Learning & Teaching

Our core educational purpose is to develop and support our students through an excellent University experience so that they fulfil their academic potential and contribute in the fullest way possible to culture, society and the economy locally and globally throughout their lives.

We seek to create an inclusive environment where students develop meaningful relationships with one another and with staff, and through those encounters, create new knowledge, challenge received wisdom, build inter-cultural and leadership capabilities, and develop disciplinary excellence and an appetite for lifelong learning and enquiry. Rapid and seismic impacts on societies and economies around the world from the Coronavirus pandemic, combined with the fast pace of change resulting from the impact of technology, require flexible and adaptable graduates who can integrate knowledge across disciplines to bring creative solutions to complex world problems.

This strategy therefore aims to stimulate evolutions in our approach to teaching, to curriculum and assessment design, and in students’ skills development that serve our educational purpose. These three pillars of the strategy are shaped by the values, creativity, ambition and commitment of students and staff, and that are needed to support students and staff to thrive in a rapidly shifting, internationally competitive higher education sector.

The internal drivers underpinning this strategy are core values that students and staff have identified as important motivators for our priorities and that underpin our ability to respond appropriately to external challenges: 

• Ensuring that our learning and teaching is inclusive and supports a diverse student community whose needs and aspirations vary substantially, and that our academic policies and practices support and promote student and staff wellbeing and inclusion.
• Maintaining and promoting academic integrity and respect in terms of our behaviours and the approach we take to academic standards and quality.
• Working collaboratively across staff and student communities, campuses and international partnerships, recognising the diversity of contributions that shape and build an excellent learning and teaching environment, and valuing the benefits of collective endeavour.
• Recognising and promoting the importance of continuing professional and skills development for students and staff to realising our educational ambitions, enhancing quality in teaching and supporting learning, and supporting students’ career advancement.
• Harnessing the full potential of the curiosity, creativity, and enterprise that characterise the research-rich environment in which research-led learning and teaching are shaped and experienced.
• Promoting excellence in learning and teaching through evidence-based approaches that shape our teaching and assessment practices, learning design, and partnership development, recognising those efforts and achievements in terms of career advancement.
• Evaluating our programmes, our teaching practices and our associated investments in technology in terms of their connection with, and impact on, sustainability and in particular, climate change. A strategy that advocates more engagement with learning technologies and with refurbishment of physical teaching spaces, has an impact on our carbon footprint and so actions resulting from this strategy need to be incorporated into the University’s wider action plan in relation to climate change and sustainability.

There are many external drivers including demographic shifts, economic instability, the impact of Brexit, long term global impacts of the pandemic, and the changing role of private education providers. The impact of the pandemic on current and future students is also having a profound effect on their experiences and expectations of education, their health and aspirations, and the increased support that they will continue to need in the coming years. Inevitably, changes in the policy and funding landscape also influence our approaches, the nuances within them and the specific measures and outcomes expected, impacting in turn upon prioritisation over the timeframe of the strategy. Particular drivers that we envisage will prevail throughout the next few years are:

• The pace of technological change and innovation and the impact of this on: workplaces; job opportunities; societal debate; expertise, skills and ongoing upskilling; and for education providers, the impact on how we teach and assess, and on how students learn.
• Attitudinal change, both positive and negative, in relation to the perceived value of undergraduate and postgraduate degrees and higher education expertise generally, from the point of view of individuals, governments and sponsors who fund education.
• Differential rates of economic recovery following the Coronavirus pandemic, along with ambitions for social renewal and economic growth across nations, and the need for universities to be part of the solution in terms of upskilling, fulfilling a meaningful civic role and in reducing inequalities in access to education.
• Expectations from students for flexible modes and programmes of study, international experiences and new forms of virtual mobility, skills development, engagement with employers and international partners, recognition from professional bodies, and values-led education that contributes to a sustainable and fulfilling future.
• The requirement for Universities to adapt to new forms of, and routes through learning such as growth in articulation and partnership routes, international developments that augment opportunities for physical and virtual mobility, and to emerging forms of academic credit such as micro-credentials and stackable degrees.

Building on our Response to the Pandemic

The development of this strategy began pre-Covid.  Commitment to the strategy at the start of 2021, is built on the fact that the University has already made substantial changes in approach to learning and teaching in our response to the pandemic. From April 2020, University guidance on approaches to learning design for blended and online learning has been created with these strategy pillars in mind. As such, the response made by staff and students across the University community has accelerated engagement with this strategy even before it was fully articulated, and these efforts have served as a huge catalyst for change already. The considerable gains in creating online resources, and in developing engaging online teaching, place us in a strong position to realise much of what follows and to continue to benefit from the considerable investments that staff have made in changing teaching practice to respond to the impact of the pandemic. Whilst the pandemic has propelled us to teach mainly online, the University remains committed to an excellent, on-campus experience for students that realises the educational benefits of a blended approach to learning. There is opportunity during 2021 in particular whilst still teaching online, to evaluate the desired future blend of online and on-campus learning for students, decide how to make the best use of on-campus time, interactions, and spaces, and explore the potential for opening up opportunities for more online learning within on-campus programmes and further development of fully online degrees. This strategy is designed to support ongoing investment in and development of this full range of provision in a way that acknowledges and supports students and staff in making these changes.

We will promote, encourage and enable more pervasive engagement with student-centred active learning approaches

There are three core pillars to the strategy:

1. Evolving our approach to teaching and learning towards student-centred, active learning
2. Transforming curricula and assessment
3. Professional and skills developments for students.  

Each pillar builds on foundations laid in the 2015-2020 learning and teaching strategy and provides focus for students and staff. 

