2022 Education Conference

Using evidence-based research to create inclusive and accessible teaching materials

Using research from the science of learning and Rosenshine’s principals of instruction, we will address some key questions such as ‘How do students understand new ideas?’ and ‘How do students learn and retain new information?’ We will share how pedagogy and subject experts at Frontline have worked collaboratively to create teaching resources which help to support all learners by creating inclusive and accessible resources for teaching, such as the use of dual coding and graphic organisers, chunking knowledge and allowing time to check understanding and address any misconceptions. The session will start by selecting some key learnings from evidence based and informed research to explain how these approaches benefit all learners and will share examples from our teaching resources at Frontline to show how we are working to create templates for teaching resources that support learning.

Access Ailsa's presentation from this link

Using Deliberate Practice to Promote Inclusive, Collaborative Learning

Our presentation focuses on deliberate practice. This is an approach to practising skills “using activities that maximise improvement throughout development toward expert performance” (Ericsson et al., 1993): activities where learners purposefully and mindfully focus on component parts of a skill, practising in isolation and until fluency is achieved. We will explore how deliberate practice promotes inclusive, collaborative teaching practice: whereas lectures, hands-up questioning or discussions may favour extroverted individuals and not give equal opportunities for participation, deliberate practice ensures that all learners are involved, working in small groups, getting to practice an aspect of a skill in a safe, low-stakes environment and receiving feedback related to pre-set, clear success criteria. As well as an outline of deliberate practice and its purpose, we will share examples to demonstrate the powerful role of deliberate practice in promoting collaborative, inclusive learning environments and opportunities for all learners to develop and succeed.

Access Alice's presentation from this link

Music and Disability

Music has a central place in human culture. In relation to disability, music has often been understood as therapy. Bonde (2019) argues that music has been seen to have therapeutic qualities since antiquity. In fact, the healing power of music has been a common part of the literature since the time of Plato.
Vik Finkelstein (1979) and Donna Reeve (2006) from a social model perspective argue that there is no such thing as the psychology of disability. They argue that in fact there is only the psychopathology of disability. Psychology and therapy tend to treat disabled people for grief and loss. Much of the current literature understands music as a form of therapy too - a way of quietening troubling behaviour or as a means to improve communication skills where there are communication impairments. This proposal aims to look at the tension between music as therapy and music as educational or empowering.

Access Andrew's presentation from this link

Hello Collaboration

In this presentation we will share our experience of a collaboration between careers and the library at Bailrigg Lancaster which has resulted in teaching sessions on the "Grow your Futures" programme and several embedded modules. A library careers advice for students session and the development and launch of an interactive employability tutorial for students wanting to utilise library resources to enhance their career prospects. The tutorial was built using Articulate software and guides students towards world class resources that they may not have considered on commercial awareness.

Tutorial here: https://articulate.library.lancs.ac.uk/articulate/employability

Access Andy & Helen's presentation from this link

A collaborative journey: Meeting the challenge of teaching statistics across disciplines

In 2020 colleagues from across Bailrigg Faculties and Departments (FASS, FST, LUMS, FHM, Learning Development & Educational Development) came together to create an Interdisciplinary Commons Community.

An Interdisciplinary Commons Community is a cross discipline group, which collectively reflects and critically examines specific areas of teaching practices through collegial support and constructive discussions.

This group’s specific area of interest is the teaching of statistics & data analysis to undergraduates from non-mathematic backgrounds. The aim of the group is to reflect on and share the challenges of teaching data analysis and to identify the subject bottleneck areas, which students find the most challenging, and ideally find ways to ameliorate these challenges.

A lot has happened between 2020 and 2022 and while this group still meets, its initial idea and intention has changed. We have moved from a structured Interdisciplinary Commons Community with its fixed structures and community towards becoming a Special Interest Group. This presentation will touch on the concept behind the establishing the group and offer insights from the group’s discussions into teaching data analysis & statistics. Following this introduction, it will move to consider some of the challenges of making collaboration happen. We consider the benefits of colleague conversations, the impact of Covid and the challenges of finding time for and the value of long-term collaborative projects. Finally, as we move forward we offer and open invitation to colleagues who wish to join this Special Interest Group as we continue to support each other with the challenges and continue on our journey.

