Sally Brown

Here starts the high energy fortnight during which on Wednesday, the 7th of November I am delighted to be helping Becky Huxley-Binns, Chrissi Nerantzi and Advance HE staff  to induct and celebrate the 2018 National Teaching Fellows in Edinburgh. Looks like being a glittering event and what a privilege to be invited and welcome new NTFs to the fabulous Fellowship of Fellows.
The next day I will be flying down on Thursday to Southampton to go to Bournemouth on Friday for the great delight of being awarded an honorary doctorate at Bournemouth University. ​ Another great privilege and cause for celebration.

And then after spending a weekend with Debbie Holley and Michelle Morgan there, it’s off to Hove on Sunday to see my son Matt, and then Phil and I  are flying to Venice on Monday to attend a conference on Wednesday and Thursday at Padua University, one of the oldest and most venerable universities in Europe, on assessment and feedback, jointly with Phil and Kay Sambell. Thanks so much to Anna Serbati and Valentina Grion  for inviting us: our draft joint slides are here.  Padua-2018-draft-slides-Phil-Race-Kay-Sambell-and-Sally-Brown-w.pptx (426 downloads)

Then back to the UK post haste to join the SEDA conference in Birmingham, where I will be running an interactive workshop on professional identities: again the slides are here:  SEDA-Prof-Identities-Sally-Brown-ww.pptx (480 downloads)

As you might imagine, packing for this marathon tour is providing some challenges, so I am sending a box Parcelforce to Birmingham with supplies for my workshop, which you can see here:

Today and tomorrow I am working at Luxembourg University at their fascinating new Esch Campus on the site of former steelworks. And I will be running a substantial programme of activity for staff assessment, feedback, inclusivity and international perspectives. The complete slides are here.  Luxembourg-Assessment-oct-2018-w.pptx (412 downloads) It’s great to be back in Luxembourg, discovering a new part of the country.

Super week this week! I’m off to Harper Adams to work with the wonderful new NTF Lydia Arnold by contributing to Learning and Teaching Conference alongside Liz Thomas and Yaz el Hakim as well as many excellent-looking internal workshop, (see my workshop slides here: Retention-Harper-Adams-w1.pptx (413 downloads) )

Then up to Preston to meet Duncan Cross and then up again to Edinburgh, meeting Kay Sambell in Carlisle en route, to help them celebrate their two NTFs Mark Huxham and Michelle O’Reilly and to talk about long term planning for  future NTFs.

It will be great to see lots of old friends and colleagues and work productively with them at all points of the compass.

It’s been a glorious summer of sunshine, writing, grandchildren, travelling down the Rhine from Switzerland to Germany, seeing friends, blasting through the Edinburgh Festival, and attending the Enterprise Educators Conference in Leeds last week, as well as an AdvanceHE networking event in York for institutional supporters of NTF applicants.
We’ve also been  preparing for the next academic year, so Phil and I are delighted to be kicking this off with an NTF-organised Writing Residential at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park on Tuesday the 11th and Wednesday, the 12th of September.
We have prepared lots of slides, which are here,  Cumberland-Lodge-writing-2018-w.pptx (446 downloads) and will also be offering one-to-one support to delegates at the residential.

It’s great to be back in harness doing the kind of work we both really enjoy: Happy New Academic Year!

Over the summer Phil and I have been working with Marese Bermingham of Cork Institute of Technology on guides for use there with their lecturing and student support staff. In due course, these will be made open access resources, following on from the examples of OER work on assessment and feedback produced by Margaret Price, Erica Morris and me at Anglia Ruskin University, (which we are grateful to Sharon Waller for sharing).  see https://www.anglia.ac.uk/anglia-learning-and-teaching/good-teaching-practice-and-innovation/assessment-and-feedback/anglia-assessment-album and at Edinburgh Napier University (thanks to Kay Sambell) see https://staff.napier.ac.uk/services/dlte/ENhance/Pages/ENhanceQuickGuides.aspx

The Cork IT resources aren’t going to cover assessment, (as everyone can use the ARU and Napier OERs) but instead are a suite of Teaching and Assessment at Cork IT (TACIT) guides and TACIT Tips, as well as an updated version of In at the Deep End (originally produced by Phil at Leeds Beckett University).

For the time being, I thought you might like to see the TACIT guide on Giving your first ever lecture or conference presentation. If you like it, feel free to modify it for your own university and college staff (thanks Marese) and let me know if you think there are improvements we could make before it goes in to hard copy production. You can download it here:  TACIT-guide-First-ever-lecture-w.docx (608 downloads)

In this last workshop away from home this academic year I am looking forward to working with colleagues on Wednesday 11th at Manchester University in the Faculty of Biology, Medicine and Health as well as ​colleagues  from the Division of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Care​ on ‘Assessment and feedback for the twenty first century’ and the slides I will be using are here:  AssessFeedbackManchester11th-July-2018-w.pptx (481 downloads) The handout for the biscuit game is here:  Biscuit-game-Anglia-Assessment-Album-w.docx (1086 downloads)

Over the next six weeks I will be enjoying some holiday, grand parenting  and also writing some resources for Cork IT in Ireland as well as working with Kay Sambell on our new book on International Perspectives on assessment. I hope if you are getting some holiday too, you have a nice break or otherwise have an enjoyable and productive summer!

