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News and opportunities
Bristol Teaching Awards – a record number of nominations received!
Thank you to everyone who nominated a member of staff or team as part of this year’s Bristol Teaching Awards. Once again, we have exceeded the previous record by a considerable margin. In total, we received 1,274 nominations, an increase of around 200 on last year, which was also a record, at the time.
The Award panels have already started the mammoth task of shortlisting the nominations and we will announce the final shortlist for each category week commencing 19 May.
The winners will be announced at a special celebration event in June. We’ll publish the results in the BILT Briefing on 13 June.
BILT annual conference – Education for a Changing World
We’ve updated our conference homepage with full details of our exciting programme for the all-day event on Wednesday 25 June in the Victoria Rooms.
Following your feedback from last year, we’ve reduced the number of parallel streams to three and the event is bookended with our two fabulous keynote presentations from Professor James Norman and Professor Anke Schwittay.
View the full programme and find out how to register for free here.
Insight & Innovations: Student led research event (EOI closing tonight – 11 April)
The Student Union are hosting an interactive research event on 10 June, where students can showcase their work, exchange ideas, and connect with peers and professionals across diverse disciplines. The SU are also looking for academic staff/professors to present their research in sessions of up to 30 minutes.
Tickets will be available in May and we’ll add this to our events section next month, but for now, if you know of any students/staff who may want to take part, please share this registration link with them asap, as the deadline for submitting an expression of interest is tonight (11 April).
Lecturer in Academic Practice – Inclusion – applications close 22 April 2025
We’re delighted to be advertising the above role which will be based in Bristol Institute for Learning and Teaching. The role, full time from August 2025, will contribute to the university’s activities to widen participation and to ensure all our students, whatever their background and characteristics can equally engage with and demonstrate their learning. All details can be found here.
Do you use GenAI in teaching or teaching support? Survey deadline extended!
We are inviting you to contribute to a BILT-funded Associate Research Project exploring the role of GenAI in teaching and assessment design. Please note that this survey is anonymous. You will have the option at the end of the survey to share your contact details if you wish to participate in a case study.
This project seeks to explore how AI can support teaching material development, its potential role in marking, assessment and feedback and best practices for classroom integration. It is hoped that this project will inform BILT’s future research themes and the University’s AI-related policies.
Deadline for the completion of the survey is 30 April 2025.
Please click here to complete the survey (estimated time 5-10 minutes).
If you have any questions, please contact: claire.hudson@bristol.ac.uk or sarah.zaghloul@bristol.ac.uk
Blogs and resources
- The importance of ‘personal’ in personal tutoring
Nienke Roberts looks at the relationships between students and their personal tutors, at Bristol, and how these relationships can help keep students engaged. - Embedding Education for Sustainable Development into higher education: a successful case study at the University of Bristol – Cabot Institute for the Environment blog
Events
School of CMM and School of Biochemistry Joint Seminar
Date: Thursday 24 April 2025, 1 pm – 2 pm, Lecture Theatre C42, Biomedical Sciences Building
Why does it matter where we teach from in medicine and higher education?
The global health knowledge economy is stacked in favour of scholarship from the Global North. We reproduce and amplify these consumption patterns in our curricula, further perpetuating an echo chamber effect that renders scholarship from the Global South largely invisible. Contemporary debates around decolonization seek to address this imbalance so that research and innovation from diverse regions of the world can be more fairly included in our learning and education. Focusing on global health innovation, in this session Dr Matthew Harris (Imperial College London) will explore these themes and share insights into a novel data analytics platform developed to review reading list diversity at pace and scale, exploring too the challenges, opportunities and pitfalls around decolonizing higher education.
Matthew Harris is a Clinical Reader in Public Health Innovation at Imperial College London; an honorary NHS Consultant in Public Health Medicine at Imperial College NHS Trust; and Director of Postgraduate Taught Programmes in the School of Public Health. He is the author of ‘Decolonizing Healthcare Innovation: low-cost solutions from low-income countries’ (Routledge, 2023); co-editor of the ‘Oxford Handbook of Healthcare Innovation’ (OUP, due 2025) and over 150 peer-reviewed publications in health services research, primary care and healthcare innovation.
