Pedagogies for Sustainability, Responsible Enterprise and Innovation: 11th July 2018

On the 11^th July research group SEEG in partnership with Centre of Excellent in Learning and Teaching (CELT) are hosting a joint workshop: Pedagogies for Sustainability, Responsible Enterprise and Innovation.

The workshop draws together in-house MMU expertise, recent CELT-funded research , and good practice from external and international case studies to look at how new and innovative pedagogical approaches, including Problem and Enquiry Based Learning (PEBL) short training courses (Carbon Literacy) and online-technology facilitated learning can help us stay at the forefront of enhanced student experience and pedagogical innovation. We will hear about case examples from Nottingham Trent University, and internationally from colleagues from Arizona State (USA) and Aalborg (DK) Universities.

The whole schedule for the workshop is now fully confirmed, please click the Eventbrite link to book your place: https://pedagogy-mmu.eventbrite.co.uk

If you have any questions about the event, please direct them to Valeria Vargas (v.vargas@mmu.ac.uk) or Sally Randles (s.randles@mmu.ac.uk).

 

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In pursuit of Quality Learning: Enhancing Learning in Virtual Environment: Tuesday 19th June @ 16.30 in room 2.02, Brooks Building

Seminar by visiting speaker, Dr Nicholas Blessing Mavengere The present environment is very dynamic characterized by factors, such as, intense technological innovation, global economy and strong competition and information overload. Learning is one of the ever-required virtues in this continuously changing environment. So rapid development of technologies is both a push factor in learning requirements and a vehicle to advance the learning process. In addition, the global nature of the environment today calls for virtual learning because of convenience, time and cost factors. The seminar seeks to highlight measures to promote virtual learning experience in higher education. This is drawn from the results of a study which included review of pedagogical techniques and technological tools that fit the learners’ and study content requirements to foster learning in a virtual environment. Dr. Nicholas Blessing Mavengere is researcher (post-doctoral) at University of Tampere in Finland. His research completed in 2013, was selected best PhD at a top European conference and received a university award. He has broad technology related research interests including technology application in higher education, strategic agility in business, ICT4D and information systems. He has published in journals, such as, Journal of Education and Technologies, Journal of Information Technology Cases & Applications Research, Electronic Journal for IS evaluation, International Journal of Agile Systems and Management. He has been associate editor at the World Conference on Computers in Education (WCCE) 2017 and 2016 IFIP TC3 joint conference, focusing on the topic of Stakeholders and Information Technology in Education. He has reviewed for several journals and conferences.  If you are interested in attending this seminar please click on the link provided below:-

https://www.celt.mmu.ac.uk/intranet/cpd/registrations.php

A Round-Up of Some Useful Creative Commons Libraries

Looking for photos, videos or audio to use in your teaching sessions or presentations but unsure about copyright? You might be interested in the following Creative Commons resources.

What is Creative Commons?

Put simply, Creative Commons is a set of licenses that enable lawful collaboration to do things like copy, share and remix. Creative Commons is a way to give permission to everyone to freely reuse your creative works.

The following websites all host huge collections of creative commons artefacts:

• https://archive.org/ – The Internet Archive is one of the biggest archive of freely available artefacts and pulls together multiple archives and collections into one place. Here you can search photos, videos, books, music and more. Personal highlight: the collection of old Charlie Chaplin films
• https://www.europeana.eu/portal/en – Europeana work with “thousands of European archives, libraries and museums to share cultural heritage for enjoyment, education and research.” Especially useful if you want high quality images of artwork, or old maps. There’s some great Eurovision-related content on there…
• https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/ – This is a project that was set up to digitise all of the images from books that have fallen out of copy write. Five millions images and counting!
• https://www.rijksmuseum.nl/en – Mostly Dutch art and design
• https://thenounproject.com/ – Excellent website if you want simple graphics and icons
• http://freemusicarchive.org/ – Looking for Creative Commons music? This one’s for you! As they say themselves, “It’s not just free music; it’s good music.”
• http://www.openmusicarchive.org/ – This project was set-up by artists Ben White and Eileen Simpson (both of whom teach in the art school) to digitise and distribute out-of-copyright sound recordings. Lots of early blues jazz and folk recordings.

