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“Autistic students are more likely to experience poor mental health than their non-autistic peers, are more vulnerable to stressors within a university environment and often experience stigma from staff and fellow students. Despite these concerns, there is a lack of tailored support for them at university. In the current project, we co-designed a training course for university staff with a group of autistic students. In this presentation, we will discuss our approach to co-creation, the course content and the results of our evaluation with trainees.” 

Emma Jenks is a Lecturer within the School of Education, with a research interest in the lived experience of autistic and other neurodivergent people. 

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“In recent years, universities and publishers have made significant strides in promoting and addressing social issues in the classroom. However, the representation of topics of social controversy (Soley, 1996) or controversial topics (Stenhouse, 1987) in language learning materials, specifically in the case of Spanish as a Foreign Language (ELE), remains limited. To tackle these disparities more effectively in the classroom, it is crucial not only to understand our students’ perspectives but also to propose curriculum alternatives that create pedagogical situations addressing these issues in a comprehensive manner. This study presents students’ experiences regarding LGBTQ+ inclusion and feminist themes within university language curriculums and course materials. It also reflects on how these two subjects could be integrated into the Spanish curriculum at the university level, considering course, topic, and level, with an emphasis on encouraging critical analysis by students. To gather data, students were invited to anonymously complete a questionnaire, and language books were analysed. The results revealed that students find it pertinent for their materials to encompass a broad spectrum of relationships and lifestyles. 

Keywords: feminism, LGBTQ+, course materials, university, inclusion, equality” 

Paula Antela Costa has been a Teaching Associate in Spanish at the University of Bristol since September 2023. She previously worked as a Spanish Language tutor at other UK Institutions such as University of Liverpool and Royal Holloway University. Her main research interests are inclusion and diversity in the language classroom, decolonising the curriculum and the use of AI and digital literacy in the teaching of Spanish as a Second Language.

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“We aim to understand how to make our teaching and assessment more neuroinclusive. Recent changes to the criteria for a neurodiverse diagnosis has resulted in an increase in the number of diagnosed students, so it is vital that we better understand the needs of our students, to ensure a supported and enjoyable student journey for all. We are particularly interested in gaining a discipline-specific insight into how our practices affect neurodiverse students in their developing identities as scientists in the School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. This School-level analysis is something that has been identified by the Digital Education Office as a useful addition to the guideline support provided by the University. Following impactful discussions with Digital Education Developers, the Neurodiversity Staff Network and the Bristol University Neurodiversity Society (BUNS), we developed this project and have employed five student partners, who have lived experience of neurodiversity/neurodiversities, to review assessments, as well as teaching and learning materials in a Year 2 unit. Due to the complexity of neurodiversity, we want to understand different perceptions of the same teaching and learning materials to identify common themes, as well as the more nuanced differences, in student experience. Students will produce concise reports summarising their findings, highlighting areas of existing good practice, as well as identifying areas for improvement. We will then collate these findings to share with teaching staff, supporting them to make their teaching and assessment more neuroinclusive and the Digital Education Office, for wider dissemination. 

Initial findings have highlighted the vital importance of clear and concise language in assessments, and how the design of our materials, from handbooks and Blackboard sites, to lecture slides and lab books, can affect accessibility. In the context of practical work, the importance of including images in laboratory protocols and avoiding text-dense instructions was a common theme. Some students highlight that the need to multitask in the lab, working on multiple experiments at the same time, is challenging. Additionally, the importance of ensuring that guidelines for oral presentations are not biased towards neurotypical students, who may find the social aspects of presenting less challenging, was also raised. Results from this project will allow us to use the student voice to highlight key areas for development, allowing us to make our teaching and assessments more inclusive for neurodiverse students, as well as the wider student body.” 

Bronwen Burton is a teaching focussed Senior Lecturer in Immunology. She is the academic EDI lead for the School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and has worked on several projects to make teaching and learning more inclusive, including working with a team from across the Biomedical Sciences Schools to decolonise and diversify the curriculum. She is also currently working with Dr Caroline McKinnon and the Inclusive Research Collective on the BILT-funded ‘Neuroinclusive teaching, learning and assessment’ project. 

Caroline McKinnon joined the University as a Senior Research Associate within the School of Biochemistry. During her time as EDI Lead for the School of Biochemistry, and the Faculty of Life Sciences, Caroline co-founded the Inclusive Research Collective, which serves to promote an inclusive and diverse academic environment. Caroline joined the central EDI Team in April 2022, where she is currently the Deputy Head of EDI (Equity & Partnerships). 

Oliwia Jachowicz is an undergraduate student studying Medical Microbiology (BSc) .

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“Neurodiversity can manifest in many different ways. One issue that many neurodivergent individuals face is hypersensitivity to sensory stimuli including auditory stimuli where decreased sound tolerance that can lead to disabling features, including inability to concentrate to overt pain. The underlying causes of auditory hypersensitivity in neurodiverse individuals are poorly understood and it is likely that there is no one cause.  There is an increasing interest in designing spaces for a neurodiverse population with the understanding that a good environment for the neurodivergent will be a good environment for all, including the auditory environment. Within the University, there are many areas where buildings are being refurbished. However, how much does the auditory environment and its effect on some members of our community impact on the design or redesign criteria of these spaces? In this project third year neuroscience and biomedical sciences undergraduates identified and collaborated with stakeholders to understand the issues that the university environment, for example lecture theatres and foyers, raised for some individuals.  

