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News and opportunities
Teaching in the round Q&A with practitioners from the USA
Last week, we held a hybrid event in the School of Education, with staff and students from two universities in the US about their experiences of teaching and learning in the round (using round lecture theatres).
More than 50 participants from Bristol, Oregon State, and California Riverside Universities took part in the event, expertly facilitated by our own Fiona Hartley.
Attendees in Bristol were able to ask questions to their counterparts in the US who passed on valuable tips and discussed how they have adapted their teaching to suit the new environment.
Image: A screenshot of the Teams meeting, featuring practitioners from the US and staff from Bristol
You can read a round-up of the event from Joe Gould, and if you missed the event, or would like to review it again, a recording of the session is now available via this Padlet, which summarises the key points and provides mini-bios of the US contributors, along with other useful links. We’d also love to hear your thoughts, comments and questions on this topic and you can add these in the final column on the padlet.
Change of date and venue for the Student Research Festival
Recently, we brought you news of this academic year’s Student Research Festival. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we’ve had to reschedule this event and it will now take place on 18 February, 2026 between 2 pm and 6 pm. The venue has also been switched from the previously advertised Wills Memorial Building to The Bill Brown Design Suite in Queens Building.
We’ve also extended the deadline to apply for the editorial boards by a week. The new deadline is now 19 January, 2026.
For more information about the festival (including how students can register), and the associated Student Research Journal, please visit our website.
The CREATE team are looking for new mentors
The CREATE Team are delighted to invite you to become part of our mentoring community by training to support participants on the Professional Standards Framework 2023 (PSF2023). Mentors play a vital role in guiding colleagues through their professional recognition journey, and we warmly welcome new voices and perspectives to join us. To express your interest in becoming a mentor, please complete this short form.
To prepare you for this exciting and varied role, we are offering two training dates:
- Monday 26 January 2026, 14.00 – 16.00, online via Teams
- Wednesday 28 January 2026, 10.00 – 12.00, online via Teams
To book your place at one of these training sessions, please complete this short form.
When you enrol on one of these sessions, you will be added to the Blackboard site for PSF2023 mentors, where you’ll gain access to pre-workshop materials to help you prepare.
Becoming a mentor offers a rich opportunity to develop your continuing professional development, strengthen your practice, and contribute to a vibrant community of practice focused on learning and teaching at Bristol. It’s also a rewarding way to support colleagues and make a meaningful contribution to the University’s educational environment. If you’re interested in joining us as a mentor, we would be delighted to welcome you. Please register for one of the dates above to get started! If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to create-asd@bristol.ac.uk.
New SharePoint Resource page: Shaping the Future at Temple Quarter
Since the last edition of the Briefing, BILT have held two more support events for colleagues who will be teaching at TQEC to help them with the transition to the new teaching spaces. As well as the Q&A session mentioned above, this week we worked with colleagues in the Faculty of Science and Engineering to discuss further ideas for active learning in the classroom.
To complement the University’s main TQEC SharePoint site, BILT have now added a resource hub, where we’ll continuously add resources as they become available to support colleagues teaching in the new Temple Quarter facilities.
A reminder that we’ll be hitting the ground running in the new year, with a Voice and Presence workshop on 6 January, focusing on skills for active and inclusive teaching. This is another interactive session hosted by Bristol Improv Theatre. If you’re unable to make the January date, the workshop will be repeated in April and June 2026. More information and links to register here.
The BILT Christmas Quiz
Last Christmas (avoiding Whamagedon) we introduced our ‘Think you know about BILT?’ quiz which proved so popular, we had to award two prizes. The quiz is back again for 2025, and once again we’ll be handing a shiny £10 Source voucher to the winning entry. We’ll also be handing out BILT pencils and bookmarks to randomly selected entries, as a small thank you for entering the quiz and supporting BILT.
BILT team members are welcome to enter but are banned from winning!! Huge thanks to BILT’s Joe ‘Comedy’ Gould for writing this year’s quiz.
If you’d like to take part in this fun multi-choice quiz, which should only take a couple of minutes you can enter here. You have the whole of the festive break to submit your entry.
We’ll announce the winner in the next edition of The Briefing in early January.
Thank you for supporting BILT in 2025
The BILT team would like to thank everyone who has supported us throughout this year by attending or presenting at one of our events, through other participation and support, or simply being a subscriber to this newsletter. We greatly value and appreciate your support. May we wish you and your family a peaceful festive break and a successful 2026.
We’ll be back in the new year, when your edition of the Briefing will arrive in your inbox every other Tuesday, instead of Friday, commencing on Tuesday 13 January.
Blogs and resources
- If I were in charge…
Inspired by Phil Race’s “If I were in charge…” blog, we asked our Student Fellows to come up three things they would change about university education if they had the power to. - The BILT Broadcast (podcast)
December’s BILT Broadcast is now available on SoundCloud. It’s the last podcast of the year and we’re wrapping up with a month-by-month review of the year, as well as sharing some of the exciting things we have coming in the new year!
Events
Visit the BILT events calendar for a full list of all our forthcoming events
Shaping the Future at Temple Quarter
Various dates and venues (next event 6 January)
BILT is running a series of events to support colleagues who will be teaching at Temple Quarter. The series began in October and will run until the summer of 2026. You can view the full list of events on our ‘Shaping the Future at Temple Quarter‘ webpage.
15 January, 2.15 – 5.30 pm, Wills Memorial Building, Great Hall
BILT warmly invites all PGR supervisors to our annual PGR Supervisor Symposium, focusing on effective supervision practices, innovation, and collaboration.
For more information and links to apply, please visit the event page.
Show Tell and Talk: ‘Generative AI’
28 January 1.30 – 3 pm, Room 2.26, 35 Berkeley Square
Our next Show Tell and Talk workshop takes place in January and places are filling up fast. This sharing innovations workshop will provide an opportunity to hear from a range of colleagues about how Generative AI is being embedded at UoB, why it is important and what Generative AI projects, supported by BILT, are being undertaken at the University. There will be an opportunity to ask questions and engage in discussion with colleagues.
For more information and links to register, please visit our event page.
The BILT Briefing is published and distributed fortnightly by The Bristol Institute of Learning and Teaching (BILT). If you no longer wish to receive a copy of The Briefing, please send an email to bilt-info@bristol.ac.uk from the address you are registered with, containing the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the title line.
