Teaching Toolkit

This Teaching Toolkit is designed for anyone involved in teaching or supporting students.  It will give you some tips, tricks and techniques of how to get the best experience for your students.  How you engage students in their learning is a vital skill.  Having a variety of tools will help you to keep the students on task and will provide a range of inclusive and effective learning experiences, allowing all your students to reach their potential.  

The video clips embedded in the six topics below feature four Lancaster University students, Melody, Faith, Christina and Zarin, from across the faculties, representing both undergraduate and postgraduate study. We invited them to identify and share their experiences of learning, classroom experiences and assessments, and to reflect on the approaches that helped them learn most effectively. Their insights have been organised into six key themes, with additional links and further reading provided where relevant.

As you explore the examples and reflections shared below, we encourage you to consider how these approaches might apply within your own teaching context and how they could be adapted to support your students' learning.

  • Active Learning

    This section offers a variety of different ways to break away from the lecture format and engage students in meaningful activities. This includes group work, seminar activities and thinking beyond the classroom. A flipped approach is discussed by the students as a way to make the most of contact time.

  • Assessment

    This section includes examples of authentic and varied assessment types, with further information of marking and feedback including standardisation techniques to ensure consistency across marking teams. This section also links to other CEDA Assessment resources.

  • Icebreakers

    These all important ‘getting to know you’ activities are vital for cohort cohesion and reducing student anxiety. Approach these as a programme so you reduce repetition and can reinforce previous ice breaking activity. This section offers a selection of ideas from academics and student support staff across the University.

  • Inclusive Practice

    This section offers practical techniques of how to be more inclusive in your teaching. These techniques are useful for all students to enable them to fully engage in their learning . This section also links to other CEDA Inclusive Teaching resources.

  • Teaching Theory

    What theories underpin teaching and learning practice? There is a large body of literature in this space and SOTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) is a key area of research. Your faculty may have it’s own SOTL group, giving a discipline context to the student experience.

  • Technology Enhanced Learning

    This section explores how to keep students engaged using technology. Particularly useful for large lectures, using tools such as Mentimeter, can help break up a lecture and keep students focused and on-task.

Workshops and Short courses

For details of CEDA workshops and short courses please click on the button below:

Workshops