The students then created a presentation aimed at those involved in decision making regarding building design to raise awareness of the criteria that should be included in those decisions, based on an understanding of the experience of neurodivergent students within the university environment. In this project the students had agency in seeking out the relevant stakeholders and creating partnerships to design their resource. In presenting this to members of staff they were highlighting design for inclusion, which is only going to gain in importance as numbers of students with learning differences entering higher education increases across the sector.” 

Dr Dawn Davies is an Associate Professor in Physiology Pharmacology and Neuroscience. She has an interest in widening participation both in terms of access to higher education and to student success whilst at university and beyond. She has been part of a team developing different types of undergraduate projects and this presentation demonstrates a continuing interest in project development and a more recent interest in neurodiversity in the university environment. 

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“Teaching programmes across the School for Policy Studies (SPS) engage students with content which may be traumatic and sensitive. At present, the standard approach across the sector is to ‘warn’ students about such content. In SPS, each staff member takes responsibility for this, and so different approaches are being used across programmes and units. The use of content warnings is not, however, straightforward with concerns raised about whether such practices could censor staff and students. Furthermore, research evidence suggests that trigger warnings may exacerbate, not prevent, distress (Bridgland et al. 2022). 

This research project aimed to find out how students and staff in SPS engage with and use content warnings, as well as understood and explore the experiences of wellbeing staff. This paper will provide an overview of the study’s key findings. This will include data from staff and student questionnaires, and findings from focus groups with both wellbeing professionals and students. 

In presenting the paper, we will make suggestions for future pedagogic practice in the field as well as highlight some of the key challenges and tensions involved in ‘content’ warnings.” 

Jessica Roy is a senior lecturer in child and family welfare 

Beth Stone is a lecturer in childhood studies and criminology 

Jenny Thwaites is a student wellbeing adviser 

Evanthia Triantafyllidou is a PhD student and a research associate for this project 

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“The presentation will discuss the benefits of giving international foundation students a choice in their assessment topics by drawing on student evaluations of this learning experience.  It will focus on one of the final assessments of the International Foundation Programme, which requires students to write an IMRD report based on primary and secondary research on a topic of their choice from one of their subject units on the IFP, which is therefore related to their UG discipline.  Although the students who take this unit (Accelerated Language and Literacy) generally have a good level of English (IELTS 7 or higher), the freedom to choose their own research question, select their own sources and design their own questionnaires is cognitively challenging, particularly considering these students have only recently been introduced to the concept of academic research. 

As these level 3 students are in a period of transition, adjusting to a new culture, academic context and the demands of studying in a different language, educators often simplify assessment tasks, prioritising affective needs at the expense of their cognitive needs, a phenomenon which has been described by Hatch (1992, p. 67) as “the benevolent conspiracy” as it is born out of well-meaning.  However, the student voice on this assessment experience was strongly in favour of the freedom to create their own research questions, despite the higher cognitive demands.  

From a tutor’s perspective, it became clear that both affective and cognitive needs could be accommodated, through careful scaffolding of classroom activities and by fostering peer-to-peer support.  Peer review became a central part of the workshops, where students would evaluate and give each other feedback on their research questions, choice of secondary sources and drafts of the IMRD reports.  They also worked together to pilot and improve their questionnaires.  As a result, I was able to reduce my own support and adopt the role of ‘guide on the side’, allowing them to take ownership of the process.   

Overall, the students said they felt motivated by this assessment task because they had chosen topics that they genuinely wanted to investigate, as well as developing research skills that would be useful for their undergraduate programme.  This shows that it is possible to design assessments that strike the right balance between affective and cognitive needs of IFP students and prepare them more adequately for UG level. 

Hatch, E. (1992). Discourse and language education. New York: Cambridge University Press. ” 

Catriona Johnson works part-time as an EAP Tutor at the Centre for Academic Language and part-time as a Lecturer in Academic Development at BILT.  Her areas of interest include developing student feedback literacy through peer review and inclusive approaches to teaching and learning. 

“Economics degrees increasingly require the delivery of programming and software skills such as Python, R, Stata and Excel, within modules such as Econometrics or Economic Data. These are often taught in large lab environments where front led teaching can be difficult to conduct effectively. In this paper we consider an alternate delivery mode through the use of carefully designed bespoke cheat sheets in a pair programming-based series of workshops. This combination creates a supportive and highly social environment in which students are able to make substantial progress with increasing independence from the instructor, alongside developing vital employability skills for industry. 

In 2023 we piloted a successful data visualisation workshop with cheat sheets and pair programming at the centre of the event. Over five days, students work together to progress from basic arithmetic commands all the way through to independently downloading data sets and visualising them using Python in Google Colab. The 2023 event was a great success, but while the role of pair programming is better understood (and widely applied in industries such as software development), the use and efficacy of cheat sheets is less clear. In March 2024 we will run and analyse a new large scale (100 person) iteration of this event and randomly assign students to two versions of the workshop in order to (i) determine optimal design of cheat sheets, carefully tailored to the activities learning objectives and (ii) measure the effect on students’ learning. To achieve this, we will assess students’ understanding at 5 stages across the event, complemented by extensive qualitative feedback on students’ perception of the experience. Our analysis of this extra-curricular event (combined with the results from 2023) can then be applied to inform the design and use of cheat sheets within the curriculum and improve learning in large lab courses.” 

Annika is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Economics, specialising in Economics Education. She is also an Associate of the Centre for Teaching and Learning of Economics (CTaLE) at UCL, where she works in training professional graduate economists for regulators, and an Associate of the Economics Network. Alongside winning education awards at Royal Holloway and UCL, in 2021 she was awarded a Special Commendation for Contributions to Teaching and Learning in the Pandemic by the Economics Network. Her research background is in microeconomic theory and the design of markets for goods which can’t legally be traded for money, including university places and human organs. 

