Teaching and Learning Forum

1. Teaching and Learning Forum March 2013

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

3. 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

4. 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 

5. 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

6. 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

7. Updates • 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

9. 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’

10. 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

11. 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.

12. 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

13. 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.