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News and opportunities
Student Teaching Awards Shortlist Announced
We’re excited to announce that shortlisting for the 2026 Student Teaching Awards (STAs), co-hosted by the University Union and BILT, has now completed.
Based entirely on student nominations, the STAs are our annual awards celebrating the very best in teaching, support, and student experience. Over 600 nominations were received this year.
To view the shortlisted nominees in each category, visit our blog-page. We’d like to congratulate everyone who was nominated this year. The winners will be announced in The Briefing at the end of this month.
BILT Conference 2026 Keynote interviews (part one)
In the last edition of The Briefing, we launched our 2026 Conference, Student-Centred By Design. Thank you to everyone who has already registered, it’s already promising to be another very busy event. See link below if you haven’t secured your place yet.
Ahead of the conference, we sat down with our two keynote speakers to find out more about them and the research they are currently involved in, as well as their hopes for the future of HE.
First up, it’s ‘Pieces of a puzzle’, our chat with Dr Susan Kenyon, Principal Lecturer in Politics at Canterbury Christ Church University. Susan will be presenting our afternoon keynote: ‘Commuter students: an inclusive curriculum by design’.
Links:
- Read a transcript of the interview here
- Read Susan’s mini-bio and abstract for the keynote here
- Register for the conference here
Bonus Show, Tell and Talk in June
We held our final scheduled Show, Tell and Talk workshop of the academic year, last week; on inclusive assessment. Thank you to everyone who participated, either as a presenter or attendee.
Hot off the press, we’ve just arranged one more event before we break for the summer. Join us on 10 June for a special workshop aimed at staff preparing Blackboard Ultra unit courses for 2026/27 – Effective Practices in Blackboard Course Design.
Full details and link to register on the event page.
Improving Lives Through Research
We’re sharing this opportunity from The Student Union who will be hosting a student research showcase event on 29 May. Students are invited to submit proposals to present their work as posters.
More information on the Student Union flyer or contact bristolsu-insight@bristol.ac.uk.
Bristol Medical School offering online short courses
From the Bristol Medical School team:
In addition to our programme of live online short courses in research methodology, design and analysis in health science, we also offer 42 short courses as asynchronous Materials and Recordings. These are unlimited and offered free of charge to any UoB research staff and PGRs – they can self-enrol at any point in the year for immediate access to online course materials and recordings. It would be lovely to increase awareness of this resource, so if you could include the following copy in your next bulletin, we would be most grateful:
Bristol Medical School offer a range of live online short courses in research methodology, design and analysis in health science. To make our popular short course training materials more widely available, we are pleased to offer University of Bristol staff and postgraduate research students access to our online course materials and recordings. We now have a comprehensive programme of 42 Materials & Recordings (M&R) courses, ideal for self-paced learning, to dip into a new subject area or simply refresh your knowledge. You can self-enrol at any point in the year for immediate and ongoing access to course materials and recordings. Find out more and self-enrol here: Bristol Medical School Materials & Recordings.
Blogs and resources
- Handling rejection: what do we do when students baulk at AI integration
BILT’s Aisling Tierney on a recent JISC national community meet-up discussing the topic of AI rejection by students in their learning and assessments. - Decolonising AI
Concluding BILT Student Fellow, Gaurav Saxena’s series with 3 more blog posts discussing the urgent and ongoing conversation about resisting the coloniality of Generative AI. - Pedagogical Research Workshop
An update from the Pedagogic Research associate project team on the recent workshop ‘Developing a pedagogic research proposal’. - Inclusive Assessment and the Awarding Gap: Looking Beyond the ‘Silver Bullet’
BILT’s Fiona Hartley investigates differential outcomes in assessment using examples from current BILT-funded projects working in this area. - New Case Study Series: Education For Sustainability Development at The School of Medicine
The final case study in the series of 7, compiled by student sustainability advocate, Ritah Pavin Nakanjako (Cabot Institute for the Environment), looking at how sustainability is included in various programs across 7 schools.
Events
Visit the BILT events calendar for a full list of all our forthcoming events
Designing Active Learning – An introduction [in-person]
6 May @ 2:00 pm – 4.00 pm, Room 1.06 Queens Building
Active learning is fundamentally about student engagement and participation. It involves students going beyond passive listening in lectures or ‘sitting back and being fed information’ to ‘learning by doing’ and being agents of their own learning, for example through discussion, problem solving, role-play, and creating something new. This workshop facilitated by BILT will explore the active learning techniques for the classroom, as well as approaches to designing active learning curricula.
More info and link to register on the event page.
Supporting Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Schools [in-person]
7 May @ 12:00 pm – 1.30 pm, Room 3.30 Wills Memorial Building
How can your School champion the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and pedagogic research? How can SoTL help you enhance student learning, outcomes, and satisfaction? And how can you empower colleagues to get involved? Join us for an interactive session exploring how Schools can build vibrant, sustainable cultures of SoTL.
Full details can be found on this page.
Designing inclusive and active learning for all [in-person]
20 May @ 2:00 pm – 4.00 pm, Room 1.01 Howard House
Primarily aimed at Business School colleagues, but open to all. Through discussion, reflection, and hands-on activities, participants will:
Explore the principles of inclusive curriculum design and culturally responsive pedagogy. In today’s diverse higher education landscape, designing learning that is inclusive, engaging, and accessible to all students is more important than ever. This interactive workshop explores practical strategies for creating active learning environments that support the success of all learners, with a particular focus on international students.
Full details can be found on this page.
Education for Sustainability – End of Year Showcase [in-person]
27 May @ 12:30 pm – 2.00 pm, G1S Hepple Lecture Theatre
The Education for Sustainability team is excited to present this annual showcase, celebrating this years progress across the University.
We will share details of our successes and challenges over the past academic year. We also have presentations from our Student Sustainability Advocates about the exciting and varied projects they’ve been working on. Come join us to be inspired about Education for Sustainability and learn more about how to support your students with green careers.
Full details can be found on this page.
Programme Director Induction 2026
8 June @ 9:00 am – 5.00 pm, Room 4.10, 35 Berkeley Square
The Programme Director Induction is suitable for new Programme Directors or existing Programme Directors seeking a refresher. The workshops are collaboratively run by BILT, AQPO, and People Development with contributions from Faculty and experienced Programme Directors.
Full details can be found on this page.
Voice and Presence: skills for active and inclusive teaching [in-person]
9 June @10.00 am – 1.00 pm, Room G.12, Victoria Rooms
Following some hugely popular workshops earlier in the year, The Bristol Improv Theatre are back to repeat their Voice and Presence workshop, in June. They will explore tools from acting and public speaking to help practice engaging listeners. This includes practical techniques to train and strengthen your speaking voice, projection, warming-up, body language and using authenticity to tap into your inner charisma. Please note, these workshops are open to all but in the unlikely event they reach capacity, priority will be given to anyone teaching at TQEC.
Full details can be found on this 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.
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