What a week we had last week! The University of Cumbria organised Assessment in Higher Education Conference was excellent, and it was great after that to move on with colleagues from the UK and the US to have a 36-hour Anglo-American Assessment Summit at the fabulous Oulton Hall, in marvellous weather. We achieved so much in such a short time and there are plans for plenty of follow-up activities.

This week I am continuing with my summer surge, heading to Amsterdam tomorrow night, for a conference at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, which is all about improving the experience of students through assessment and other areas of curriculum work. My slides are here:  Amsterdam-day-July-w.pptx (497 downloads)

Then on Thursday and Friday, Phil and I will again be leading a Writing for Publication residential at York, for Leeds Beckett University. We have been doing this for some years and what is really encouraging is how many participants tell us they publish as a result.

The scorching sunshine and the sunny ambience this week is really helping  as well!

I’ve got lots going on this week, including a keynote on Promoting Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Nottingham Trent University on Tuesday 26th, as well as a strategic meeting, and workshop on Getting published about Learning and Teaching. thanks very much to National Teaching Fellow Jane McNeil for inviting me to join in what looks like being a really interesting programme Both sets of slides are here: Nottingham-Trent-SoTL-June-2018-w.pptx (499 downloads)   GetPublishedNottingham-Trent-w.pptx (491 downloads)
On Wednesday Phil and I will travel via Leeds where I will be meeting with National Teaching Fellow Ruth Pickford, Then on to Manchester for the always thought-provoking Assessment in Higher Education Conference where I will be presenting on International Perspectives on Higher Education Assessment again with another National Teaching fellow Kay Sambell. Our Slides are here:  AHE-2018-International-MancFTLD.pptx (489 downloads)

Then on Thursday night I will be travelling across to Oulton Hall in Yorkshire with a contingent of 20 UK and US assessment experts for 36 hour invitational seminar where we will be unpicking the differences and similarities between American and British perspectives on assessment, with a view to future collaborations and publications.

We will be tweeting from the event and invite colleagues to join us between 6.30 and 7 pm on Friday 29th  on the hashtag #AngloUsAssessSummit in response to the following three questions

1. ​​What differences have you noticed between the way Americans and British people talk about assessment?
2. Do you think there are key structural differences between the ways in which we work on assessment, or are our principles very similar?
3. Can you identify any literature, research or projects that would be particularly helpful; to either US or UK colleagues or both (and why do you say that?)

Do join in if you are free at that time. Lots of National Teaching Fellows will be taking part including Fabio D’Arico, Kay Sambell, Margaret Price, Peter Hartley, Naomi Winston, Tansy Jessop, Susan Orr, Mark Schofield, Phil Race and me! Thanks so much to Keston Fulcher and Nick Curtis of James Maddison University for involving me in making the arrangements for this. I won’t be using PowerPoint presentations here save a handout here, but of course we will be playing the biscuit game, and I am confident that outputs will be plentiful!

All this and the weather looks promising too!

Travelling down on Wednesday 20th June to the City of Lincoln. On Thursday Phil and I are looking forward to presenting at the Lincoln International Business School Teaching and Learning Conference. The theme of the day is inclusive curriculum access, autonomy and authenticity.
My keynote is on inclusive curriculum design delivery and assessment and is designed to support Dr Debbie Lock’s leadership on implementing inclusivity across the whole university My slides (without these videos) are here:  Inclusive-design-delivery-and-assessment-Lincoln-w.pptx (489 downloads)

After our Irish adventures last week, we’ve had a couple of days to catch our breath and I’m now ready to do a keynote on Thursday 7th June for the British Psychological Society in Birmingham at their teaching and learning conference on Inspiring Teaching. It’s wonderful to revisit the influencers who have impacted on the UK sector and wider, and are continuing to do so. You might recognise some of the faces! The slides are here:  Inspiring-teaching-BPS-June-2018-w.pptx (419 downloads)
And on Friday 8th June one of the highspots of my academic year is going to the Solstice Conference at Edge Hill University where I always learn so much and I’m looking forward to presenting with Kay Sambell on International Perspectives on Assessment. We’ve still got loads to learn in this area but our knowledge base is growing thanks to our global contacts. The slides for this presentation are here: International-Solstice-June-2018-w.pptx (470 downloads)
So plenty going on this summer but still time to celebrate the joys of life!