Centre for Fusion Learning Innovation and Excellence
Embedding excellence through fusion of education, research and professional practice
HEA Student Surveys HEA student surveys are important tools for understanding how students experience their higher education courses, such as how engaged they feel by the teaching and how supported they are in their learning and development. In 2016-17, we’re running all three student surveys. To find out more or register your interest in participating,… Read more » about Higher Education Academy Update – 1 September 2016
If you are preparing for teaching next month, please check the presentation equipment in your teaching and seminar room(s) as it may have been upgraded since you last used it. The new presentation equipment has many great features that you can use in your teaching and learning. This page from the TEL Toolkit aims to… Read more » about Making the most of the new presentation equipment
A wide range of content can be added to units in myBU varying from basic text and web links to video and social media feeds. A standard unit will be created in myBU with the following menu items: Announcements – This is default landing page for the unit where announcements can be added. Announcements are used to provide up to… Read more » about Thinking about updating myBU? Here are some suggestions to consider
There was a very interesting paper presented today at the eLEOT conference in Dublin by Monisa Abdul Wahab, co-authored with Mike Joy, of Warwick University . The topic was whether student engagement and motivation in the use of e-portfolios could be raised by introducing aspects of gaming. The widespread use of Mahara at BU made… Read more » about Does Mahara need gamification?
Cross-Faculty programmes have often been challenging to implement at BU which has meant many great ideas for new courses have not come to fruition. To address this issue, a group of stakeholders from the Faculties and Professional Services have worked together to fix the problematic areas which has now provided the flexibility for cross-Faculty collaboration… Read more » about Developing cross-Faculty programmes has never been easier at BU!
Our Fair Access Research project explores the potential of learning and working together to transform higher education. We are interested in finding ways to connect different spheres of widening participation work within — and across — different institutions. With this in mind, Maggie Hutchings and Alex Wardrop undertook a second lot of fieldwork with colleagues in the north of England… Read more » about Fieldnotes 2: widening participation and organisational learning
For the last few weeks we have be trialling a virtual classroom environment which uses software provided by Blackboard. The application is called Collaborate. Collaborate allows you to create virtual, online spaces to which you can invite up to 100 students and colleagues and share video, audio, documents (PDFs, images and PowerPoints) and a whiteboard. … Read more » about Working in an online classroom
The digital skills self-assessment has been running since February 2016. The questionnaire is focused on academic staff and seeks to understand staff’s confidence in using tools from the TEL Toolkit and in the wider digital sphere. Our hope is that all academic staff will find 15 minutes to complete the questionnaire. The benefits to staff… Read more » about Digital skills self-assessment – what the questionnaire is telling us
Building on the successful ‘roadshows’ that CEL delivered in the last academic year and thinking ahead to the start of the new academic year, CEL staff are happy to provide input on any of our three themes (innovative pedagogy, assessment and feedback – Anne Quinney; employability – Carly Lamont; and technology-enhanced learning – David Biggins… Read more » about Would you like CEL to provide input into your team or department awaydays?
A report published yesterday by QAA explores the growing threat to UK higher education from custom essay writing services, or ‘essay mills’. It looks at how these services operate, gives examples from their websites, and highlights the claims they make, in particular their guarantees of being ‘plagiarism free’. QAA was commissioned to carry out this… Read more » about Plagiarism in Higher Education – Custom essay writing services: an exploration and next steps for the UK higher education sector – a report from QAA