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“Research shows there are differences in home and international students’ engagement in group work. As a BPS accredited degree, a core part of UOB’s Psychology’s curriculum includes group work. This is currently achieved through laboratory classes in Psychological Research Methods (Y1 and Y2) and the dissertation (Y3). In groups of 5 or 6, students will engage in complex decision making and teamwork and need to be able to communicate effectively with each other both in and outside of class.  Therefore, it is imperative that we understand international students experience of this key requirement (and significant proportion) of their degree. We have conducted focus groups throughout the year investigating international students of labs and will be thematically analysing this.”  

Polly Barr mini-bio: My pedagogical interests include cognitive learning theory including whether dual media (captioning) improves outcomes, whether student learning and consumer attitudes affect outcomes and international student experience. I am the departments decolonisation lead so as well as cocreation with students a more decolonised and inclusive curriculum I am passionate about improving visibility. My research interests stem from language production. I’m interested in the representation of monolingual and bilingual language production and cognitive control associated with and extended beyond language. I investigate this in a variety of ways; cognitive neuropsychology, intervention studies with acquired language deficits, developmental disorders, Aging populations, psycholinguistics, mouse tracking and EEG. I am also interested in how bilingualism affects the onset and decline of dementia. I current teach the practical side of higher research methods. 

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“Our presentation will share findings from the BILT Associate project that sought to gather both educator and learner perspectives on the classroom experience of international students at the University of Bristol.  These perspectives were gathered through interviews with academics, classroom observations and student focus groups in the following Schools:  Education; Engineering (in particular, the School of Electrical, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering); Social Policy; and Veterinary Science.  Through triangulation of this data, the project team aims to produce evidence-based guidance for academics at the university on how to enhance the experience of international students.  

One of the aims of the interviews with senior academics was to explore effective strategies for overcoming some of the key challenges of teaching international students, so that these success stories could be shared more widely across the university community.  Three main themes were selected to structure these conversations: 

-Didactics (Pedagogy): effective teaching practices 

-Language: strategies for assessing and developing language competencies 

-Intercultural competence: ways of creating inclusive and democratic classrooms 

This framework was inspired by Lauridsen’s (2015) description of the ‘Bermuda Triangle’ that was created when educators and students were unable to resolve the complex set of relationships in international classrooms between the didactics or pedagogy, language usage and (inter)cultural influences. At the centre of this didactics/language/culture triangle lies the transmission and co-creation of knowledge in disciplinary contexts. By investigating these three ‘variables’ we hope to create guidance for more inclusive practice for all students and all educators in international classrooms. 

The presentation will expand on these three areas, as well as exploring some of the sub-themes that emerge from the analysis of the data.  We hope that many of these themes and sub-themes will be relevant to a range of Schools across the university and that our findings will provide insight into how international students interact with course design, classroom tasks, their teachers and each other, in the learning process.  

Lauridsen, K. M. 2015.  Caught in the Bermuda Triangle; how can we help? Presentation at the NFEAP conference 2015. https://pure.au.dk/portal/files/90136586/Caught_in_the_Bermuda_Triangle_how_can_we_help_….pdf ” 

Maria Tsapali is a lecturer in Psychology of Education at the School of Education at the University of Bristol. Maria’s research interests include designing learning environments to promote conceptual and procedural understanding of science concepts, phenomena and skills and utilising cognitive science and neuroscience to improve educational practice, especially in the primary school years. 

Kevin Haines: As Deputy Director at the Centre for Academic Language and Development (CALD) at the University of Bristol, I am primarily responsible for the Centre’s pre-sessional provision for taught post-graduate students. I also lead our Research & Publications Community of Practice, empowering teachers to develop as practitioner researchers. Previously, I was Senior Curriculum Developer for International Classrooms at the University of Groningen (NL), working with academic staff and students across the university on the development and implementation of quality in international classrooms. Between 2016 and 2019 I was Academic Lead for the EQUiiP Erasmus+ project (www.equiip.eu), a partnership across six European countries (www.equiip.eu) producing resources which support lecturers in international programmes. My work is guided by a belief that diversity is a resource for learning in higher education, and my purpose is to ensure that its potential is realised to the benefit of all. 

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“This presentation explores issues of agency, empowerment and co-creation by focusing on the design and execution of an honours-level interdisciplinary unit on utopias and utopianism, “Utopia: Text, Theory, Practice,” which ran for five years at my former institution. This unit, which recently won the 2023 Kenneth M. Roemer award for innovative course design in utopian studies, deployed a research-based and inquiry-led pedagogy which centred students as collaborative co-producers of knowledge. In brief, the unit was designed around set problems rather than set texts: either those identified and explored in different utopian projects, or those that are implicit in them. Each week, seminar preparation involved a blend of directed learning and required independent research on the set problem. Then in class students worked in small groups to share what they had learnt, critically assess their discoveries, synthesise their research and produce a collaborative response to the week’s set problem, which formed the basis of plenary discussion. 
 
The unit took students seriously as undergraduate researchers: the teaching-research nexus went beyond research-led teaching to position students as researchers in their own right and to support their growth as such. This was achieved through an aligned approach in which seminar preparation, classroom activities and assessment were designed to develop an interdisciplinary research-based skillset. The unit’s three assessments focused on different parts of the inquiry process, with the final assessment most closely modelling the process of academic research in the arts, humanities and social sciences. 
 
