Departmental Workshops
GEES Departmental Workshop Programme
September- December 2011
****** REQUEST ONE NOW: 6 AVAILABLE******
News Alert: as of the 31st July 2011, discipline provision will be moving from the GEES Subject Centre to the Higher Education Academy, York. There will be a transition period of 5 months, during which time a pared-down GEES Subject Centre will be able to provide a limited number of departmental workshops for its community. If you would like a workshop from us, please fill in the workshop request form and send it to us (jane.dalrymple@plymouth.ac.uk) by the 31st July, 2011. Please request dates between September- December 2011.
Contents
Background
The GEES Subject Centre's Programme of Departmental Workshops support the GEES communities' learning, teaching and assessment needs. Since 2000 we have organised and funded over 270 workshops in GEES departments.
"This was one of the more valuable staff development sessions in recent years"
"Provided a small, overstretched team with the luxury of sitting down and dealing with crucial issues"
"Being in a small team, it was really refreshing to come at things from different angles"
These are typical comments on the GEES Subject Centre's programme of departmental workshops. Listed below is further information on how to apply for a workshop and the workshop topics that are available for autumn 2011.
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How does it work?
Due to the transition of discipline provision as described above, and the general popularity of our departmental workshop programme, we would encourage you to submit a request as soon as possible, as free workshops will be offered on a first-come first-served basis. Requests beyond our current capacity of 6 may have to attract a charge, depending on the GEES Subject Centre Finances.
In discussion with you and your colleagues, we will organise the logistics and particular emphasis of your workshop and select an appropriate member of the GEES Subject Centre facilitator team to deliver it. This will ensure an approach that is both professional and tailored to your department's needs and circumstances.
To request a workshop, please complete the GEES Subject Centre Departmental Workshop Request Form.
Any Questions? Please contact Jane Dalrymple (jane.dalrymple) or by phone on 01752 584529.
Workshop Topics
Developing an Inclusive Curriculum
This workshop explores how staff can develop an inclusive curriculum to support the learning, teaching and assessment of disabled students in ALL GEES disciplines both on the campus and in the field. Run in Collaboration with the Geography Discipline Network (GDN).
E-Learning
A. The case for E-Learning
This workshop encourages participants to consider the opportunities for employing e-learning within their own teaching. Discussion will consider the pros and cons of e-learning from both the learner and tutor perspective, and participants will be encouraged to identify where and how they could most appropriately employ e-learning within their own GEES teaching.
B. Authoring E-Learning Materials
Are you interesting in authoring your own e-learning materials? This workshop will introduce the principles of effective web-based learning design and provide participants with the opportunity to analyse and plan effective e-learning activities within their own context.
C. Developing and Managing E-Learning Activities
This workshop is targeted at teaching staff with experience of electronic resource-based or first generation distance learning. Discussion will consider the issues surrounding the effective development and management of such activities, and participants will have the opportunity to analyse and plan effective e-learning activities within their own context.
Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)
It is increasingly expected that all graduates should have a good understanding of the importance of sustainable development and its implications for the workshop and lifestyles. For the GEES disciplines, sustainability is a familiar concept, but arguabley its place and prominence in the curriculum now need revisiting. This workshop will explore the latest thinking in ESD in relation to appropriate pedagogies and staff and curriculum development issues and will encourage participants to consider the nature of opportunities and obstacles for developing ESD within their own teaching.
Employability
This workshop will provide staff and departments with the opportunity to review the effectiveness of what they are currently doing to enhance their students' employability and consider where improvements in their provision could be made. Advice will be provided on the key components of delivering employability including curriculum design, work-related learning, soft skills, career management, work-based learning and personal development planning (PDP). Departments may like to consider which of these aspects of delivering employability they would like the workshop to focus on.
Entrepreneurship and Enterprise
Although entrepreneurship and enterprise are often seen as the Cindrella of the employability and PDP agendas, the education sector is being encouraged to support students in developing their skills in this area. Using enterprise as a curriculum development tool can create a real sense of enthusiasm, inspiration and creativity amongst both staff and students and can offer new and exciting ways to engage students with the GEES disciplines. There can be clear benefits in embedding such themes within subject specific curricula, but it is not always straight-forward to do this due to a lack of time and a lack of flexibility in the delivery schedule. Using examples and case studies, this workshop is designed to provide tools and tips to help colleagues introduce and develop these topics with students- providing students with the opportunities and motivation to engage with the topic, gain confidence and ultimately realise their potential.
