"“Student Engagement” is a term that is bandied around these days but what does it really mean and why does it matter? Is it all about students or is there a role for staff as well? What are the benefits of student engagement at a course, department, school, faculty and institutional level? How is CIT developing its understanding of Student Engagement in partnership with students and staff? This workshop was designed to give answers to these questions and to provide an insight into what CIT has been and is doing in this space. AnSEO – The Student Engagement Office, part of the Office of the Registrar and Vice President for Academic Affairs, was formed to work with academic faculty, school and department staff and student services to improve student engagement, progression and successful graduation. Their work is informed by desk research on national and international models of best practice, expert input and advice and student and staff feedback. They explore current issues, develop proactive and collaborative strategies appropriate to need and facilitate their implementation. This session aimed to: Introduce the AnSEO Team – who they are and what they do? Provide an insight from those who deliver and support a number of AnSEO’s programmes about how AnSEO can help staff and their students on the road to success, such as: The Good Start & Just Ask! programmes Academic Success Coaching and Profiling – providing 1-2-1/group coaching and class visits to help all students achieve their academic potential Sparq (Students as Partners in Quality) - facilitated, purposeful conversations between students and staff giving insights into improving the college experience together Academic Learning Centre – free, easily accessible extra support for students in a range of modules Provide an opportunity to discuss other potential opportunities for AnSEO to work more closely together with staff for the benefit of students and each other"

MTU Teaching & Learning Unit

Executive function (EF) describes a set of cognitive processes and mental skills that help an individual plan, monitor, and successfully execute their goals. The “executive functions,” as they’re known, include attentional control, working memory, inhibition, and problem-solving, many of which are thought to originate in the brain’s prefrontal cortex. Many behaviours in which humans engage, such as breathing or stepping out of the way of an oncoming car, occur without conscious thought. Most others, however, rely on executive function. Any process or goal pursuit that requires time management, decision-making, and storing information in one’s memory makes use of executive function to some degree. Since much of college life is process-driven and demands that students set and meet goals, disruptions in executive function can make it challenging for students to succeed. This workshop examined how we, as lecturers, can support executive functions in our students through the way in which we organise our modules on Canvas.

Universal Design for Learning Co-Designing Your Classroom Dr Amanda Bastoni, Educational Research Scientist, CAST Dr Amanda Bastoni’s workshop introduced the concept of co-design and (using the UDL framework) highlighted how educators can increase creativity, collaboration, and learning in their classroom by designing learning with their students. In the workshop, we covered the why and how of co-design, including stories from the field, resources, and strategies educators can use immediately - in any learning environment. Timestamp 0:00 Introduction 9:15 What does it mean to Design Learning? 15:00 Reflect on UDL 19:07 Building Relationships 37:17 Ways to Co-Design your classroom 39:00 Co-Design rubrics 41:28 Reflection on Co-Designing 49:14 Co-Design with peers 54:47 Tools to support Co-Design

UDL-ifying a university and its people Prof Jo Rushworth National Teaching Fellow and Professor of Bioscience Education Dr Jo Rushworth draws on her experience as a UDL champion for her School as she outlins a range of options and starting points for colleagues who are starting out on their Universal Design journey. This work focussed on providing students with flexible learning resources, flexible ways to engage with their learning and flexible ways to demonstrate knowledge and skills, that impacted both learning and teaching and institutional policy. In an interactive presentation, Jo tells us about how the UDL guidelines were brought to life and implemented across DMU and leads us in a discussion of early steps toward achieving UDL compliance in teaching practice and of options for continuing development and enhancement. Jo’s work on co-creation with students was among the highlights from her case study. Timestamps 0:00 Introduction 4:13 Overview 9:54 Getting started: UDL Champions 12:31 6 UDL ideas: Quick wins and bigger ideas 13:10 Ideas 1 & 2 13:43 Ideas 3 & 4 14:00 Ideas 5 & 6 14:40 Moving forward: Staff UDL guidance & Training 16:51 UDL staff guidance 17:57 UDL self-assessment & development tool 19:16 Flexible study resources 23:05 Flexible ways to learn 27:03 Flexible ways to show learning 30:36 Co-creation 37:03 UDL-ify a module 56:22 Thank you!

