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News and opportunities
Student Research Festival – two weeks to go!
This event, themed on ‘Ethics, Impact and Innovation’ has a brilliant line up of student presentations, posters, two fantastic keynotes, stalls and – if that’s not enough to tempt you – FREE pizza for lunch.
The Festival is taking place on 30th January, between 9.45 am and 4.30 pm in the Global Lounge.
If your students are interested in research – either during their degree or looking to pursue it as a career – this event is unmissable!
Any student or member of staff is welcome to sign up. Sign up here.
View more information on our website.
Hackathon – calling all first year undergraduates!
We’re looking for 50 first-year undergraduates to join us for a hackathon during consolidation week (20th February), looking at transition to, and within, university. Students who take part will receive a free lunch, and a £50 Love2Shop vouchers.
This event kicks off a longitudinal research study, looking at a student’s entire journey throughout their degree. Students will meet with researchers for an hour-long focus group, every six months, to catch up on their experience. For each of these focus groups, students will receive a £20 voucher.
This study is open to all first year undergraduates – they can sign up here.
View more information on our website.
BILT Christmas Quiz winners
Congratulations to Martin Poulter and Mark Allinson for being our top-scorers in the BILT Christmas Quiz! A £10 Source card voucher is heading your way 🙂
Would you like to participate in a new and innovative 5-week course on financial well-being?
In collaboration with Hargreaves Lansdown, the University of Bristol’s Science of Happiness group have developed a bespoke course that combines weekly webinars delivered by experts from Hargreaves Lansdown, and weekly small group tutorials facilitated by trained student mentors, to provide students with key information to better understand and manage their present and future financial well-being.
Sign up now to develop and improve your financial well-being on this 5-week course. This course is mainly aimed at students, though staff are welcome to attend.
Contact: Dr. Greig Dickson, School of Psychological Science, greig.dickson@bristol.ac.uk
Further details
What? This course has been designed as an educational resource and space for students to learn about and discuss best practices for managing their financial well-being, putting in place plans to manage their financial well-being in the future, as well as to discuss concerns and issues that they may have with managing their financial well-being more generally. Through weekly webinars, and the additional option of attending weekly small group tutorials, we will cover a range of topics relating to financial well-being, including: controlling your debt, financial protection, rainy day savings, planning for later life, and investing to make more of your money. Our intention is that you will develop your knowledge of how to best manage your finances and financial well-being in the short and long term, where this course should serve you well for a variety of future financial and general well-being goals.
Why take part? Perhaps you feel as though financial concerns have a frequent and negative impact on your mental health and well-being? Or you may just be interested in learning how you could better manage your finances? Or you would like to meet fellow students to discuss financial well-being? Throughout the course, we will aim to help you with all of the above, and guide you in how to manage your financial well-being, both during your time at university and beyond.
Eligibility requirements: This course is open to all University of Bristol undergraduate and postgraduate students from any discipline.
Funded Fellowship Opportunity in Virtual Exchange: Applications for Fulbright Global Challenges Teaching Awards Open Now
The Fulbright Global Challenges Teaching Awards (GCTA) are now open for teaching faculty employed at UK universities who are interested in internationalising their teaching and developing new partnerships with the US by co-delivering a virtual exchange undergraduate module, based on a course they are already teaching. Selected grantees will be matched with a US counterpart and take part in a year-long programme to support the development and delivery of a virtual exchange partnership utilising the Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) model, with training and support from American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) Virtual Exchange/COIL Institute and the US-UK Fulbright Commission.
Further details
These awards aim to use innovative virtual pedagogies to bridge the gap created by traditional, in-person exchanges and study abroad. As we know, international education experiences can be transformative for students, yet they also face economic and environmental pressures and are not accessible to all students or their lecturers. We believe that through the Fulbright Global Challenges Teaching Awards, we can enable more students to access global experiences and cross-cultural exchange.