It’s also worth noting that Google Images and Flickr both allow you to change your search settings to only display Creative Commons images. On Google Images this can be found under ‘tools>usage rights’. On Flickr there’s a dropdown menu under ‘Any license’.

“So, can I use any of these images/video clips/audio clips for any purpose?”

This depends on what creative commons license the author/creator has chosen to use. There are six different variants of the licence, which allow you do different things, such as edit and rework the work. More info here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/. You should remember to always attribute the work back to the original creator.

If you are looking for ways to incorporate some of these resources into your teaching, have a look at our pages on Lectures and Lecturing.

And, if all this talk of freely shared knowledge has peaked your interest, you’ll love our pages on Open Educational Resources!

next #creativeHE meetup is on the 22nd of June > Join us!

A warm and open invitation to join the next #creativeHEmeetup on the 1st of June!

#creativeHE is an open collaborative community for creative and innovative practitioners which exists online at https://plus.google.com/communities/110898703741307769041 through which a series of events and courses have been offered by the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at Manchester Metropolitan University in partnership with Creative Academic and facilitators from a range of institutions nationally and internationally.

We will continue connecting, collaborating, experimenting and learning together online this year and have just launched the Creativity in Practice project led by Prof. Norman Jackson.

This academic year, we have introduced meetups in the North-West in collaboration with the University of Salford and the University of Manchester.

Our next and last meetup during this academic year will take place at Manchester Metropolitan University on the 22nd of June, 12-2 pm in the All Saints Library, room 5.11 (report to reception). The focus of this meetup is the creative use of collage. Staff, students and the wider public, all very welcome.

We have the pleasure to have Dr Anna Clare Hunter with us from UCLAN who will engage us in collage work in learning and teaching. This is what Anna says about this work:

“I use collage work in the first session of a PGCert LTHE, as a way of breaking down boundaries between participants and, hopefully, opening minds to the new professional possibilities that their journeys on the programme will bring. Collage work is all about taking things apart and putting them back together again, in a process of deconstructing meaning and remaking it in different ways. The potential of visual metaphor to empower emergent stories is well documented within HE pedagogy, and is overtly visible in the process of collaging; this is what makes the collage such a valuable tool for exploring and engaging with identity, in all of its fluidity and uncertainty. By selecting images and sharing interpretations, participants become co-constructors of visual stories that reveal transcendent commonalities of experience: shared fears, common questions, a unifying discourse around what it means to be a teacher in the contemporary university. But the collage is only the first step in the journey, and it returns periodically throughout as a triangulation point for reflection and a spur to continued learning.”

For more information and to register, please access  http://www.celt.mmu.ac.uk/community/creativehe.php We are very much looking forward to seeing you there.

More info about the #creativeHE initiative:

It aims to support pedagogical rebels and free-thinking innovators in experimenting with, developing, sharing and getting support for novel learning and teaching ideas as well as initiate and disseminate research activity around these that have the power to transform the student and staff experience within and beyond institutional boundaries.

This community is open to anyone who would like to join, academic staff, students and the wider public. All who have an interest in creative and innovative approaches to teaching and helping others learn.

We meet physically on a monthly basis, each time at a different institution. During our meetups, we will have the opportunity to get to know each other, share and grow new ideas, take risks and support each other in our creative adventures, experiment and play, as well as test and develop pedagogical ideas and identify ways to take them forward.

We will continue using the #creativeHE online community space which now supports and connects a global community of over 600 people. Furthermore, this space will offer additional opportunities for professional development through online discussions, events and courses that are organised through #creativeHE, the Creative Academic and the wider academic community. The openly licensed #101creativeideas project will help us collect and share our ideas and the pedagogic innovators project (#pin) to engage in related research activities.

We suggest that each meetup features time for socialising. As the meetups will all be free and open, we encourage each participant to bring a gift of food and/or non-alcoholic drinks to share with other participants. Homemade and more healthy contributions are very welcome as are foods from different cultures. In this simple way we aim to encourage sharing of the many cultures that make up our society.

