"Since 2019 the TLU have launched and supported over 40 learning communities across MTU. During this session we heard from Learning Community members about who they are, what inspired them to start/join a Learning Community, what they have achieved and how others might initiate or join an existing learning community. Professor Jim O’ Mahony also spoke about how funding can be awarded and used effectively to transform teaching and learning both within and across disciplines."

This event shared the changes made to the assessment and feedback mechanisms on placement as part of a pilot project within the School of Business, MTU Cork Campuses. The pilot project was undertaken with funding from the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (NFETLHE) within MTU as part of the university’s Reimagining Assessment and Feedback Together (RAFT) series of interventions. These changes were made following feedback from Geraldine O’Neill’s NFETLHE Research Fellowship study on 'Assessing Work-Integrated Learning' last year.

As part of MTU’s commitment to excel in teaching, research and development work, for the benefit of staff, students, industry and the wider community, MTU is offering staff the opportunity for professional recognition of their teaching practice and leadership.

As part of MTU’s commitment to excel in teaching, research and development work, for the benefit of staff, students, industry and the wider community, MTU is offering staff the opportunity for professional recognition of their teaching practice and leadership.

"The Teaching and Learning Unit (TLU) and AnSEO - The Student Engagement Office are delighted to announce our annual Combined Funding Call to support staff and students who wish to undertake short term projects related to teaching, learning, assessment and student engagement (TLASE) activities. This funding call enables teams, of staff and/or students, to develop ideas that might enhance teaching, learning, assessment and student engagement across the student life cycle. The purpose of this session was to provide more information about the funding process itself, describe what supports are available and provide participants with an opportunity to hear from previous recipients in terms of what they achieved and how they felt about the experience and the impact these projects have had on staff and students."

"Learning communities provide a space and a structure for people to align around a shared goal. Effective communities are both aspirational and practical. They connect people, organisations, and systems that are eager to learn and work across boundaries, all the while holding members accountable to a common agenda, metrics, and outcomes. These communities enable participants to share results and learn from each other, thereby improving their ability to achieve rapid yet significant progress. Over the last three years, the TLU have initiated and supported over 30 learning communities across MTU. This seminar provided a short update from each of our learning communities which highlighted their successes and challenges. The session was also useful to those wishing to learn more about the benefits of initiating or joining learning communities in MTU."

"Assessment is probably the most important thing we can do to engage students in their learning. However, not all forms of assessment are created equal! Whilst there are many benefits of using authentic assessment approaches and providing feedback, teaching staff can face challenges in terms of large class sizes and their own constraints around resourcing and time. This session was an interactive workshop for staff which focused on redesigning assessments to make them a more authentic experience for students whilst ensuring they are manageable from a staff perspective. Participants were invited to send any assignment briefs, or past exam questions that they would like help with redesigning so that they are more authentic, prior to the session. A selection of these were then used as “live” cases at the session. Contact bali@cit.ie for more information."

Deep Learning refers to the cognitive skills and academic knowledge that students need to succeed in the 21st century. These skills include critical thinking, problem solving, communication, collaboration and learning to learn. The mastery of these skills will enable students to think flexibly and creatively, transferring and applying their learning from one context to new situations. This seminar looked at how one academic in CIT, Dr Anna Dynan, Accounting & Information Systems has used PeerWise, a free online platform, to provide a space where her students can collaboratively create, answer, discuss, and evaluate practice questions with peers and has thereby helped her students engage with unit concepts more deeply and critically. In this seminar, participants gained an understanding of: How PeerWise can be used to engage students and enhance their learning outcomes. The impact this approach can have on student engagement and learning The student view on this collaborative approach to learning Advice/best practice/tip & tricks when using PeerWise in your module.

CIT’s Teaching & Learning Unit (TLU) launched an inaugural call in 2018 to develop and support a number of Learning Communities (LCs) across the institute and is currently working with 13 emerging LCs from across the institute as a direct result of this call. LCs facilitate the exchange of good teaching and learning ideas amongst its members and provide a platform for professional discussions and sharing of practices. This workshop enabled these emerging LCs to: Showcase their vision and ideas for both their short- and long-term ambitions Show how their activities are influencing teaching and learning in their respective disciplines. An open invitation was extended to all CIT staff to attend what turned out to be a lively and thought-provoking session where they heard more about our LCs and found out how to: Develop a new LC or Create partnerships with existing ones

