You are warmly invited to join us for the next event in our Lancaster Partnership online sharing teaching practice series. The series aims to bring together colleagues to share developing teaching practices from across the Lancaster Partnership.

This event will take place via Teams, the link will be emailed in advance.

We will welcome contributions from:

Gary Vear, Senior Learning Technologist, UA92

Top Tips for Online Delivery

This session will look to explore UA92’s approach to online delivery including mythbusting some commonly held beliefs and sharing tools to aid and enhance your delivery.

Gary is the Senior Learning Technologist at University Academy 92 in Manchester. He has worked in Further and Higher Education for over ten years and is passionate about ensuring all students have the digital skills to succeed in the world of work.

Daniel Onah, Senior Teaching Associate, Department of Computing and Communications, Lancaster University

eLDaMOOC: An Innovative E-Learning Platform for Teachers

The eLDa learning platform introduces a new e-learning approach which aims to involve participants more actively in their own learning, providing the necessary framework and support for participants to set their own learning objectives and to access resources appropriate for their needs. eLDa platform has been developed to incorporate and analyse the effects of novel features to improve motivation, provide support and foster self-regulation. The platform is implemented in WordPress with some plugins to support new features allowing users to navigate as they wish to pursue their own learning objectives or follow an instructional path provided by the course developer to achieve overall course goals. Thus, the platform supports two modes of learning: a self-directed mode and the instructor-led mode in which a recommended order of lessons covers the full course curriculum. In order to support users' self-directed learning through informed choice, the system offers advice on (but does not enforce) recommended prerequisites for each topic and provides a map for learners to visualize the elements they have studied so far.

eLDa incorporates a variety of acknowledged e-learning "good practice" features to support learners and mitigate against learner dropout. It is being trialled using resources adapted from a previous MOOC providing in-service tuition teachers new to computing and covering computing concepts, programming in Python and classroom pedagogy. In order to study the two contexts mentioned above, two separate courses were implemented and delivered using this platform. The first was an open online course for independent distance learners regardless of location; the second was incorporated as part of a blended-learning approach within a traditional campus module with undergraduate students participating in a computer security module. Data gathered from these courses provide insights to further enhancement of the platform and course development.

Dr Daniel Onah received his PhD in Computer Science at the University of Warwick and an MSc (Eng.) degree in Computer Systems Engineering (software systems) from the University of East London, UK. He is currently a Senior Teaching Associate at the Institute of Coding in the School of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University. He is a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy (Advance HE). His research focuses on educational technology, natural language processing, machine learning and the design of interactive software systems. Dr Onah is the Founder of a stand-alone MOOC platform known as eLDaMOOC. He enjoys writing and computer programming. He has published several Journal and Conference papers in both Computer Science and Interdisciplinary studies. He is an author of several book chapters. Dr Onah is an expert in Educational Technology and very much familiar with several video and audio editing software such as Audacity, Camtasia and Adobe Premiere Pro. He is also proficient with several open-source online/blended course digital production platforms e.g. OBS, iMovie, Vimeo and so on.

Laura Watkin, Pedagogy Lead, Frontline

Teach like a champion (TLAC) – lessons from the classroom for effective formative assessment via Zoom

My presentation will cover:

• What is TLAC and why I chose it
• What and how I implemented TLAC techniques at Frontline 
• The impact/change 
• What’s next for TLAC and Frontline

I am Pedagogy Lead for Frontline, UK. Frontline is a social enterprise organisation based in the UK with a mission to create positive social change through the training and deployment of high quality social workers. As Pedagogy lead I’m responsible for the quality of teaching and learning on our Frontline programme.

I’m passionate about evidence-informed learning design and cognitive science. A self-confessed learn-it-all.
Previously Head of Talent responsible for recruitment, L&D and performance, I have worked in a range of educational organisations, such as national social enterprise, global private business, public sector organisations and industries include logistics, teacher education and graduate training. I’m I also have the privilege of being a School Governor and am part of the organising committee for L&D Connects Virtual Unconference happening in September 2020.

Perry Hobson, PVC, Engagement, Sunway University.

The Hills are Alive”: Going Online and Going Global

After delivering a series of inter-active guest lectures and workshops on the “Future of Tourism” for over 14-years at MCi in Austria, COVID-19 brought a radical change to how this block course could be delivered. This presentation explores the challenges, problems and solutions faced with not only just going online but going global - given that the academic team were based on 3 continents and 60+ students, who represented 18 nationalities, were spread across 15-timezones. While engaging students across multiple time-zones presented particular challenges, the online delivery resulted in higher than anticipated levels of student involvement, and considerably more engagement in providing feedback than had been seen in previous years of using traditional face-to-face teaching.

Professor Perry Hobson, PhD is the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Engagement at Sunway University in Malaysia, where his portfolio covers both global and local engagement. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from the UK, a Masters from the USA, and completed his PhD in Australia. He has an academic background in hospitality and tourism, and has been the Editor-in-Chief of the SSCI indexed Journal of Vacation Marketing for over 20-years. He is a Visiting Professor at the Management Centre Innsbruck (MCi) in Austria, and an Adjunct Professor at Ton Duc Thang University (TDTU) in Vietnam. He also sits on the International Advisory Board of the University of Ostrava (OSU) in the Czech Republic. He joined Sunway University, which is a not-for-profit Foundation, in 2019.

If you would like to contribute to this or future events please contact Kathryn James - k.a.james@lancaster.ac.uk