"Unconscious bias refers to the stereotypes, both negative and positive, that exist in our subconscious and affect our behaviour. It can affect workplaces and organisations and can introduce unintentional discrimination which results in poor decision making. Unconscious Bias can be a huge setback in creating a truly diverse and inclusive workplace. The main goal of this workshop was to raise awareness of this important issue amongst staff and give a flavour of further training that is planned for the coming year, in response to CIT’s commitment to Athena SWAN. It is hoped that by encouraging us all to recognise and challenge our own unconscious biases that we can effect positive change within CIT and create a truly diverse and inclusive workspace to the benefit of all. Those attending this workshopl: Gained an understanding of what unconscious bias is Were exposed to some of their own unconscious biases Were provided with some simple tools/techniques to adjust these automatic patterns of thinking"

"Universal Design for Learning is an educational framework based on research in the learning sciences, including cognitive neuroscience, that guides the development of flexible learning environments and learning spaces that can accommodate individual learning differences. This workshop focused on Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in CIT - if you are looking for ways to ensure that your classroom is as inclusive as possible and create a teaching and learning environment that is accessible to all, then this workshop helped to give you some tools and ideas on how to make this a reality! In the context of UDL, attendees: Examined and reflected on their own lectures and/or assessments Gained some insight into current best practice Obtained some practical and easy ways to create a more inclusive teaching and learning environment"

The prospect of correcting a pile of exam papers can be daunting. How do we ensure that we mark these fairly and consistently? This session will outline a process to help address these issues. As part of the session, we will discuss the value of an assessment rubric and a marking scheme, variation in marking and methods of minimising it.

In this session we will offer a hands-on tutorial on Web for Faculty and the process of entering marks using Web for Faculty. We will briefly look at each function, what the acronyms mean and outline how best to prepare for a Module Exam Board (MEB).

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.

In this session we will look at ways to structure an exam paper, consider ways to write good quality questions and what a good marking scheme and model answer might look like. Exemplars and examples will be used to explore aspects of what a “good” exam question might look like.

Many lectures can be designed to follow a similar structure and being aware of this structure can help you to design effective lectures. In this session we will look at some recommended practices for structuring a typical lecture. A central aim is to engage those students that attend so that learners leave with the feeling that the lecture was worth attending.

"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.

"Work placement is, at this stage, a mandatory element of many programmes within CIT and as such poses many challenges for those involved in the process, i.e. staff, students and potential employers. In this session, Mary & Donogh, demonstrated the capabilities and suitability of Canvas, CIT’s recently adopted Learning Management System, to support students who are on work placement. It demonstrated how a range of tools can be used for providing information, assessing, communicating with and monitoring students."

Transposition, or the rearranging of equations, is a key topic in Mathematics but has wider application across Business, Engineering and Science. Students find this a tricky topic because they often don’t understand the underlying principles and consequently apply rules and procedures incorrectly. In this session, In this session, Catherine discussed some of the initiatives and resources that have been developed by colleagues in the Department of Mathematics to enhance learning and develop understanding and competence in this topic. The focus of the session was to demonstrate how an active learning strategy, peer instruction, is being used to enhance learning in this topic. Peer instruction is designed to engage students during class through activities that require each student to apply the core concepts being presented, and then to explain and discuss those concepts with their fellow students. The process has been shown to engage students, increase understanding of key concepts and support knowledge retention. While the examples presented will relate to Transposition in Mathematics – the teaching strategy can be effectively applied across disciplines to develop understanding of difficult topics.

"Work placement is, at this stage, a mandatory element of many programmes within CIT and as such poses many challenges for those involved in the process, i.e. staff, students and potential employers. Catherine and Denise have been focusing on enhancing the work placement process within the Bachelor of Business (Honours) in Information Systems programme within their Department and in this session will discuss some of the developments that they have introduced."

"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 generation effect refers to a broad range of techniques that require learners to generate information on a topic e.g. create a presentation or predict an outcome. There is a growing body of evidence which shows that having learners generate information is more effective than if they simply read the information. This session will review this body of evidence and discuss ways in which we could incorporate this strategy into our day-to-day teaching."

"The teaching strategy peer instruction was popularised by Eric Mazur to support the teaching of physics to undergraduate students at Harvard and is now one of the most widely used instructional strategies in undergraduate physics education. It has wide applicability outside of the physics discipline. This session will demonstrate peer instruction in action and discuss some of the evidence in favour of its effectiveness."

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.

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.

One of the factors that has a big impact on positive student evaluations of teaching is course organisation. In this session we will explore some ideas related to course organisation including the need to reimagine our topics from the perspective of someone who has never encountered them before, focus on core ideas and principles and relationships between those principles and the need to revisit difficult concepts over time. Defining intended learning outcomes for lectures and linking these to module learning outcomes and past lectures helps students to see the course structure and organisation.

How we structure a lecture can have a significant impact on student’s ability to engage with it and learn from it. A lecture needs to have an introduction that motivates and engages students and outlines learning objectives. The body of the lecture needs to focus on three of four key points that are carefully elaborated. The conclusion should summarise and integrate the learning. In a basic way, learning is a function of content & retention. Placing more emphasis on retaining information, will lead to more learning.

In order for students to learn we need to get their attention and then maintain it. There are a variety of ways in which we can try to get students attention and then motivate them to engage with the material. This session will explore this topic, discuss some ways of motivating students (other than the use of assessments) and provide some examples of these techniques in action.

Stephen Brookfield talks about how when teaching something that we love, how difficult it is for us to empathise with students that find the topic boring. The more that we teach the topic, the further removed we become from our first experiences of learning it and the less empathy we are likely to have. Yet empathy and respect strongly correlate with student motivation and motivation is essential to developing understanding. This, final session will explore the importance of empathy and respect.

Increasingly, its being recognised that subjects tend to have a specific “way of thinking” that is quite unique to that subject. Experts have adopted and internalised that inner logic. For our students to develop proficiency in our subject areas that inner logic needs to be verbalised and made explicit. This session will introduce the concept and provide some examples of how to reveal the inner logic.

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

Within every topic there are elements that are central to the topic but which students really struggle to understand. If they don’t develop an understanding they may never get the topic. This session will introduce and explain this concept and why we need to identify and focus on these concepts

The literature on teaching and learning continues to endorse the use of active learning and in-class discussions to develop understanding. In this session a few of the more frequently used in-class techniques will be demonstrated.

Having a good module structure and being well organised really helps students develop understanding. This session will explore this concept, provide examples of how to structure and organise a module.