"Is this your first year as a lecturer or have you been lecturing for several years already? Do you sometimes feel daunted or overwhelmed by the thought of the academic year ahead? Are there times you get that Groundhog Day feeling and wish you could do things differently? Are there aspects of your teaching and assessment practice that frustrate and annoy you? The Teaching and Learning Unit (TLU), part of the Office of Registrar and VP for Academic Affairs, was formed to support the work of the Registrar in a wide range of quality enhancement initiatives associated with teaching and learning. In this session, we aimed to: Introduce you to the TLU Team – who we are and what we do? Give an insight into the supports and services available from the TLU that can help you in your day-to day role from: Professional Development Opportunities such as our MA in Teaching & Learning in Higher Education and the variety of workshops and seminars we offer throughout the year Research and Funding Opportunities that you can access Resources we have developed in conjunction with experts in the field of teaching and learning Projects that we are pursuing Gain an understanding from you of any other ways you would like our help"

"How can we design assessment tasks, so they inspire our students to learn? How can we use assessment to enthuse our learners, and keep them engaged? What are the processes which underpin effective feedback and what are some of the barriers and challenges we face in helping students’ uptake of feedback? How can we approach feedback so that it is meaningful and useful to students, but manageable for ourselves? How far and in what ways do we involve students in the process of evaluative judgment, so they learn to see how they are going while they are working on tasks? These are some of the questions and issues that were explored and discussed in this interactive seminar on engaging students in assessment and feedback processes. Participants who attended this: Explored key principles underpinning the design of Assessment for Learning (AfL) in Higher Education (Sambell et al, 2013), which include assessment for and as learning; Discussed the benefits, challenges and strategies colleagues in different disciplines use to engage learners as productively as possible in assessment and feedback processes; Gained access to practical AfL resources, shared ideas with each other and considered pragmatic tactics to develop students’ assessment and feedback literacy."

"Assessment is a complex, nuanced and highly important process and if we want students to engage fully, we must make it really meaningful to them and convince them that there is merit in the activities we ask them to undertake. To focus students’ effort and improve their engagement with learning, we need to take a fresh look at our current practice to make sure assessment is for rather than just of learning, with students learning while they are being assessed rather than it being merely a summative end process. We also need to ensure that we provide explicit and implicit messages to students and indeed all other stakeholders about how we assess. By the end of this workshop, participants had had opportunities to: Consider how to make assessment truly integrated with the learning process; Review what kinds of feedback can be helpful to students in achieving their potential; Discuss how to make assessment manageable without losing the learning payoff that fit-for-purpose assessment can bring."

How can we inspire our students to learn? How can we engage them, and keep them engaged? How best can we use the tools available to us in this digital age to enthuse them? What are the processes which underpin successful learning now? How can we ourselves be inspired and enthused, so that we enjoy our work as teachers more than ever? These are some of the questions that were explored in this interactive workshop on learning and teaching in the 21st Century. By the end of this workshop, participants had: Explored some answers to the questions above, and thought of better ones; Shared ideas with each other and with Phil; Discussed the need to re-invent feedback and assessment for the 21st Century

"If we want to improve students’ engagement with learning, a key focus of enhancement can be refreshing our approaches to assessment. Sometimes we need to take a fresh look at our current practice to ensure assessment is for rather than just of learning. In addition, we as educators in higher education understand the importance of giving good feedback to students, both to maximize achievement and to support retention. Research in the field suggests that good feedback has a significant impact on student achievement, enabling students to become adept at judging the quality of their own work during its production. In this workshop, the following aspects of assessment were considered: Fit for purpose assessment: designing assessments to promote student learning Assessing more students: ways of using productive assessment with large numbers Assessing first-year students well to promote retention Streamlining assessment: giving feedback effectively and efficiently"

The literature review is a core component of many, if not all, final year programmes at third level. Despite the importance of this, many undergraduate students are not given the instructional tools to complete the onerous tasks of organising and planning a literature review. This seminar presented results of a pilot study initiated by the Department of Biological Sciences with over 100 final year undergraduate life science students. These students attended a 1-hour weekly instructional lecture as part of the literature review module. The seminar was targeted at academic staff and focused on: What tools were made available to students How well students engaged with the tools What the learning experience was for both lecturers and students How this approach could be modified across different disciplines

Providing learners with feedback is known to be one of the most impactful things we can do to enhance learning, it can also be very time-consuming. Often it also seems that learners are not acting on that feedback. This session will explore issues with feedback, and ways in which learners can be provided with feedback that are both efficient and effective for us. We will discuss the ‘power of words’ and explore the value of commenting constructively on assignments and assessments.