In June 2021, a project entitled “UDL@MTU – Towards Embedding UDL Practices and Principles at MTU” received funding under MTU’s allocation of the Strategic Alignment of Teaching & Learning Enhancement Fund 2020. As part of this project, in semester 1 of the 2021/22 academic year, a local MTU iteration of the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education’s (NFETLHE) Digital Badge “Universal Design in Teaching and Learning” was rolled out with twelve colleagues participating from across MTU. In order to complete the badge, participants learnt about Universal Design for Learning (UDL), reflected on their own practice and redesigned some aspects of a teaching activity they were delivering in line with the principles of UDL. They then had to implement and deliver the redesigned activity, collect some feedback from students in terms of their experience of the redesigned activity and submit a short ‘Redesign Activity Report’. Catherine O’Mahony, a lecturer in Tourism in Hospitality, was one of the twelve MTU badge participants.

As part of the UDL@MTU project, 12 colleagues from across MTU participated in a local MTU-wide rollout of the National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning’s Universal Design in Teaching and Learning Digital Badge and were awarded their badges, To complete this badge, participants are required to complete a redesign activity where they take an element of their own practice and apply UDL principles to redesign it and make it more accessible. We have developed a podcast series, where we showcase some of the excellent practice demonstrated by these colleagues while completing the above badge, which we will be releasing over the coming months:

Are you involved in new programme development and about to starting to create new modules? Or are involved in programmatic review and revising some existing modules? If so, the following is a Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Module Guide developed by our colleague Ann Toebes, Curriculum Development Facilitator, provides suggestions for how UDL can be embedded in the curriculum via the module descriptor.

Executive function (EF) describes a set of cognitive processes and mental skills that help an individual plan, monitor, and successfully execute their goals. The “executive functions,” as they’re known, include attentional control, working memory, inhibition, and problem-solving, many of which are thought to originate in the brain’s prefrontal cortex. Many behaviours in which humans engage, such as breathing or stepping out of the way of an oncoming car, occur without conscious thought. Most others, however, rely on executive function. Any process or goal pursuit that requires time management, decision-making, and storing information in one’s memory makes use of executive function to some degree. Since much of college life is process-driven and demands that students set and meet goals, disruptions in executive function can make it challenging for students to succeed. To support executive functions in students, we developed a prototype accessible Canvas Template to help you organise your module on Canvas.

Do you wonder is there anything you can do from UDL perspective when you’re setting up your modules on Canvas? If so, you might find the following checklist useful:

MTU Teaching & Learning Unit

Are you putting together a slide deck for teaching purposes? You might consider using one of MTU’s new branded accessible templates! You can access these templates very easily. When you are creating a new PowerPoint presentation, you will see a new tab called Munster Technological University. Here you will find 6 possible templates - 3 black and grey and 3 colour that you can use to ensure that your slide decks are accessible. In each case, there is: - An accessible and sustainable version where the MTU logo only appears on the title slide - An accessible version with the MTU logo in the top RHS for those who might be creating a recording with Screencast-o-matic - An accessible version with the MTU logo in the top LHS for those who might be creating a recording with Zoom

A common misperception in the higher education sector is that UDL is somehow tied to accessibility efforts on behalf of students with learning challenges, especially those who identify as having disabilities. However, nothing could be further from the truth what’s good for students with disability is good for all students. However, today’s higher education institutions are dealing with an increasingly diverse student body consisting of students with different needs, educational backgrounds, attention spans, interests, language abilities and cultural backgrounds all of whom can benefit from UDL approaches. But is the MTU student body really that diverse?