The emphasis on student research centred students as co-producers of knowledge, gave them ownership over their learning and allowed them to engage with their education in ways that were meaningful both academically and personally. The guiding principle was that when the whole class engages in robust, active research, the cumulative output supersedes what could be learned individually. Agency was conferred in several ways. First, the weekly schedule was devised in consultation with each cohort of students and so changed from year to year. This allowed each cohort to pursue their collective interests flexibly and responsively. Second, the curriculum was structured to build knowledge and understanding progressively over the course of the unit but was “open” in the sense that it was determined in large part by the research undertaken by students. Third, assessments allowed students to pursue aspects of utopianism that mattered to them and to make decisions about methodology and mode of dissemination as well as content. Agency enhances engagement but also has important equity implications. All students were able to express themselves – at least some of the time – in a format of their choosing. All students were able to focus on ideas, people and movements that they were motivated to learn about; the curriculum was not limited by my own personal knowledge. In each iteration of the unit, students brought examples, ideas and scholarship previously unknown to me, which made for a vibrant and diverse learning experience.” 

Dr Kirsten Harris is a Lecturer and Director of Teaching in Liberal Arts. Her research spans three interconnected areas: Walt Whitman’s British readerships, C19 socialism and transdisciplinary utopian studies. Her first book, Walt Whitman and British Socialism: The Love of Comrades, was published in 2016. She is the managing editor of Utopian Studies. She has held administrative roles with programme-level responsibility for teaching and learning at the University of Bristol and, previously, the University of Warwick. With a long-standing interest in and commitment to educational justice, she has led on equity and inclusion work in areas such as widening participation, transition to university studies, engagement and belonging, and inclusive and accessible teaching and learning. 

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“In higher education, longstanding drives to foster undergraduate research initiatives can contribute to curricular and pedagogical decision making (Brew 2013; Healey and Jenkins 2009). Similarly, a long history of initiatives has encouraged students to become active partners in rethinking the university more radically, such as through the ‘Students as Producers’ programme (see Neary et al. 2014).  More recently, this has involved working with (or consulting) students on ways to decolonise universities, including the curriculum (Motala, Sayed, and de Kock 2021; Meda 2020; Laing 2021). Our approach has been to work with students as co-researchers, researching their own experiences of teaching, learning in higher education, rather than as partners or consultants. 

The paper will draw on our experiences of working with undergraduate students on several projects that have employed co-researcher models, most notably and recently an international UKRI funded project called SARiHE involving 65 students, studying STEM and Humanities subjects and all from rural backgrounds in South Africa.    Students researched their own lives and the university context – including transitions to university, support they received once there and the teaching, learning and assessment practices experienced. We also worked with them to consider how universities could address the challenges to become more inclusive in their curricula and take more account of the experiences and contexts of students from a wide range of backgrounds.  

We begin by introducing the SARiHE project and highlighting our experiences of co-researching with undergraduate students and the steps involved including research methods, ethics, planning involved, and challenges encountered.  We then discuss some of the key principles that can be extrapolated to any context. These will include how to maximise opportunities for student agency and involvement in research, the key pitfalls and challenges that need to be understood and addressed and some of the more practical issues that need to be accounted for in working with students as co-researchers. Particular emphasis will be placed on the curriculum and how co-researching with students can enable deeper insight into the importance of ensuring that they can recognise themselves and their own experiences in curricula.  Achieving this insight necessitates clear acknowledgement of the cultural mediation of learning, teaching and assessment practices and redesigning them to facilitate inclusivity as well as the importance of ensuring a plurality of knowledges in curriculum content (see, for example, de Sousa Santos, 2014).    

A short research report will be available to delegates, and we will also draw on our recent book Rural Transitions to Higher Education in South Africa: Decolonial Perspectives was published by Routledge (2022).  We will also introduce participants to our recent podcast series – Students as co-researchers and storytellers: decolonial approaches.

Selected recent publications

Trahar, S. (2023) Attempts to disrupt whiteness in the academy: an autoethnographic exploration.  Philosophy and Theory in Higher Education Special Issue Coloniality and Whiteness in the Academy 5 (3) 449 -468 https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/plg/ptihe/2023/00000005/00000003/art00003

Montgomery, C. & Trahar, S. (2023) Learning to unlearn: exploring the relationship between internationalisation and decolonial agendas in higher education.  Higher Education Research and Development 42 (5) 1057-1070 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07294360.2023.2194054

Trahar, S. (2023) Slipping and sliding: Autoethnographc reflections on supervising, examining and evaluating autoethnography in E.A.Anteliz, D.L.Mulligan & P.A. Danaher (eds.) The Routledge International Handbook of Autoethnography in Educational Research.  Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge https://www.routledge.com/The-Routledge-International-Handbook-of-Autoethnography-in-Educational/Anteliz-Mulligan-Danaher/p/book/9781032119922  

Timmis, S., de Wet, T., Naidoo, K., Trahar, S., Lucas, L., Mgqwashu, E.M., Muhuro, P., Wisker, G. (2022) Rural Transitions to Higher Education in South Africa: Decolonial Perspectives. Abingdon, Oxon, Routledge https://www.routledge.com/Rural-Transitions-to-Higher-Education-in-South-Africa-Decolonial-Perspectives/Timmis-Wet-Naidoo-Trahar-Lucas-Mgqwashu-Muhuro-Wisker/p/book/9780367405236

https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ibali123/episodes/Decoloniality–Co-researching-and-Storytelling-Part-1-e2b1ivm  “

Sue Timmis is Associate Professor in Education at the School of Education. She has taught, researched and published widely on students’ lived experiences of higher education, in relation to widening participation, decolonisation, learning and teaching, student agency and social justice. She has pioneered working with students as co-researchers to research their own learning lives across many national and international contexts and to inform policy and practice in higher education. She was Principal Investigator on the ESRC/ Newton project – Southern African Rurality in Higher Education (SARiHE) with South African and UK partners. The research investigated how students from rural areas in South Africa negotiate the transition to higher education and how they are shaped by their cultures, home, school and community. In 2022, she undertook an international literature review on social and digital inequalities in higher education during the Covid-19 pandemic funded by the Worldwide Universities Network. 