"Canvas, CIT’s recently adopted Learning Management System, presents many opportunities from a teaching and learning perspective for both staff and students. From a staff perspective, Canvas can assist staff with: Creating learning materials Communicating with students Providing grades and feedback to students. In this session, Eamonn demonstrated the capabilities and suitability of Canvas to assessing students using automatic grading. He demonstrated how in some subject areas both lab-based written reports and traditional paper-based assessments can be almost entirely replaced by Canvas."

Using phenomenological and performative action research methods as a way to explore space, place and context Collette and Bill outlined their recent research projects and showed how the research outcomes were introduced into the Year 1 curriculum.

"Designing and managing in-class discussions is more challenging than the pause procedure or minute paper, but there is convincing evidence that collaborative learning works. This session will model an in-class discussion and discuss some of the evidence that supports this strategy."

"The spacing effect refers to the process of spacing a topic that is to be learned over time, rather than teaching the topic in an intensive session. The implication for our modules is that rather than teaching all of LO1 in weeks 1 and 2 (for example) we should consider if it is possible to divide the topic and teach some in week 1 and then revisit (perhaps in greater depth) later on in the semester. The topic is then spaced out over the semester. The available evidence tells us that this is a more effective strategy. This session will explore this strategy in more detail and present some of the evidence that supports this strategy"

"Having students retrieve information from long-term memory on a regular basis, is known to have a positive impact on learning. This is especially true when learners need to put a bit of effort into that retrieval process. Hence providing opportunities for learners to take tests (e.g. computer based multiple choice tests) can be a very effective strategy. This session will examine some of the evidence in favour of testing and discuss options for using this strategy."

The pause procedure and minute paper are two simple teaching strategies that can be introduced into any lecture. This session will provide examples of their use in action and point to some evidence of their effectiveness.

Instructors often state that they provide lots of feedback but to little effect. This session will explore some of the reasons why this may happen and outline options for engaging students with assessment and feedback. In particular, providing choice, opportunities to apply feedback and cultivating trust are all known to encourage students to engage with the assessment processes.

Quality feedback (i) recognises what is good (ii) identifies limitations and (iii) suggests how the work could be improved. Shifting feedback responsibility from instructors to learners. Self-assessment & peer-assessment

While presenting learners with the assessment criteria and standards is good practice - they don’t necessarily result in learners developing a good understanding of the criteria and standard. This session explores the importance of dialogue around assessment and how a shared understanding of assessment requirements can be developed by applying rubrics to exemplars.

If our learners are to become more independent and develop the capacity to assess their own learning they must know what the assessment criteria and standards are. This session presented different types of assessment rubrics. Examples of different rubrics or marking sheets were presented so that these can be critiqued, and good practice identified.

Getting feedback from our learners is important because it is the only way we can determine if our teaching methods are effective. On a day-to-day basis we can use a variety of short classroom assessment techniques to determine if our learners are “getting it”. While we can put a lot of time and effort into making our lectures clear and well organised, that the pace is right, etc. it is only by asking students that we find out if they are perceived that way or not. Simple mid-term evaluation forms are highly effective as they can be acted upon and changes made to enhance the quality of the lecture. Examples of commonly used end of semester evaluation forms will also be highlighted.

Good quality feedback can have a huge impact on student learning and performance. In the Feedback session, we will highlight some ways of getting good quality feedback to students fast.

How a module is assessed has long been recognised to have a huge impact on what and how students learn (think Leaving Certificate Exams). Here, some guidelines for developing assessments that promote understanding will be presented

"Authentic assessment is a means of providing assessment opportunities which are like tasks in the ‘real world’. Students are asked to thoughtfully apply their acquired skills to a new situation or environment. Assessments are considered authentic if they are realistic, require judgement and innovation and assess students’ ability to effectively use their knowledge or skills to complete a task. This seminar presented the experiences from the Marketing discipline at Munster Technological University in developing a comprehensive approach to the use of authentic assessment as a means of fostering student engagement and developing collaboration with businesses. Adopting the perspective of a ""work in progress"" the presentation challenged participants around the ongoing reliance on terminal examination and similar mechanisms, while also reflecting the realities of delivering complicated assessment mechanisms with large-sized student groups. Those who participated in this seminar: Learned about the role of authentic assessment in fast-moving disciplines Developed understanding around the systemic supports required institutionally to support authentic assessment Heard the student voice in design and deployment of authentic assessment"