Fieldwork
Fieldwork is regarded as fundamental to the GEES subject areas. This workshop encourages you to critique the core vales of fieldwork and explores techniques best suited to the encouragement of deeper learning and skills development. Issues of cost, staff time and health and safety are also considered through a review of staff experience and scenario evaluation.
Independent learning
This workshop examines the nature of independent learning in the GEES subject areas and explores the characteristics of independent learners and the methods which can be used to help students develop such characteristics. Participants will discuss how they can apply selected methods within their modules and the departmental strategies that can be adopted to promote independent learning over a degree programme.
Learning Outcomes and Assessment
Degree programmes and their constituent modules are now expected to have carefully articulated outcome statements and carefully aligned student assessment methods. Using GEES examples and materials, this workshop reviews the rationale behind the outcomes-based approach and offers guidance and practice in writing and reviewing outcomes and in designing matching assessments in the GEES disciplines.
Linking Teaching & Research
This workshop will explore with participants the complicated and contested nature of the international debate about linking teaching and research, and ways in which the linkage may be fostered at institutional and department level to enhance the quality of student leaning in our subjects. The workshop focuses particularly on how students may benefit from involvement with subject-based research (rather than pedagogic research).
Personal Development Planning (PDP)
This workshop examines the objectives of Personal Development Planning and provides some case studies of how it operates in practice. It also considers the underlying learning and teaching principles and how PDP can enhance student learning and skills development. Throughout the workshop, participants will be encouraged to reflect on their own practice and to consider ways of enhancing PDP delivery.
Practicals and Laboratory Work
What are practicals and laboratory work for? Are they effective? This workshop allows an opportunity to reflect on current practice in your area. It provides a theoretical context which clarifies the need for practical work and encourages more focussed learning objectives (and therefore assessment). In many instances this allows a reappraisal of aspects of current practice and provides new pointers for developments. In a climate of increasingly competitive demands for both resources and curriculum time, this reappraisal can help strengthen the position of laboratory and practical work in GEES departments.
Problem based learning
Problem Based learning (PBL) is both a student-centred philosophy and a teaching method that starts with a problem, query, or puzzle that the learner needs to pursue. Students are guided through a learning process that is both stimulating and challenging. This workshop will introduce you to the background and learning theories of PBL and will provide suggestions as to how you can build PBL into your curriculum.
Open Educational Resources (OER)
Releasing your own GEES Open Educational Resources (OERs)
Open Educational Resources (OERs) include resources such as lecture PowerPoint's, PDFs, YouTube videos and images that have been made freely available for educational use. They offer the opportunity to share and reuse educational materials and profile the disciplines, the author and institution not just to a UK audience but the world. This workshop will explore:
- What are OER?
- Who are they for?
- Why release OER?
- Where do I find OER?
- How do I release OER?
This will include copyright clearance procedures for figures and images from textbooks and journals as well as the usage of Creative Commons licences and where best to put finished OERs so they can be found by others.
Student Transition and Retention
Do you feel that your department would benefit from greater insight into student induction and retention processes? Is widening participation and changing student numbers raising new issues and impacting on current practices? This workshop aims to help GEES colleagues to work through the issues, consider current and new practices and to enhance retention rates and the student's experience throughout their degree.
Teaching at Masters Level
Learning and teaching issues fortaught postgraduate programmes are a largely under researched and under reported area of pedagogy. They rarely feature on training programmes for new staff, but Masters students have quite specific needs and the speed of the one-year taught programme frequently concentrates on knowledge at the expense of other dimensions. This workshop starts from the premise that the taught Masters experience should be quantifiably different from level 3, justifying the higher fees. Participants will have the opportunity to select issues for discussion and development as appropriate to their particular situation. Topics may include induction, differences between M level and level 3, what critical engagement means, balancing knowledge acquisition and research, post-duction, assessment, standards, curriculum design, independent learning, integrating CPD, professional accreditation, and designing new materials. This workshop may benefit from including colleagues across campus engaged in Masters teaching to develop university understandings of issues and implementation.