The institutional contact will coordinate the monthly gathering and a booking system will be in place through CELT at Manchester Metropolitan University. If you would like to become a #creativeHE champion in your institution, please get in touch with us.

We are really looking forward to seeing you again online and locally,

Chrissi on behalf of the #creativeHE team

GREAT THINGS HAPPEN WHEN PEOPLE COLLABORATE TO LEARN TOGETHER

Mini reflection added after the meetup

22 June 18 (8): This was our last meetup in this academic year. We met at Manchester Met and a colleague from UCLAN facilitated a discussion and a hands-on workshop around using collage in learning and teaching. It was fascinating to experience how snippets of paper could generate such deep and creative engagement!

Dr Anna Hunter from UCLAN was leading the session and shared her experience of using collage in the context of academic development at her institution. I think the opportunities are endless and the more we explore the more diverse tools and approaches we add to our toolkit to make learning and teaching stimulating. 

Wishing you all a lovely summer and thank you for joining us on this journey this academic year.

collaging in action, source

 

Higher Education in Denmark – Thursday 17th May, 10-11 am – Room 3.28 The Business School

Speaker:  Kim Møller

Speaker affiliation:  University of Aalborg, Denmark

Higher Education in Denmark is significantly different from that in the UK.  It adopts a different teaching model, relying on problem-based learning rather than the traditional lecture/tutorial approach in the UK.  Students work in small groups in real businesses to solve real problems. In this way, business and academia work closely together to ensure that all learning is grounded in practice and that all learning is applicable to industry once students graduate.  The way in which students are assessed is also different to UK practice.  Student work is assessed in a three-hour verbal examination rather than the UK approach of written assignments.  

Aalborg University is at the forefront of these approaches and, indeed, the system is often known as the ‘Aalborg Model’. Kim Møller is an Assistant Professor at Aalborg University, and is coming to MMU to explain the principles behind the method, to share best practice, and to offer practical insights into how we might be able to implement some of the innovative techniques in our own programmes. 

If you would like to attend.  Please email Mark Crowder on  m.crowder@mmu.ac.uk or contact him by phone on X 3744

 

NUS Responsible Futures meeting

Dear Colleagues,

 

We have the pleasure to invite you to Manchester Met’s National Union of Students (NUS) Responsible Futures (RF) meeting on the 4^th of May at 2 pm in BS 311, hosted by the Sustainable and Ethical Enterprise Group (SEEG).

The NUS Responsible Futures project aims to place social responsibility and environmental sustainability at the heart of education across UK universities and colleges. The NUS Responsible Futures accreditation aligns with other accreditations and initiatives including People and Planet University League, QAA subject benchmarks, PRME, EQUIS, AACSB, Institution of Environmental Sciences (IES).

Manchester Met was one of 15 universities and colleges to pilot the RF project, helping to develop the standard. We achieved our institutional accreditation in 2015 – the feedback report can be found here:

https://www.celt.mmu.ac.uk/esd/MMU%20Responsible%20Futures%20Feedback%20Report%20.pdf

A reaccreditation audit will be taking place on May 16^th and 17^th, where a selection of criteria must be met through a partnership between our institution and Students’ Union.

There are great examples of teaching, engagement and research activities across Manchester Met that are relevant for the reaccreditation. However, keeping up to date with all your great work is not always easy. This is why we have the pleasure to invite you to an hour meeting in which we will provide an overview of NUS Responsible Futures project/accreditation, followed by a discussion from which we will gather information to showcase to the student auditors and the NUS.

It is also a great pleasure to announce that the three Responsible Futures high-level champions are:

Amie Atkinson, Cheshire Vice President (The Union)

Dr. Liz Price, Head of School of Science and the Environment (Manchester Met)

Prof. Sally Randles, Chair of Sustainability and Innovation (Manchester Met)

We look forward to seeing you!

 

Please email Chloe Andrews C.Andrews@mmu.ac.uk to confirm your attendance.