Sheila Trahar is Professor Emerita of International Higher Education, School of Education. The interdependent concepts of internationalisation of higher education and of social justice in higher education have long been the focus of her intellectual scholarship and her work is innovative for its use of narrative inquiry and autoethnography.  Currently, Sheila is involved in CREATE as a mentor and assessor and works on a BILT funded project with colleagues from the School of Electrical, Electronic and Mechanical Engineering.  She was a co-investigator on the ESRC/Newton Fund Southern African Rurality into Higher Education (SARiHE) project that investigated, with three South African universities, the transition of students from rural areas of South Africa into higher education.  Sheila is an Associate Editor of Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) and was a co-editor of Compare from 2016 – 2022. 

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“In this paper I ask questions of the extent to which co-creation on a unit can lead to a more diverse or narrower set of views and positions being engaged, and the epistemological terms of this engagement, and the effects this can have on students’ appreciation of a topic and the development of their own positions. It does so through reflection of teaching a 3rd year UG unit on religion and politics. In relation to the notion of recognition for multicultural education, it raises questions about what a critical pedagogy oriented towards social justice requires when there are tensions between different sets of freedoms and equalities.” 

Thomas Sealy is Lecturer in Ethnicity and Race in the School of Sociology, Politics and International Studies (SPAIS) at the University of Bristol. His research and teaching interests include ethnicity and racism, religion and politics, and multiculturalism. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, convenes and teaches on undergraduate units at all levels on topics including global sociology and religion and politics, and is particularly interested in pedagogic ideas around multiculturalism, recognition and epistemological pluralism. He convenes the Pedagogy Research Study Group in SPAIS.  

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“In 2023-2024, we designed AI playgrounds for students taking the third-year unit Philosopher Queens. This unit centres around the exclusion of women and minoritized individuals from the discipline of philosophy. The AI workshops allowed the students to a) learn how large language models and image creation models work, b) have a go at using these with a mix of directed and self-directed prompts, and c) explore how and why AI reflects societal biases. 

In this workshop, we will explain what we did and why, but more importantly allow the audience to have a go at using AI tools themselves (both text and image based), using some of the prompts from Philosopher Queens but leaving space to explore prompts that might be more relevant to their own discipline. We will then show examples of what we found in Philosopher Queens and allow the participants to share their own findings. We will build in discussion time on how participants might integrate AI playgrounds into their own teaching.” 

Presenting team: 

Alix Dietzel, Senior Lecturer in SPAIS, climate justice expert teaches Philosopher Queens (3rd years) and Global Justice (2nd years), has won several teaching awards and is an innovate teacher. 

Beckie Arden, Study Skills Tutor, supports students across the University to develop their study skills, including academic writing, independent learning, managing time, revision skills, etc. 

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“Anatomy is core knowledge in veterinary medicine, but it can be difficult for students to fully comprehend complex 3D spatial relationships between organs and body systems from 2D resources. Recent specialised literature provides strong evidence on the efficacy of 3D digital models for enhancing veterinary anatomy education. 

This is a collaboration project between the School of Anatomy, Bristol Veterinary School and the Digital Education Office building on the work undertaken by Dr Augusto Coppi to use 3D modelling techniques to enhance student learning and understanding of the clinically relevant anatomy of various animal species. 

Utilising the camera function of modern smartphones and a 3rd Party App Polycam students created digital 3D models of a number of anatomical specimens which were then stored on their devices and could be viewed and used as a learning resources. 

The resources created provided the students with a unique opportunity to view real anatomical specimens from the lab in great detail, allowing them to move around the specimen and zoom in and out, and focus on the clinically relevant anatomical features as if they were still in the anatomy dissecting room. 

During this workshop we will look at the evolution of the use of 3D models for anatomy education and have time to look at and use the App to create digital models. 

The goal of this workshop is to analyse the potential benefits and limitations of supplementing traditional curricula with interactive 3D digital anatomical models.  Additionally, challenges and barriers to implementing 3D digital anatomy education will be discussed. Participants of the workshop will also have the opportunity of creating some 3D digital anatomical models for teaching by scanning some anatomical specimens available on the day. This workshop also aims at providing a comprehensive and critical overview of the current advances on the field, serving as a valuable resource for anatomy educators. It also has the potential to inform future curriculum development, reviews and innovations to improve the delivery of anatomy education. 

Pre-requisite – if you have time, please can you install polycam on your smartphone prior to the session” 

Augusto Coppi – Senior Lecturer in Veterinary Anatomy, School of Anatomy at the University of Bristol (UK). Dr Augusto Coppi is a veterinarian and a veterinary anatomist with a Master and PhD and post-doctorates specifically in Veterinary Anatomy. For the past 34 years Augusto has been teaching all animal body systems and subspecialties of Veterinary Anatomy in an integrated manner, i.e. Structure and Function, Applied and Comparative Anatomy, Histology and Physiology (from Mammals to Exotic animals including amphibians, fish, reptiles, birds and small rodents), Practical, Living, Clinical and Imaging Anatomy and also Surgical, Sectional, Developmental, Topographical, Functional and 3D Anatomy to Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate students and also to Anatomy undergraduates BSc, Master (MSc) and PhD students. 

