providing short-term work-experience as part of the overall project developments.  CELT Learning Innovation Grants are student-led projects, which are each mentored by a staff member with the Grant providing funding to support the students work-experience.  Collectively, these Grants encourage staff and students to work together on learning and teaching developments to enhance the student learning experience.  These Grants provide invaluable opportunities to further develop students employability skills and enrich their graduate attributes.

Verity Worthington, the new Education and Welfare Officer, in Newport Students Union commented

 "In my campaign to become Education and Welfare Officer, my overall aim was to ensure students are able to take part in each aspect of their student experience. CELT innovation Grants fit in particularly well to my plans as students are actively encouraged to contribute to their education whilst also gaining useful work experience and getting paid."

Details of CELT Innovation Grants are available at http://bit.ly/CELTgrants

Student work-experience opportunities at the University are supported by the Careers and Employability Service: http://bit.ly/NewportCareers

The next call for CELT Innovation Grants is now open.  All applications from staff and students, whether experienced project developers or new adventurers, are welcome.   Further details are available from CELT Enterprise at http://bit.ly/CELTenterprise or by email to celt@newport.ac.uk.

eBooks Event

Library Services is hosting an eBooks day for libraries across the South East region.  We are working in conjunction with our partners from the public sector, further and higher education and also specialist health and government services too. This is a great opportunity to forge strong alliances with regional stakeholders and for Newport to brand an exciting and innovative training product, along with developing a community of practice for eBooks across Wales.

Moodle 2 is coming...

Over the last four years the University of Wales, Newport has been making extensive use of Moodle as part of it's web based learning environment, both internally via it's "myLearningEssentials" platform and externally as part of it's "Outside Learning Network".  

During this time, usage of the system has grown exponentially and with it have come feature requests from both staff and students and so for the last nine months, members of the CDEL team have been working closely with key stakeholders to develop and test a brand new Moodle system to replace the existing one site for the forthcoming academic year.   This new system contains many bespoke features which adress all of the requests made by staff and students, meeting the logistic, strategic and pedagogical needs of everyone contributing to the quality of the student experience within the University of Wales, Newport.

Powered by Moodle 2, the look and feel of the site has also been refreshed and modernised to fit in with the next generation of myLearningEssentials, which itself has been rebuilt from the ground up and will be known as "myNewport", being developed by the university web team alongside the Moodle project.

Over the last few weeks, the CDEL team have worked to transfer all existing modules from the current system to the new one, this process is now complete and  the new site is now live and ready for staff to start building the next generation of online and blended courses for the forthcoming academic year.

CDEL contributes to JISC run webinar on E-assessment.

This week CDEL contributed to a webinar run by JISC showcasing some of the tools and technologies staff in Newport are using to provide new an innovate feedback opportunities to it's students.


During the webinar, CDEL showcase three free tools:

Video feedback

• Using YouTube's browser based video recorder to record video feedback.

Audio feedback

• Using the RecordMP3 website to record audio feedback

Realtime "screencast" feedback

• Using Join.me to provide real time "webcast" feedback or use it for assessment.

The webinar was available worldwide for free and was attended by a number of representatives from different colleges and universities across the country who were keen to learn about the innovative practice currently being undertaken by the university's staff in providing their learners with multimedia feedback.

How to Record a Video Using a Webcam and YouTube

CELT Research funding forum established

As part of the CELT's on going commitment to supporting staff in undertaking world class research into teaching and learning, a bespoke online forum has been setup to highlight current research grant opportunities further develop best pedagogical practice inside and outside of the classroom.


Staff can choose to subscribe to the forum whereby they will automatically receive regular emails which showcase all of the funding opportunities that are available to them.  Face to face support is also provided by Dr Ann Smith, the CELT's Senior Researcher to staff on an on-demand basis at times and places which suit them best.


The forum has been a great success with positive feedback from staff and students and has resulted in a number of successful bids.  We aim to continue and build upon this success in the coming academic year by providing a series of bookable workshops which will enable staff who are less confident in getting started with research to develop and further refine their academic outputs.

Screen shot of the CELT Funding calls forum

2 Keynotes, 1 Week

This week was a busy one for CDEL as they were asked to provide keynotes for two separate conferences; the first at the "Sharing Practice: Open approaches to teaching and learning" conference held at the University of Lincoln on 21st June 2012 and the second at the "Excellent Teaching & Learning - How Can Technology Help?"conference held in Merthyr Tydfil, held for schools, FE colleges and universities taking part in the Heads of the Vallies Education Programme (HOVEP) on the 27th of June  2012.


Both keynotes showcased different aspects of  how CDEL supports staff and students within the University of Wales, Newport demonstrating the exemplar use of learning technologies employed within the university and the "pedagogy first" approach the team takes to ensure that enhancing the student experience is always the number one priority. 


Both talks were met with very positive feedback, within the conferences and online via Twitter. The new contacts made at both events are now providing the team with new opportunities to share best practice and raise the profile of the University of Wales, Newport as a whole.

Videos of both keynotes are below:

 

HEA funding opportunity to host events in 2012-2013 workshop and seminar series

The workshop and seminar series aims to encourage innovation and the sharing of best practice in learning and teaching based on evidence and research. Each event attracts a bursary of £750.

Through this series, institutions are invited to disseminate findings from research or evaluation work, or share evidence-informed policy and/or practice in the one of the thematic areas of

• employability;
• flexible learning;
• internationalisation.

The 2012-13 series will focus on the three priority areas: graduate employability, widening access through flexible learning and enabling students to study, live and work internationally (internationalisation).

To find out more and apply, please visit: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/seminar-series#themes, emailthematic.seminar@heacademy.ac.uk, or call us on 01904 717500.

Round 1 (October 2012 - January 2013):       Call opens: 19 June 2012        Closes: 16 July 2012

Round 2 (February - July 2013):                     Call opens: 1 October 2012   Closes: 29 October 2012

If you are interested in applying, please contact CELT at celt@newport.ac.uk.