FocusOn Practice
A bit of Background
During the academic year 20-21, in CTIL we had discussed various ways to enable staff to share good practice.
Trying to persuade people to write blog posts was challenging, staff often didn’t have the time. We knew, however, that many staff liked to talk about what they’re doing; they’re very good at that.
In CTIL meetings, and with the group of Digital Champions (who’ve been invaluable to our work since April 2020), we discussed the idea. And so grew “FocusOn Practice”
What is FocusOn Practice?
The format we use is to have 20 minutes or so for the presenter to talk about a practice they were using with students. Sometimes it was a particular tool, sometimes it was an approach. Afterwards, there’s plenty of time to allow audience members time to discuss the ideas, and to think about how they might use the approach in their own practice, often with a very different group of students.
We run them in teams, in the Eduzone2.0 Channel (Education & Student Experience Team), as we know all staff should be in that team. The sessions are recorded, divided into the presentation section, and then the Q&A, in case we need to redact a Q/A section – not that we’ve needed to! The chat can also be a valuable source of shared resources and ideas.
Up Next
On Thursday 17th November 2pm-3pm, we welcome Rohan Slaughter, snr. lecturer, assistive technology in Prof. Annalu Wallers group, from the School of Science & Engineering.
His session is called “Assistive Technology and Accessibility: Walking the walk.
He’ll look at issues he faced ensuring the MSc in Educational Assistive Technology is fully accessible – and also how they’re ensuring students’ work is accessible – by including it in grading rubrics.
You can find out more, and get the link for the session, in EduZone 2.0 (sorry, Dundee Staff only) . The button below takes you straight to the correct post.
This will be the last session for this Semester, but we are already starting to plan for next semester, so if you would like to volunteer (or persuade a colleague), please get in contact with us.
What’s next for FocusOn
We’re looking at how we can take the recordings we have, and create a set of resources based around them, using the recording, content shared in the chat, and link them to relevant CTIL guides, other UoD material as well as external content. We’ll let you know when those resources are ready
However, in the mean time, we have all the content in Teams – have a look at the range of subjects below
Playlist (Stream – sorry, UoD staff only)
| Date | Presenter | Title |
|---|---|---|
| 22/07/21 | Rupert Williams / Georgia Clarke (EIS) | Enhancing Student Groupwork |
| 29/07/21 | Andrew Murphy (CTIL) | Video in your Pocket |
| 5/08/21 | Jonny Nylk (SSEN) | OneNote |
| 11/08/21 | Rachel Menzies (SSEN) | Miro |
| 19/08/21 | Sarah Halliday (Geography) | Getting the most out of collaborate |
| 26/08/21 | Matt Ward (History) | Podcasting for pedagogy |
| 2/09/21 | Karen Petrie (SSEN) | Mentimeter |
| 09/09/21 | Malcolm Finnie (DJCAD) | Sharepoint |
| 16/09/21 | Richard Holme (Education) | Accessibility |
| 4/11/21 | Ewa Bieniecka (Maths) | Formative Assessment |
| 18/11/21 | Tara Harper (Education) | Padlet |
| 03/03/22 | Mike Crabb (Computing) | Failing successfully |
| 17/03/22 | Karen Petrie (SSEN) | Debates |
| 24/03/22 | Helen Coker (Education) | Discussion in Online Modules |
| 29/09/22 | Matt Graham (History) | Wikipedia for Assessment |
| 06/10/22 | Lorraine Syme-Smith (Education) | PiP Along |
| 13/10/22 | Christina Schilde (Life Sciences) | Hybrid Projects |
| 10/11/22 | Panel: | Professionalism |