He is fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) and coordinates a plethora of veterinary anatomy education projects. Augusto is also involved in training other national and overseas academics. 

Pete Herbert – Senior Digital Education Developer based within the Digital Education Office. Pete is the Service Manager for the RePlay Service and has an interest as working with students to as co-creators and exploring assessment methods using video and audio.

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“Second year Physical Geography students have the opportunity to work with real world organisations to answer soil and water related questions as part of their curriculum.  Students spend the first term learning lab techniques.  Questions are posed by organisations interested in solving issues or looking to improve their sites and students work with them over the second term.  This presentation will explore the impact on this community engaged learning activity on students, partners and the University.” 

Ros Death is a senior lecturer at the School of Geographical sciences who is focused on the promotion of inclusivity for our students, both in practice and in pedagogic research. Her interests include the role of community engagement in collaborative learning for students where they are able to work with authentic data from the surrounding area of Bristol, as well as the development of protocols that enable all our students to access the laboratory and field spaces that are important for a Geography degree. 

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“What challenges have you faced leading group assessments? Engagement, inclusivity, communication and unequal contribution are just a few common issues every lecturer faces. Working in groups and being able to develop high-performing teams is a core tenet within the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s pedagogy, but group work is not without its challenges. Utilising Equity Share, the Centre gives ownership of team engagement and performance to the student. After seven years of using Equity Share, the Centre is revisiting the first principles of the system and exploring how we assess teamwork and collaboration differently – creating an evidence-based system designed to value diversity and improve inclusivity. 

In this presentation, explore with Peter Bartlett, Centre Education Director and Senior Lecturer in Design Thinking, how the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship’s Educational Team utilised the Design Thinking Process to engage students, professional services, and the teaching staff in the co-creation process. After learning the principles embodied in the original Equity Share, attendees will learn how the Discovery process leveraged student feedback (i.e. SSLC and Blue Reports), collaborative workshops, and user interviews to identify pain points and problems in the current Equity Share process for all stakeholders. In the Define phase, see then how the Educational Team took those insights and themes to define key opportunity areas and reframe the challenge. In the Develop and Deliver phases, learn how the team ideated and piloted various concepts to explore various What If scenarios to converge on Equity Share 2.0.   

Next, Peter details the impact Equity Share 2.0’s pilot has already made. Where has Equity Share evolved? What elements did the stakeholders feel needed to remain? Equity Share 2.0 shifts from a metaphor of ‘business ownership’ and ‘equity’ to a focus on equitable engagement, evidence-based contribution, and support for all students. See how the Centre utilises tools like Microsoft Forms to monitor weekly engagement – having students log key contributions, rate their team’s performance, and safely voice concerns and ask for help. Discover how changes in the assessment brief are necessary to support the changes to Equity Share including the introduction of a team biography framework and utilisation of industry-standard project planning tools. 

Finally, let’s talk next steps in group assessment. Where does the Centre feel it needs to further improve? How might we introduce more elements of collaboration and high-performing teams in the curriculum – especially early in the student experience? What issues have we missed? And finally, have your voice heard – with all the changes to Equity Share, Equity Share 2.0 needs a new name. What would you name it?”  

Peter Bartlett mini-bio: Having led billion-dollar worldwide product launches, advised successful start-ups, and driven human-centred innovation for industry leaders including Hewlett-Packard, Huntington National Bank, ACCO Brands – Peter Bartlett (FHEA, M. Ed., BSc Industry Design), Centre Education Director and Senior Lecturer in Design Thinking, delivers award-winning design strategy, creative leadership, and innovation higher-education. Peter’s academic career stretches across two decades and three top-ranked, innovation and research universities – the University of Bristol, the University of Cincinnati, and Savannah College of Art and Design. 

VIEW PRESENTATION

“The Aegis Professor Undergraduate Competition is an innovative scheme designed to provide a unique opportunity for all science and engineering undergraduates to experience how scientific research ideas can be commercialised. It encourages them to develop ideas outside their traditional academic sphere, putting their academic skills into practice. The competition is co-created with student representatives to develop and refine the approach each year to ensure it meets their needs and adds value to their student experience. The Aegis Professors bring expertise from outside of academia and represent a diverse range of organisations from small start-ups, government, to international industries. Now in its second year, the competition, led by the Science Partnership Office, works in close partnership with the science and engineering student societies, the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, science and engineering academics and is recognised by The Bristol PLUS Award. Students select their favourite scientific/engineering challenges, proposed by academics and the Aegis Professors, and work in multidisciplinary teams over the summer. They present their work to the Aegis Professors at a Celebration Day in September with the opportunity to win up to £5000.  

The student participants benefit from a training workshop in innovation, ideas generation and team working as well as online training on producing effective presentations and posters. Integral to the competition is mentorship from the challenge proposers and past student competitors, and the need for inclusivity ensuring this competition is open to all. In its first year, the competition received fantastic positive feedback where the students “appreciated the chance to network with [the Aegis] professors” and “learned new skills, like presenting and creating informative posters”. For some, they were exposed to new ways of working: “The innovation workshop in June was inspiring – I hadn’t considered working in innovation before.” Others highlighted how it gave them the opportunity to “Work with new people and developing an idea as far as they could” and allowed them to “have a task which was outside of the normal academic sphere and being able to work open-ended on something they were deeply passionate about”. Importantly, “It really felt like the work the students had done was being valued and rewarded!” Indeed, the 2023 winners have used the prize money to take their idea forward setting up a company centred on sustainable fashion!  