Access Anna et.al's presentation from this link

Empowered communities: lessons learnt from a successful e-transitions project in Higher Education

This session aims to present learnings and outcomes of a blended transition project ‘Ready for Your Management School’ that enables successful transition and re-orientation of students into the university life.

The project started in 2019 in an attempt to address issues related to in person only delivery of transition, meaningful information relating to induction resources and university life. The information available was often overwhelming, and structured in such a way that it was difficult to revisit and find relevant information, providing students with little support in later stages of their transition.

Lesson learnt from the project reinforce the value of online engagement and active forms of interaction between students, which leads not only to a better attainment of information but also creates a more long-lasting effect, where students become advocates for supporting others on the same journey for their own and future cohorts.

Access Anna & Casey's presentation from this link

Engaging with Visual Criminology – ‘Texts’ from Blackburn University Centre criminologists

Blackburn University Centre students are given the opportunity to opt for visual criminology assessment tasks gradually (with varying weightings) to provide them with the confidence to present their ideas and analysis using creative methods. Creativity is a central theme within the teaching, learning and assessment strategy, so we wanted Year 1, 2 and 3 undergraduates to share their experiences and the assessment outputs from their study. The following students will provide a presentation of process and critical reflection about Visual Criminology in studying crime and justice.

Access the Blackburn student's presentation from this link

Re-thinking formative course feedback.

To ensure students learning process, student course feedback is essential. A standard version is to ask students to fill out a course feedback survey at the end of a course to gain insides into students' learning process. Or at the end, students were invited to ask questions of the just delivered class. However, In Asia, especially in China these feedback collections, which mostly is formative, do not work out as HE institutions would like. Asian students' cultural respect for a teacher is high (Hofstede model) and they are not open to freely discussing or criticising class, teacher and context. My proposal is to re-develop students' feedback in an anonymous continuously student feedback system, where the Asian cultural distance can be reduced.

From 2012 to 2016 I researched and implemented an anonym continuously feedback system for my students in Malaysia and were astonished to receive qualitative course feedback from my students. I am planning to using a similar method in Weihai to support my students’ learning processes. In this presentation, I will give a short overview of my past project and an insight on how an anonymous continuously student feedback can be implemented in a Chinese classroom.

• Access Christian's presentation from this link
• Access Christian's PowerPoint Presentation from this link

Putting Research at the Heart of Lancaster's Global Campus Network: embedding student and staff research across International curricula

As respective ‘branches’ of Lancaster University’s UK campus, Lancaster University Leipzig, Lancaster University Ghana and BJTU are central to the University’s strategic vision of becoming a globally significant leader in higher education. Inherent in these ambitions are various institutional and pedagogical challenges of establishing and paying heed to the distinctive cultures at the branch campuses while embracing Lancaster’s tradition for research and pedagogy. Over the past year, academics from LU Ghana, LU Leipzig and BJTU have been considering various curricula and extra-curricular means of developing research-informed teaching initiatives to develop stronger links between Lancaster’s global campus network to enhance the teaching provisions and student experience on Business and Management Programmes. While these conversations are currently in their early stages, we would like to take the opportunity to present our initial ideas and small implementations that start to put research at the heart of the student experience at our respective campuses. Our presentation will cover three main areas that we hope will ignite discussion and potentially further collaborations:

1. How can the digital platforms we have become accustomed to over the past two years be leveraged for students to develop, share and collaborate on the research they undertake as part of their studies and extra-curricular activities?

2. How can research and scholarship in current programmes be developed to foster stronger interactions between students and staff across the international campuses?

3. How can the practical and theoretical challenges of developing research-informed teaching initiatives that draw on the traditions of Lancaster be mitigated by the distinctive cultures and pedagogical approaches undertaken by the individual campuses?