Annual SWEETS 1-day Workshop
Date: Tuesday 13 May 2025, 10.45 am – 4 pm, University of Bristol
Registration Details: Registration form available here.
The annual SWEETS (Southwest Workshops in Economics Education, Teaching and Scholarship) workshop is a 1-day workshop held at a Southwest institution to provide a space to discuss new teaching ideas and find new collaborators for scholarship projects. The theme for the 2025 Workshop is The Future of the Economics Degree: Who? What? How? It will consider how we expect economics degrees to change in the coming years and how we will adapt our teaching to match. It will cover topics such as the role of data science in the curriculum, improving diversity and inclusion, and the changing physical or virtual taught environments.
BILT Show, Tell and Talk: Active and inclusive learning (2 workshops)
“Active learning engages students in the process of learning through activities and/or discussion in class, as opposed to passively listening to an expert. It emphasizes higher-order thinking and often involves group work” (Freeman et al., 2014). Research also demonstrates that active learning can allow students to take agency in their own learning (Harris et al, 2020); can involve working in diverse groups on community and global issues (Pasquerella 2022) and can narrow achievement gaps benefiting all students (Inside Higher Ed, 2022).
Our final Show, Tell and Talk event of the academic year takes place on Wednesday 21 May in Room 1.20, 35 Berkeley Square, and consists of:
1 pm: A curriculum design workshop (90 minutes) – Providing an opportunity to hear about University priorities related to the theme, give space to reflect and develop your learning and teaching practices whilst also providing tips and advice for implementation best practice in your work.
3 pm: A sharing innovations workshop (90 minutes) – Providing an opportunity to hear about a range of staff led projects take place across the University related to the theme. There will be an opportunity to share ideas, information and ask questions as well as an opportunity for informal discussions with colleagues.
Register for either, or both workshops here.
Programme Director Induction – June 2025
Various dates throughout June
The Programme Director Induction is a series of short workshops suitable for new Programme Directors or existing Programme Directors seeking a refresher.
The overall aims of the induction workshops are to:
- Introduce the key responsibilities of the role
- Explore how to fulfil the role sustainably and effectively
- Outline key resources and sources of support
Registration is now open for all workshops. We strongly recommend attending all three workshops, particularly if you are a new Programme Director. You can mix and match between online or in-person to suit your own schedule.
More details and registration links here.
Summer School on Experimental Methods for Scholarship Research
Dates: Monday 9 – Wednesday 11 June 2025, University of Southampton
Registration Details: Registration form available here.
This SWEETS workshop, in collaboration with C-BEAR and NCRM, is for anyone who wants to enhance their scholarship research portfolio by improving their understanding of experimental research methods. Participants will learn about how they can test and evidence impact of interventions in the classroom and translate this into scholarship publications. Experts sharing their knowledge include Fabio Aricio (UEA), Caroline Elliot (Warwick), Doug McKee (Cornell), Paolo Spada (Southampton) and Jadrian Wooten (Virginia Tech).
The BILT annual conference: Education for a Changing World
Date: Wednesday 25 June 2025, 9 am until 5 pm, Victoria Rooms
Higher Education (HE) is at a crossroads, navigating rapid technological advancements, evolving societal expectations, and increasingly diverse student needs. The conference, “Education for a changing world” invites staff and students to come together and explore innovative approaches to pedagogy that prepare students and institutions for the challenges and opportunities that face us both today and in the future.
The conference will address key questions, including:
- How can education embrace change and foster innovation?
- What strategies and practices can ensure teaching remains inclusive, sustainable, and impactful in an ever-evolving global landscape?
- How do we balance current good practice with innovation to meet the needs of tomorrow’s learners?
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