Applications are sought for courses that address the following global challenges:
The Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) pedagogy is well-suited for inter-disciplinary collaborations, so no matter your field, we encourage you to join us in addressing these challenges.
As part of the award, selected grantees and their institutions will receive:
- Honorarium: $7000/£5510 for each faculty awardee, paid in two instalments.
- Institutional Support Fee: $3000/£2360 for the awardee’s higher education institution, payable upon completion of the professional development programme.
- Travel Funding: for the awardee and a member of administrative staff to the US/UK to visit their partner institution, up to a value of $7500/£5900.
- Professional Development and Mentoring: Tailored COIL-modelled blended professional development and customized mentoring led by VE/COIL experts from AAC&U, designed for teaching faculty, instructional designers, and academic administrators.
This year’s application cycle is open as of 10 December 2024 and will close on 10 March 2025. Information on eligibility, the application process, timelines, and frequently asked questions can be found on our website here: https://fulbright.org.uk/our-programmes/fulbright-scholarships-to-the-uk/us-scholars/global-challenges-teaching-award-1/
If you are interested in learning more, you can access our most recent webinars below:
- Info Session for Faculty Instructors and Instructional Designers, Recording: https://bit.ly/3Wcd1JH, Slides: https://bit.ly/4jbzOzp
- Info Session for International Education and Academic Administrators, Recording: https://bit.ly/3BY79gp, Slides: https://bit.ly/40vqTQT
We are also hosting open office hours to answer questions about the application and award on 11th February and 13th February in a Zoom meeting format. Please register at https://bit.ly/GCTAOfficeHours to join us.
- Tuesday, February 11: 10-11 am ET / 3-4 pm UK Time
- Thursday, February 13: 12-1 pm ET / 5-6 pm UK Time
If you’d like to learn more about the awards from our alumni, please do take a look at the following resources:
“Improving intercultural competence through a combined virtual exchange and simulated pandemic response exercise.” 2024 article in Medical Education featuring the partnership between Prof. Jonathan Kennedy, Queen Mary, University of London (QMUL) and Prof. Jessie Dubreuil, University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC).
Fulbright Conversations Series Podcast
Climate Change and Climate Action with Sammie Buzzard and Staci Strobl
Teaching and Learning: Pandemics with Jessie Dubreuil and Jonathan Kennedy
Blogs and resources
Research into A.I.
Our Student Fellow, Esther Ng, has just completed her research looking into students’ perceptions and experiences of A.I. You can read all about it on this fantastic website. Please share this website with others you think may find this useful – an important read for anyone working with students!
Picture This… introducing the BILT scenario-based learning blog series
Our brand-new blog series, asking you – our readers – to contribute and discuss the tricky scenarios we’ll be posting relating to teaching and learning dilemmas. You can find the first two scenarios below – please take a read and leave a comment!
Check out the first post: Picture This: Scenario A and B
A note about comments: we’ve recently changed the site settings to make commenting on posts easier – your comment will be posted instantly, rather than waiting for us to moderate it.
BILT X SU Part 3: marking criteria and feedback event summary
Joe Gould has shared this event summary of a recent SU X BILT event that took place, looking at the power of sharing marking criteria and shares some top tips to try out with your students.
Events
Show, Tell and Talk
The series resumes next month with upcoming events looking at pedagogic research culture, research rich learning and teaching, active learning for large groups, and sustainability in the curriculum.
View all upcoming Show, Tell and Talk events.
Arts, crafts and assessment (and pizza!)
We’re looking for 8 students to take part in a creative expression research session, where they’ll be discussing and creating art that reflects their experiences of assessment, especially in relation to their agency and choice (or lack of).
This event has very limited spaces and takes place on Wednesday 22nd January.
It is open to all students, but places are on a first-come, first-serve basis. Sign up here.
Student Research Festival: 30th January
Please share this brilliant event with your students! Full details and sign up info available on our website.
If you’d like to include something in this Briefing, please contact bilt-info@bristol.ac.uk.