Access Christine & Peter's presentation from this link

Teaching Medieval Literature ‘On Location’ and Online

This presentation will offer reflections on collaborative international teaching and learning as experienced on the module 'Gawain On Location', a Master's module delivered in 2019 by medievalists at Lancaster and the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. The presentation will consider the value of visiting real geographical locations in the teaching of medieval literature and explore some of the creative perspectives that learning on location brought about. The presentation will also discuss our move to an online version of this international collaboration as occasioned by the pandemic; it will suggest that online and virtual spaces should play a vital role in making international collaboration and learning ‘on location’ more sustainable and accessible in the future.

Access Clare's presentation from this link

Seeing and knowing Criminology: Visuality as a critique

While Cultural Criminology (Ferrell, et al., 2004) has gained an impetus in the 21st century as an alternative for making ‘positivist’ sense of crime and control, Visual Criminology is an emergent and a distinct offshoot for criminology and criminal justice education. Although, its origins can be traced back to the earliest formation of the discipline (West, 2017). The associated visual approaches can inform pedagogical praxis and simultaneously encourage critical engagement with issues of ‘crime’ and ‘justice’ (Heidt and Wheeldon, 2022). Blackburn’s Criminology and Criminal Justice team have fostered student as teacher/teacher as student encounters to provide space to meaningfully explore issues often at the margins of enquiry within the discipline. This presentation proposes to explore the pedagogical processes that encourage students to use their own criminological imagination in producing ‘texts’ of their own. These textual outputs from our undergraduates demonstrate the role of visual approaches to embed the decolonial turn with a focus on alterity, hierarchy and temporality in the immediate environs of the students’ lived experience (Gilroy, 2000: 58; Gilroy, 2005). This proposal aims to share these pedagogical practices alongside the students’ visual texts and analysis.

Access Gillian, Phil & Clair's presentation from this link

Maths and Stats Hub: a collaborative, inclusive learning community

Maths and Stats Hub (MASH) at Lancaster is a team of specialists made of staff (Learning Developers) and postgraduate students (tutors). Our aim is to support students at all levels of their study to develop their maths and stats skills. Students benefit from the peer-led support that the tutors offer to them, and the expertise brought by both tutors and Learning Developers.

In this presentation we will focus on the benefits that such partnership brings to the Learning Developers and tutors. We all form a learning community and support network, where we share challenges and successes related to maths/stats teaching. The tutors bring in this partnership their subject expertise, input from collaborative departments, and give feedback on current MASH activities helping the Learning Developers to design activities that meet the evolving student needs. At the same time, the formal training, regular catch-up and reflection meetings, and mentoring offered by the Learning developers contribute to the professional development of the tutors. Coming from diverse educational backgrounds, we form a multi-cultural community which enables its members to become more considerate and inclusive in their practice.

Access Helen et.al's presentation from this link

Talking about Writing

The 'study skills' approach to student academic writing tends to assume that PhD students will already have acquired all of the skills they need. And yet - we know that PhD students are never 'done' with their writing development. We also know that writing, any writing, can be a lonely business and that we often crave community.

This was the starting point for a pilot teaching project which received support from Lancaster University’s Institute for Curriculum Enhancement (ICE) and which we, as ICE Fellows, have been developing over the past academic year. Our collaborative ICE project brings together 2 areas of knowledge and expertise (Corinna Peniston-Bird is a professor in the History department and Joanne Wood is a learning developer in FASS), building a community around the shared aim of developing writing confidence and achieving writing success.

In this presentation we will describe the fortnightly 'Talking about Writing' sessions we co-facilitated in 21/22 for and with History PhD students, reflecting on the contribution to writing and to community. We challenge some of the assumptions about student learning and offer a fresh, empowering starting point.