Achieving the ambitions outlined above in a way that benefits all students, will cause us to continue to challenge existing practices and refresh course offerings, and to consolidate and embed many of the excellent learning and teaching developments that exist across the University but that presently remain within pockets resulting in a ‘patchy’ approach. Reflecting the value placed upon working in partnership, the strategy is best enabled through collaboration within the University - across University Services’, College, School, Institute and Subject teams – and with our international partners who support joint provision and international experiences. These collaborations bring together academic and professional services colleagues, technicians, GTAs, tutors, demonstrators and associate staff from the professions. Such collaborations between staff combined with student-staff partnerships, provide the network of communities through which to develop shared expectations of the learning and teaching experience, and to realise the strategy.

Other enablers include the continued development of appropriate analytics and insights to inform interventions to improve retention, investments to enhance learning, and to shape our approach to a more personalised student experience. Similarly, developments associated with the SMART campus project and investments in improving the assessment and feedback systems and processes and enhancing the IT and physical infrastructure continue and remain fundamental to realising the strategy.  However, there are four further key enablers that are of particular significance.

Learning Environments & Infrastructure

There has been significant investment in our physical and digital infrastructure in recent years, with further investment planned. In order for students and staff to benefit fully from these investments, we will:

• Prioritise the development of, and ongoing investment in, teaching spaces and the digital infrastructure in order to create and maintain excellent and inclusive physical and digital spaces, building on the presumption that all spaces should facilitate collaboration.
• Continue to develop a more integrated approach to teaching and assessment technologies focusing on interoperability, consistency of experience, and sustained centralised support.
• Engage in further system developments to support curriculum mapping and curriculum change.
• Ensure that student and staff professional development opportunities and upskilling relate directly to making the best educational use of existing and new physical and digital learning environments and solutions.

Staff Support and Development

Staff support and professional development is an important aspect of implementing the transformational changes envisaged in this strategy. As the response during the pandemic has shown, engagement in educational development and the roll out of staff support and upskilling, particularly in the use of technology, are key determinants of supporting changing practices.  Whilst there has been considerable change in our approach to teaching because of the pandemic, there has not been the time to design our online and blended provision as we would under other circumstances. The transformations envisaged here, need to be pedagogically led not technology led. It remains important, therefore, when revisioning our future teaching, to create time and capacity to engage in evaluating what we have achieved and in renewing our focus on learning and assessment design.   In order to support the implementation of this strategy, we will:

• Prioritise the creation and timely sharing of resources and guidance that set out the evidence base for changes in learning and teaching practice.
• Create opportunities for coordinated evaluations of our own learning and teaching practice.
• Develop further support and guidance for staff engaged in scholarship of learning and teaching in order to evaluate and enhance our developments and to engage in informed, evidence-based dialogues with professional bodies about future educational approaches.
• Collaborate to review and develop support for all staff involved in teaching and supporting teaching and learning, and in particular ensure enhanced, funded support and development for GTAs.
• Agree with Schools and Institutes, models of staff engagement and devolved leadership to undertake changes envisaged in the strategy, ensuring appropriate resourcing, staff development opportunities and support for collaboration with employers and international partners. 

Consolidation of Online and Blended Learning Design and Technology Support and Expertise

Many of the developments outlined here can only be achieved through expanded and harmonised support for blended and online learning both in terms of learning design and learning technology expertise. There is, therefore, the opportunity and need to build on experiences during the pandemic and to invest appropriately in the support for ongoing transformation of our approach. As such, we will:

• Consolidate central learning design and learning technology support, ensuring widespread awareness of sources of expertise amongst central teams such as Information Services and Academic and Digital Development and to communicate and demonstrate how this expertise might be more easily accessed and drawn upon locally.
• Draw on the disciplinary, educational and technical expertise and experience across the University community to inform, engage with, and evaluate learning developments and technology adoption.
• Raise awareness of existing teaching and learning approaches, maximising the benefits of existing investments and allowing more comparative evaluation of approaches of how learning technologies enhance learning and teaching.
• Innovate, pilot and evaluate new educational approaches and supporting technologies, ensuring that new approaches integrate with existing digital infrastructures and support is provided.
• Enable more rapid and integrated diffusion of innovation throughout the University in order to increase engagement with MOOCs, micro-credentials, blended and fully online learning.
• Develop communications and decision-making processes that ensure that educational objectives determine investments in, and evaluation of, technologies and software solutions.
• Review and develop support for and within academic areas that is necessary to enable the student and staff developments and activities outlined in this strategy, particularly in relation to blended and online teaching.

Enhanced Support for Enterprise and Student-Led Activities

Student-led activities play an important part in the student experience overall, as well as in supporting personal and skills development. Many student societies associated with academic programmes undertake a range of activity, but support for such work is not systemic or sustained.  In the same vein, student competitions which often support mobility and interdisciplinarity, can only be afforded by some student communities and not others.  As a result, not all students have equivalent opportunities to benefit from the benefits of academic-related or extra-curricular student activities [this is distinct from the funding of the Student Bodies (GUSA, GUU, QMU and the SRC)].

Student enterprise is also a key platform for many students across the University to develop not only their own businesses, but also an entrepreneurial mindset that will stimulate innovation, build confidence, and support contributions within a range of public sector, NGO, academic, social enterprise and other settings. We therefore need to:

• Expand student enterprise provision where it both supports new business start-ups, and allows all students to engage in enterprise education should they wish.
• Further develop incubator and accelerator programmes and resources.
• Create sustainable funding arrangements to support and grow student-led activities that build extra-curricular opportunities relating to programmes of study.