Work-based learning
Increasingly, students are looking for courses which have good links to the world of work and provide the basis for rewarding and worthwhile careers. For this reason, more and more degree programmes are now offering placement opportunities of various durations. This workshop focuses on how to design and deliver a work-based learning module in the GEES disciplines. It deals with issues such as finding relevant hosts, managing students' work, assessing their performance and ensuring a high quality learning experience.
Is there a topic you need?
Please contact our Subject Centre Director, Pauline Kneale (pauline.kneale@plymouth.ac.uk) and we will attempt to organise it.
Who has had a workshop from us?
Anglia Polytechnic University - Department of Geography
Bath Spa University - School of Science and Environment & School of Social Sciences
Brunel University - Department of Geography & Earth Sciences
Canterbury Christchurch University - Department of Geographical and
Life Sciences
College of St. Mark and St. John- School of Society, Environment and Culture
Coventry University - School of Science & the Environment
Edge Hill College of Higher Education - Natural, Geographical and Applied Sciences
Glasgow Caledonian University - School of Built and Natural Environment
Harper Adams University College - Countryside Development Unit
King's College London - Department of Geography
Kingston University - School of Earth Sciences & Geography
Liverpool Hope University - Deanery of Science and Social Sciences
Liverpool John Moores University - School of Biological & Earth Sciences
London Metropolitan University - School of Biological and Applied Sciences
London School of Economics - Department of Geography & Environment
Manchester Metropolitan University - Department of Environmental & Leisure
Studies
Manchester Metropolitan University - Department of Environmental & Geographical
Science
Nottingham Trent University - International Studies
Oxford Brookes University - Department of Geography
Queen Mary & Westfield College - Department of Geography
Queen's University Belfast - School of Geography
Royal Holloway: University of London - Department of Geography
Sheffield Hallam University- Department of Geography & Department of Architecture and Planning
St. Mary's University College-
Department of Geography
UHI Millenium Institute - Scottish Association for Marine Sciences
Warwickshire College
University of Birmingham - School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences
University College Chichester - Department of Geography
University College Worcester - School of Applied Sciences, Geography &
Archaeology
University of Aberdeen - Department of Geology & Petroleum Geology
University of Aberdeen - Department of Geography & Environment
University of Abertay Dundee - School of Contemporary Sciences
University of Bradford - Department of Environmental Science
University of Brighton - School of the Environment
University of Cardiff - Earth, Ocean and Planetary Sciences
University of Chester - Department of Geography
University of Coventry - Department of Geography
University of Derby - School of Environmental & Applied Sciences
University of Dundee - Department of Geography
University of Durham - Department of Geography
University of Durham - Department of Earth Sciences
University of East Anglia - School of Environmental Sciences
University of Edinburgh - School of Geosciences
University of Exeter - School of Geography & Archaeology
University of Exeter in Cornwall- Department of Geography
University of Glamorgan - School of Applied Sciences
University of Gloucestershire - School of Environment
University of Hertfordshire - Geography and Environmental Sciences
University of Hull - Department of Geography
University of Keele - Department of Earth Sciences and Geography
University of Lancaster - Department Geography
University of Leicester - Department of Geography
University of Leicester - Department of Geology
University of Loughborough- Department of Geography
University of Liverpool - Department of Geography
University of Liverpool - Department of Earth Sciences
University of Manchester - School of Geography
University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne - Department of Geography
University of Northampton - School of Social Sciences
University of Northumbria- Department of Geography
University of Plymouth - Department of Geographical Sciences
University of Plymouth - Department of Environmental Sciences
University of Plymouth - Institute of Marine Studies
University of Portsmouth - Department of Geography
University of Reading - PRIS
University of Salford - School of Environment & Life Sciences
University of Southampton - Centre for Environmental Sciences
University of Southampton - Department of Geography
University of Southampton - School of Ocean & Earth Science
University of Sunderland - School of Humanities & Social Sciences
University of Swansea- Department of Geography
University of the West of England - Geography & Environmental Management
University of the West of England - Environmental and Interdisciplinary Science
University of Wales: Aberystwyth - Institute of Geography and Earth Sciences
University of Wales: Newport - Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching
University of Wales: Swansea - Department of Geography
University of Wolverhampton - Division of Environmental Sciences & Geography
University of Wolverhampton - School of Applied Science
University of Worcester - Applied Sciences, Geography and Archaeology
University of York - Environment Department