Access Joanne & Corinna's presentation from this link

Raising Awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through Community Service Module in Higher Education: A Case Study

There is less than 10 years for us, as a community, to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development goals (SDGs) by 2030. These 17 SDGs need to work in tandem with improvement of, among others, health and education. They clearly cannot be achieved if there is no partnership with or engagement of the community, and on a larger scale, global partnership among countries. In this project, we explored how awareness of the SDG goals can be developed among undergraduate students and how the students, in turn, can create more awareness of SDGs within the community. Through a community service module, students worked in groups, carried out their virtual awareness campaign on selected SDGs and completed a reflection exercise on their experience. To investigate students’ perception of the impact of their awareness campaign on themselves and the community, content analysis of 62 scripts of reflective notes was conducted. Our analysis showed that students had developed a better understanding of the SDG they addressed in their 7-week campaign, with the majority believing that they had impacted the community and being interested to be involved in similar activities related to SDGs in the future. We reaffirm that the integration of SDGs into the hands-on module project designed for them to reach out to the community increased students’ awareness of SDGs and has further potential for bigger impact on the community. This thus contributes to the overall achievement of SDGs, albeit in a small way. The study provides valuable insights for other module leaders and lecturer. We believe that there are similar opportunities that can be found in other modules of study. With careful planning, incorporation of such opportunities can be aligned to module learning outcomes, enrich students’ learning experience beyond the module and empower them to contribute meaningfully to societal improvements.

Access Lai Ti Gew et.acl's presentation from this link

Beware of walnut trees: How the attitudes of colleagues can affect new teachers

In 2013 the Cult of Pedagogy published an article entitled ‘Find your marigold: the one essential rule for new teachers’. I was not a new teacher, I had been teaching 11 years at that point, 4 in FE. I read the article, thought it was interesting, but it did not really resonate with me until I moved to HE in 2021, working with trainee teachers.

In nature, there are two plants whose presence has very conflicting effects on those around them. The walnut tree is a toxic presence in any garden, it sucks nutrients from the soil, and nothing can thrive around it. A marigold, however, is the complete opposite. Its presence makes the soil better and plants flourish around it. According to the Cult of Pedagogy, this concept can also be applied to teachers. But how do we strive to be marigolds in a world of walnuts?
This abstract will evaluate the impact of negative attitudes in staffrooms and offices, as well as focus on how we can support and ‘nurture’ our new colleagues into what is already a high pressured and stressful environment. While many schools are reporting a recruitment crisis and with high numbers of new teachers leaving the profession, do we, in teacher education, have a responsibility to our students to prepare them for these negative influences?

Access Lauren's presentation from this link

Transformative Praxis and Indigenous Knowledge. Relevance of oral, literature, music and symbols in African Education Curriculum.

Transformative praxis is about social change and the implementation of culturally responsible pedagogies (Navarro, 2018) in education. It implements methods that align with reflexive research traditions, arts-based research, critical policy research, narrative research, and ethnographical inquiry. This paper looks at the African environment and how this approach can be used to enhance actions and critical reflections (Maseko, 2018) on the changing narrative of education. The goal of this paper is to examine the relevance of indigenous knowledge in education in Africa and the philosophy of decolonization, seeking changes through culture and human experiences. It looks at how critical and reflective practices impact knowledge production and transformation (Freire, 2005, p. 36). The paper appreciates the importance of diversity of contexts, practices, and people, and the implementation of alternative techniques in teaching and learning. The paper contests that educational practices in the 21st Century demand a constant need to embrace modifications of our practices and systems in favor of social justice, equity, and inclusion (Hyslop-Margison & Dale, 2010: Maseko, 2018). This research holds the view that educational practices in Africa need to develop a sense of urgency as well as pay attention to the sustenance of transformative sensibilities and its crucial role in examining our beliefs, assumptions, languages, oral narratives, music, symbols, signs, myths, and many more to improve our curriculum in education (Berryman, 2013).

Access Lawrence's presentation from this link

Outside In

We in HE have the privilege of time – to think, to reflect, to discuss, to consider…to marinate ourselves in a culture of enlightened awareness touched only lightly by the imperatives of commerce. Quite rightly then, we arrive at an understanding or how the world might be better – fairer, kinder, more inclusive – somewhat ahead of society in general, able to use our ‘thought leadership’ position to drip-feed best-practice into the wider culture through research publications and media contacts.