The participating teams were invited post-competition to “experience days” hosted by the Aegis Professors organisations where they could see science and engineering in action. These unique visits opened their eyes to how their degree subjects could be used in the future: “The knowledge and insight provided by the people at the Met Office was extremely helpful. I enjoyed picking their brains…regarding a future career in this area” and “It was an incredible opportunity to visit a company at the forefront of advanced ceramics research…it has opened my eyes to the amazing opportunities in materials science.” A three-fold increase in expression of interest to enrol this year only demonstrates the added value this scheme brings to the student education experience.” 

Emma is an Associate in the Science Partnership Office (SPO) in The Faculty of Science and Engineering. Following a PhD in palaeoclimate science, she worked as a senior research associate at the University of Bristol on understanding past warm climates for 8 years. Emma taught on a number of Undergraduate and master’s courses and co-supervised several undergraduate and postgraduate projects. More recently, and before joining the SPO she managed the Met Office Academic Partnership. Alongside team members, Emma has led the development of the Aegis Professor Undergraduate Competition and is passionate about adding value of the student experience. Anne leads the Science Partnership Office in the Faculty of Science and Engineering. Following a PhD and post doc working on horizontal gene transfer, Anne moved into the biotech business and joined AstraZeneca in the 90s to lead work on gene identification and variation. Anne has a passion for working at the boundaries between academia and business, grounded in the belief that science is a team game. 

VIEW PRESENTATION

“Amidst the pressing climate emergency and biodiversity loss, alongside a MetaMedia environment rife with misinformation, the need to communicate science effectively has never been more critical. Yet, the challenge of engaging the public on controversial or emotionally charged topics carries a significant emotional burden for both the audience and the communicator, highlighting the need for strategies that are not only informative but also empathetic and supportive. 

The ‘Resilient Communicator’ unit, part of the new MSc in Science Communication for a Better Planet at the School of Biological Sciences, utilises innovative approaches to teaching that empowers our students in their own learning. This unit bridges the gap between science communication with personal development, challenging conventional education paradigms by integrating well-being, resilience training, and critical reflection directly into the curriculum. 

Through a combination of retreats, workshops, and collaborative projects, students engage in inward-facing exploration and outward creative expression, developing tools to better understand themselves as individuals, manage their eco-anxiety and eco-grief, and engage diverse audiences with these challenging concepts. This approach not only enhances their scientific communication skills but also cultivates adaptable, mindful individuals prepared for the complexities of modern challenges. 

In this presentation we will highlight how the ‘Resilient Communicator’ unit showcases the benefits of integrating reflection within teaching and curriculum design to meet the grand challenges of society, making it a pertinent contribution to the discourse on engaging student populations in meaningful, transformative learning experiences.” 

Emily is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences with a behavioural ecology background studying the evolution of social behaviour in wasps.  As the Senior Tutor in her School Emily also has a keen interest in researching, supporting, and improving student experience and wellbeing. As part of this, she started the CafeBio Initiative, was the joint lead in creating the Life Science Allotment and sits on the University’s Wellbeing and Mental Health Steering Group. Emily has been pursuing her pedagogic research interests in the areas of supporting students’ transitions into and throughout higher education and embedding reflection into curriculum and recently completed a part-time master’s in Educational Research. 

Dave is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences with a research background in plant-pollinator interactions and the complexity of floral displays. As an educator, a unique aspect of Dave’s teaching is the integration of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) principles with biological sciences. As the Faculty EDI Champion for Life Sciences at the University of Bristol, I aim to promote an inclusive academic culture and improve the inclusivity and accessibility of our teaching content. 

VIEW PRESENTATION

“In recent years employers have made it clear that organisational leaders and managers need more than just knowledge and understanding of a specific area; they must be able to use that insight to make strategic decisions and lead changes beneficial to the business. With this in mind, it seems timely to re-consider the scope and nature of postgraduate research/dissertation projects used on most taught and often even executive postgraduate programmes. 

We propose a more fitting alternative to a standard dissertation project, namely a Capstone project which would incorporate four options, thereby aiding student choice and empowering student development. 

The Capstone Project is the conclusion of the programme and should reflect the knowledge and skills acquired by students throughout the programme. 

This talk will present a case of introducing capstone project on an executive MSc programme, including the details of proposed assessment criteria, important considerations, limitations and requirements. 

The capstone project offers a choice of four options for students to choose from. Each option is laid out individually explaining the expectations, assessments, and timelines. 

Option 1: Business Plan/ Consultancy Project for an existing business: 

In this option, studnets apply the appropriate technical, methodological, and intellectual skills that have been developed to a business plan devised in consultation with and supervised by a staff advisor. Business plans that intend to develop trading companies are not allowed. 

Option 2: New start up 

This option aims at understanding how technology-based companies are created and the importance of developing the right management team and skillset. This will be the result of working with entrepreneurs and simulators, led by an experienced tutor, to use emerging technologies to develop innovative solutions and then using IP strategies to protect the new business venture. The final outcome will be a 3-year stage-gate execution plan to transform the opportunity from an idea to a viable new technology venture. 

Option 3: Thesis 

This option aims to provide students with comprehensive, specialised, factual and theoretical understanding, as well as a comprehensive range of cognitive and practical skills to understand, conduct, and supervise research projects in the business and management environment, often challenged by unforeseen problems, cultural differences, global trends and local market dynamics. 

Option 4: Teaching case 

In this option, participants apply the appropriate technical, methodological, and intellectual skills to develop a teaching case with accompanying teaching notes in consultation with and supervised by a staff   advisor. 

