Sally Brown

Much of the last fortnight has been spent helping Laura Ritchie and her fellow National Teaching Fellows’ Symposium organisers finalise arrangements for  the NTF Symposium  which is being held on March 21-22  at the Burlington MacDonald hotel in Birmingham on the topic of ‘Serious play: playful learning’.  Although only NTFs can register for the first day, the second day is open to other colleagues  and you are warmly invited to register.

On 19th January, Phil and I are delighted to be working with staff and students at Reading University’s Assessment and Feedback conference  I am particularly looking forward to working with RUSU’s Niall Hamilton in conversazione on assessment matters as well as jointly keynoting (twice) with Phil, and running my own workshop on assessing group work fairly. My presentations for the day are here and I also enclose the Egg Game I am using in the afternoon session.  Reading-prog-level-assess-w-1.pptx (712 downloads)   Egg game handout (768 downloads)    Reading-group-work-Jan-2016-w.pptx (574 downloads)

On Thursday I am working with Manchester University colleagues on Recognising and Rewarding Teaching Excellence together with a workshop on working towards Fellowships of the HEA, the slides and handout for which are here.  Manchester-teaching-excellence-2016-w.pptx (952 downloads)   UKPSF slides (774 downloads) , grid (615 downloads)

Thirdly I attach here the response of the Association of National Teaching Fellows to the Green Paper on Teaching Excellence which we hope will usefully contribute to the debate and that colleagues will enjoy reading.  CANTF-TEFConsultation-Response-FINAL.docx (659 downloads)

After a cracking Christmas and a lively New Year, Phil and I are back on the road starting our working endeavours in January with a trip to Plymouth for Pauline Kneale’s Masters’ Level Conference on January 8th, as well as some workshops with the faculty of Health, Midwifery and Social Work on improving assessment, the presentation for which will follow here: streamlined-assesment-Plymouth-Jan-2016-w-2.pptx (690 downloads)

On Thursday 7th January I will be convening at Plymouth University a second pop-up consultation meeting for National Teaching Fellows on our response to the Government Green paper which is due in on 15th January. Any National Teaching Fellows who wish to contribute to the discussion can do so either by attending in person, or by sending to me and Pratap Rughani at the University of the Arts your brief comments in relation to questions 2 to 11.

After the submission of our response we will be targeting MPs and peers known to have an interest in Higher Education with a briefer version of our comments, so again Pratap and I would welcome your suggestions (particularly personal contacts) of those likely to champion our cause in the Commons and the Lords, so we can influence decisions on how to recognize and reward  teaching excellence.

En route home from Plymouth I will be working at Sheffield University on January 13th on Getting Published on Teaching and Learning, and the handout will be here: streamlined-assesment-Plymouth-Jan-2016-w-1.pptx (1496 downloads)  

This week my academic duties include examining a doctoral thesis on globalisation of international students at Liverpool John Moores University, and supporting academics looking to claim excellence in teaching at Anglia Ruskin University, as well as preparing for the NTF consultation next week on Wednesday 16th (1100-1300) at Leeds Beckett University on the Green Paper.
After that, it is parties all the way up to Christmas! I am particularly looking forward to the Playgroup Christmas party on Tuesday 15th, and the North East NTFS Christmas treat in Newcastle on Thursday 17th December.
Seasons greetings to you all!

This week Phil and  I are returning to Luxembourg University to run a suite of workshops.

Firstly I am helping colleagues across the university think about applying for HEA Fellowships and the slides and handout Phil and I use for these sessions are here:  UKPSF grid (764 downloads) , UKPSF slides (725 downloads) , Questions for PFHEA applicants (714 downloads) .

I am also running workshops on Programme Level Curriculum Design, Evaluating and Enhancing your own Teaching, and Using Annual Review for the Enhancement of the Student Experience, and the slides are here:  Annual Review case studies (612 downloads) , Evaluating and Enhancing Teaching (558 downloads) , Luxembourg Annual Review (755 downloads) , Luxembourg Curriculum Design (710 downloads) .

We are looking forward to a productive few days: thanks for Cassandra Mikicic for inviting us and making us feel so welcome..

After a brilliant and inspiring time at the SEDA conference last week in Cardiff, I am immediately booking onto the SEDA May conference in Edinburgh (http://www.seda.ac.uk/events/info/458) which is where by coincidence I am working this week, doing workshops for Edinburgh University on assessing large groups and inspiring teaching. My slides are here:   Assessing Large Groups (563 downloads) Inspiring Teaching (585 downloads)

Next week Phil and I are off to Luxembourg  for a variety of workshops (and of course a quick visit to the Christmas markets!).

Phil and I are delighted to be travelling to Wales together this week to work at the University of South Wales, to contribute to the launch in Wales of the Enterprise Toolkit launch with Emma Forouzan, and to attend the SEDA conference in Cardiff. My presentation for the Enterprise Toolkit launch is here, the link to the really useful toolkit is here and my workshop tasks and brief instruction to Boyer’s four scholarships (which underpins my workshops) are here. ETC Toolkit: Wales Launch (683 downloads)   Boyer's scholarships (552 downloads)   SEDA workshop tasks (676 downloads)   http://www.etctoolkit.org.uk/

While here, I am also doing a bit of mentoring, looking forward to catching up with friends, making new contacts and hopefully getting into some water at the St David’s Hotel and Spa!

Today and tomorrow I am again working at Anglia Ruskin University, supporting applicants for National Teaching Fellowships, and also building on my work with Margaret Price over the last couple of years on improving assessment. We were delighted in the 2015 NSS to see a marked improvement in scores relating to assessment and feedback at ARU, and now we are working with Erica Morris to develop a package of materials for cross institutional support in the same area.

Those of you interested in my recent work on the TEF might like to view the article in the Guardian for Tuesday in which I am quoted. http://gu.com/p/4dmdh?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other.  I thought Peter Scott, formerly  VC of Kingston University, wrote a particularly useful article on the same page.

Very excited today to be chairing my first Association of National Teaching Fellows Committee in a very foggy York where we have plenty to discuss and share including the new committee roles, the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) response and lots of other key matters.  We have been really heartened by the high levels of engagement by NTFs in discussing the responses to BIS on TEF. You can download a pdf of our response here: CANTF response to BIS re TEF (707 downloads)

As my first commitment as a new Visiting Professor at the University of South Wales, I am working with PVC Ben Calvert and Haydn Blackey to run a one day workshop with senior staff to plan enhancements to learning, teaching and assessment across the university over the next academic year and beyond. I am really delighted to be asked to undertake this role, and look forward to meeting old friends and new colleagues over the next five years. My slides for today’s workshop are here: University of South Wales: Oct 2015 (655 downloads)