Another potent vector, sometimes overlooked, is the impact of our graduates on the cultures and practices of organisations that employ them. A part of the education we give is the value-system to which we expose our students, who carry this out into the ‘real world’, often to be blunted by the pragmatics of establishing a career path. Also, particularly for students who undertake internships or job placements as part of their course, the exchange of knowledge (and attitudes and values) runs in both directions, informing academics of the ethical parameters which our graduates face in their early careers.

This paper reflects on the barriers and benefits of partnering with one company – Couch Health, specializing in inclusive clinical trials recruitment – to the company itself, to the interns, to our graduates, and, in the longer term, to those of us involved in midwifing students into productive and rewarding roles outside of academia.

The different perspectives of the CEO of Couch Health, a current employee (who also collaborated with Couch as MSc. Intern), and an internship supervisor are offered, in order to explore the interface of these three roles to amplify the potential benefits to each and, ultimately, to the wider culture.

Access Leslie, Ash & Maddie's presentation from this link - note, this presentation begins at 0:00 and ends at 29:30

Authentic assessment - Acknowledging diverse approaches to authenticity in teaching and learning

This collaborative presentation explores how we might think broadly and in a diverse manner about authentic learning and assessment within higher education, and within Lancaster University and its partner institutions in particular. Authentic learning and assessment as it is used here refers to educational activities that stay close to the actual work field as well as real-life contexts and practices. Based on early findings from an ICE-fellowship project (Institute for Curriculum Enhancement) in which we spoke to colleagues across the University and international partners about good practices in authentic learning, we will discuss how we might rethink authenticity in higher education in a collaborative and inclusive manner. Through our project we found, amongst other things, that bringing in authentic forms of learning in a degree might occasionally clash with other practices or systems that are deemed central to a university context. For example, the centrality of a system of grades and marks, might actually hinder the development of an authentic experience in teaching and learning, particularly when students become overly preoccupied with degree outcomes. During the project we looked at how colleagues across our campus and partner institutions negotiate existing institutional opportunities and constraints in their teaching, such as those around existing standards in marking and assessment practices. The project also revealed that students need to be adequately prepared to take on new and often unfamiliar authentic tasks and activities. By appropriately scaffolding new forms of assessment, students can slowly develop the competencies needed to take on unfamiliar tasks without feeling overwhelmed.

Access Maartin & Sadie's presentation from this link

Computers are our friends: How Moodle quizzes can improve the student experience and free up lecturer time

Computer-marked assignments have had a pandemic-related boost in our department, primarily through our increased use of Moodle quizzes. For most modules, roughly 5-10% of the module mark is directly from these quizzes. We will discuss a style of quiz which has been well received by students, and which we believe can be used successfully in non-maths subjects as well. This style allows students multiple attempts at the quiz, providing some relevant feedback between attempts. This automated feedback loop has encouraged student perseverance, and has produced a measurable learning gain. We will also mention an ongoing student internship which will help convert some of our existing standard quizzes into this enhanced multi-attempt style.

Access Mark and the student's presentation from this link - Please note the presentation ends at 24:45

Creativity and inclusion in fieldtrips: rethinking 'learning outside the classroom' in post-pandemic higher education

This is a speculative paper reflecting on recent work of human geographers in Lancaster Environment Centre (Bailrigg Campus) trying to reimagine residential fieldtrips. This work has focused on the need to meet the diverse needs of undergraduate students, whilst also addressing subject benchmarking standards, the university's marketing agenda, environmental sustainability and staff wellbeing concerns. Whilst this paper intends to draw on relevant literature, its key focus is on highlighting issues around balancing innovative and engaging out-of-classroom teaching design with a host of competing demands. Whilst there are specific challenges associated with the teaching of geography, where fieldwork experience and skill development is considered a vital learning outcome of the degree, this paper is expected to have wider relevance to other disciplines in which teaching in alternative environments and varied contexts is valued.

Access Nadia's presentation from this link

Examining the Presence of Colonial versus Local Resources in Malaysia

A Case Study of Communication ProgramsIdeally, education in each country should include elements from its own culture, languages, norms, customs, and etiquette. However, this is always not the case and that calls for an investigation into situations where external materials dominate the local syllabus. Critiques made from the radical-reform space emphasize the decolonization of higher education as a commitment to centre and empower marginalized groups, address epistemological dominance (i.e. Eurocentrism), and redistribute and re-ap.

Access Norizzati & Bradley's presentation from this link

Technology as Community: The role of projects

In a level 6 Education Studies programme, a technology enhanced learning module is one often faced with trepidation. Despite the perception of technology as ubiquitous, this use is often individualised, nuanced and formed from informal learning and application. This presentation will outline how we use education technology to shift from narratives of authoritative pedagogy and control to ones rooted in social justice and dialogue. The emphasis on students as creators of projects shifts from spaces of lack (in technological and theoretical terms) to spaces in which the creation of powerful dialogic communities is key. The core of this module’s success is the development of the relationship between students/ communities and theory/ technology. The ways students use technology to create real learning opportunities includes a diverse range of communities and subjects, asks for deep dialogue, has a mantra that ‘avoids design in isolation’ and foregrounds theoretical concepts (such as rhizomatic and connectivist practice) in practice/ praxis.

Access Peter & student's presentation from this link - note this presentation begins at 57:50 and goes through to the end of the video at 1:31

Decolonising Family Law Teaching

This presentation discusses early work in decolonising the teaching of the Family Law module at Lancaster Law School. I adopted a two-pronged approach in doing this: firstly, by decolonising the Family Law curriculum, and secondly, by decolonising the classroom itself. The overall aims of this were also twofold. Firstly, I wanted to encourage students to engage with the module content in a way that is critical and reflexive of the way Family Law currently operates. Secondly, I wanted to ensure that all students, regardless of background felt equally able to participate on and engage with the module, and equally able to do well on the module. In this paper, I reflect on the process of decolonising the module, from the choice of module content to the choice of teaching methods trialled in order to promote student participation and engagement. I also discuss the particular difficulties with and limitations of my approach to decolonisation, and consider the potential for future work in this area.

Access Rachel & student's presentation from this link

Wondering the streets of Lancaster: fieldwork in management curriculum

The presentation will open a debate of incorporating the notion of "place" into the curriculum and will demonstrate the importance of wider understanding of enterprise in the social context aligned with Lancaster’s ethos of civic university with responsibility to our communities and importance to our place. For the past four years we have run an iterative approach to our curriculum design in partnership with colleagues from LICA introducing design thinking into management education. This resulted into a place-based curriculum development that enables us to learn from our place, learn together, observe, become explorers of the world and have fun outside the Parameter road whilst developing a design-led collaborative enterprise mindset in our students. The presentation will show how an iterative curriculum redesign grew into a funded research project developing digital learning resources transferable and adaptable to a variety of education contexts.

In preparation for this session, the team ask you familiarise yourself with their project site Good Place Innovators: https://wp.lancs.ac.uk/designineducation/

Access the Good Place Innovators Team presentation from this link

Learning is a journey

In this session we will practice a simple yet impactful method of evaluating student learning journeys. The session will demonstrate a method of emotional journey mapping adapted from a service design discipline that helps educators appreciate a holistic view of learner’s journeys. This method shows how we can take a quick pulse of how our students are experiencing their learning on our modules or full programmes, what is impacting on their studies and what are the pressure points that we need to be aware of. The practice has been explored as a part of a four-year scholarship of teaching and learning project funded by Lancaster University Management School.

Access Radka's presentation from this link

How to C.A.R.E. for students online to enhance student-centred learning

In order to provide more meaningful learning experiences, progressive teaching styles such as Student-Centred Learning (SCL) are increasingly being utilised in higher education institutes. Creating SCL environments, however, has been challenging for educators during the COVID-19 pandemic, in part due to the increasing mental strain experienced by students learning remotely. In order to ensure students reap the full benefits of SCL, we demonstrate that we can C.A.R.E for students through four main approaches: 1) connect to students by establishing the most effective communication methods and developing asynchronous online learning materials that are easily accessible; 2) make students feel accountable for their learning by making the students feel being watched; 3) make learning outcomes more realistic, accessible and achievable by reducing the hassle factor; and 4) continuously engage students through novel methods to retain student attention and interest throughout the course. With greater C.A.R.E. (connectivity, accountability, realism and engagement), we show that SCL can still help student achieve their course learning outcomes, even if learning must be done remotely.

There is no recording for this presentation

Raising awareness of plastic pollution through online creative engagement

This presentation outlines a pilot project in which we worked with students and the community to address the issue of plastic waste and waste management. The project presented two interactive webinars, where we (i) raised awareness and (ii) designed plastic alternatives to tackle plastic pollution with undergraduate students from Sunway University using an online creative engagement approach. This approach may be adopted by community-based organizations or school educators to promote change in single-use plastic usage in daily life. A study by Malaysia Solid Waste Management and Public Cleansing Corporation (SWCorp) in 2019 showed the food waste made up 30% of waste at landfills, this was followed by plastics (24.8%), paper (10.5%), disposable diapers (11.1%), textile (4.8%) and waste from gardens and parks (4.1%). Environmental awareness on plastic pollution among individuals and communities within Malaysia are essential to create responsible consumption among the consumers and tackle plastic pollution. To create conditions for future interventions in the city, we designed and tested a series of online webinars to creatively engage with local communities.

Access Rosendy & Lai Ti Gew's presentation from this link

Science Communication and Public Engagement in An Undergraduate Curriculum

Science communication is an increasingly important part of the Higher Education and political agenda, and public engagement is part of the core principles of Lancaster University to actively engage with students, businesses and communities. Based on theories of strategic communication and in collaboration with students, external providers and professional science communication trainers an evidence-based approach has been adopted to embed science communication and public engagement into an undergraduate curriculum at Lancaster University. A novel and compulsory level 6 module was designed, delivered and evaluated over two academic years. Results from qualitative analysis, student feedback and faculty recognition show effective module outcomes with emphasis on employability skills.

Access Sarah's presentation from this link

Into the Uncertain… How do you prepare students to step into Volatile, Uncertain, Complex & Ambiguous (VUCA) environments and thrive?

In this session, you will hear about the experiences of Lancaster University’s first cohort of Engagement Fellows, who joined the first LUMS Innovation Catalyst programme to collaborate with hospitality businesses in Cumbria seeking to reduce the carbon footprint of the local visitor economy.

As HE funding from Research England and Office for Students falls increasingly in line with Knowledge Exchange Framework (KEF) and Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) performance metrics, HEIs are under ever greater pressure to ensure their graduates are equipped to meet industrial and societal needs and expectations through their education experience. So what can we do to ensure they have what it takes to bear the weight of these expectations and to maximise the value they add and extract from the work-based learning opportunities available to them while they are here?

Work in Progress, Lancaster’s dedicated service for ensuring all students have access to opportunities for entrepreneurial learning and development, believe that entrepreneurial mindsets, approaches and behaviours provide the answer to this question. Join us to find out how Work in Progress has helped students to demonstrate the power of these capabilities through the Engagement Fellowship initiative, and how their learning is being applied.

• Access Simon's presentation from this link - note this presentation begins at 30:00 and ends at 57:30
• Access Simon's presentation slides (in pdf format)

Satterthwaite Letterbooks and the Lancaster Slavery Family Trees Community Research Project

It comes as a surprise to many people that Lancaster was associated with transatlantic slavery. It was for a period, the fourth largest slave trading port in Britain. In this presentation, we provide information about how staff and students in Lancaster University have collaborated with members of the community and the Lancaster Black History Group to co-produce knowledge and understanding about the city’s direct and indirect connections to the Caribbean and the Americas. We draw on archival sources and diaries associated with the Satterthwaite family - one of the prominent local families associated with transatlantic slavery and the slave trade – to highlight how members of the family used marriage and business connections associated with transatlantic slavery to consolidate their wealth and social standing.

Access Sunita and Alanah's presentation from this link