The decision to pursue a particular option is made by participants at the beginning of each cycle and cannot be changed after this date. Students not choosing any option will be allocated a thesis option by default.” 

Dr Rushana Khusainova is a senior lecturer in marketing and a Programme Director for Executive MSc Strategy, Change and Leadership at the University of Bristol Business School. 

Her teaching, research and consultancy work focus on mindset, personal brand, visibility and soft skills. She is an author of an award-winning sales motivation research. 

 Rushana’s teaching expertise covers such topics, as international and digital marketing, professional selling and strategic sales leadership, and the evolution of a workplace which she teaches on both undergraduate, postgraduate, and executive education levels. 

 Rushana is also a qualified coach. 

VIEW PRESENTATION

“Regular low-stakes testing (RLST) is beneficial for the assessor and learner; it provides ease of marking and greater objectivity, whilst being more beneficial for learning than note-taking or repeated reading. Within higher education it has become increasingly important to ensure that assessment practices are inclusive for all learners by proactively creating equitable learning environments. Despite robust evidence for the positive effects of RLST on learning, there is little empirical research into the inclusivity of this type of assessment which is an important aspect to consider in the current climate. Recent evidence suggests that performance in online RLST(s) does not differ between students with and without additional learning needs (Playfoot et al., 2022). However, it is unclear if these results would replicate for in-person testing.  

Therefore, the current study aims to assess the inclusivity of in-person weekly RLST(s) by investigating differences in performance between students with and without additional learning needs. Secondary data from teaching records and disability services has been extracted for three undergraduate cohorts of students taking research methods in Psychology (N= 417, 180 Year 1, 192 Year 2, 45 Year 3). Analyses will be performed in Python to identify differences in performance on the RLST(s). To control for student’s ability, performance on intra- (within module) and inter- (other modules) assessments will be considered. The statistical models will also include the following predictors: disability status (with or without study support plan), disability type, disability impacts, year of study, and the performance on other assessments.  

Preliminary results suggest that there may be a significant difference in performance between students with and without additional learning needs. The results of the current study will directly inform the teaching and assessment practices within Psychology, and hopefully across Higher Education to ensure these types of assessments are inclusive for all.” 

Presenting team: 

Anca Dobrescu: My background is in health and developmental psychology. For example, I have investigated the importance of early feeding practices (e.g., infant feeding and weaning) in promoting healthy eating habits in young children. However, since I started teaching in Higher Education, I have become more interested in pedagogical research. In the last year years, I have been investigating ways to improve teaching and learning of psychological research methods and statistics. In particular, I have focused on how we can improve students’ experiences with regular low-stakes testing within these modules. 

Jess Fielding: My background is in health psychology and cognitive neuroscience. In the last few years my research has focused on using more traditional experimental methods (i.e., computer-based tasks and online studies), as well as qualitative studies, to look at emotional resilience, well-being, and anxiety in healthy participants. Alongside this neuro-behavioural research I am also interested in pedogeological literature looking at understanding and improving learning and the student experience with particular emphasis on the impact of emotional resilience. 

Katy Burgess: My career to date has centered on learning and memory mechanisms in humans and nonhuman animals, and the application of this knowledge in clinical and educational contexts. I am particularly passionate about providing students with the best possible learning environment, and ensuring teaching methods are aligned with the literature on how we best learn new information. My current research is concerned with the testing effect, which is a well-established finding that testing yourself on new information improves memory more than other methods of learning (such as note taking, mind-mapping, reading). 

“Since 2020 in Computer Science and since 2023 in Modern Languages and International Business Management the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship has been supporting the teaching and marking of an ‘Innovation Case’ component of final year dissertations. 

Typically, this consists of around 12-15% of the dissertation unit mark for a 4-page document accompanying the dissertation (but often handed in earlier). 

Why link Impact and Enterprise to the Dissertation? 

Students in all disciplines and at all levels benefit from engaging in considerations of the adoption and impact of their ideas and the development of ‘enterprise’ as a competency and confidence useful to their personal and professional endeavours as future researchers, employees, employers, and citizens (QAA, 2018). Many of the skills in the Bristol Skills Profile are strongly supported by Enterprise Education approaches. 

Every dissertation could feasibly consider some form of impact on a stakeholder group with an interest in: 

• the subject matter of the research, 

• the research methods utilised, or 

• the emergent skills and capabilities of the researcher. 

The Innovation Case for Computer Science is framed as follows: 

“As part of your project, you will develop a short Innovation Case document that lays out and argues for the relevance and significance of computer science work in your research project area for a specific external audience of your choice. This audience could be venture capitalists looking to invest in profitable new computer science start-up, or a national research funding agency looking to invest public money in supporting a novel, high-impact computer science research project, or an educational institution looking to improve and expand the teaching materials that they employ, or a governmental or non-governmental policy unit looking to improve regulations or legislation that pertains to an important area of computer science.” 

Where a dissertation research area is of a fundamental rather than easily applied area of work, we also include a symposium proposal format in which the student makes a case for a symposium-type event at which named researchers and groups are gathered to move forward the research area. 

In Modern Languages and International Business Management we have a similar scope of formats and include a restructure proposal as if the student worked for an existing organisation and wanted to propose a change of strategy. 

The making criteria is also the same across the different pathways available: 

• Research & Evidence: covering the extent and relevance of primary and secondary sources used, the quality and range of argument, and evidence of reflection on that process. 

• Planning & Methodology: covering the relevance and value of research methods used to elicit insights and proposed strategies for next-step activities to realise the proposal. 

• Analysis & Understanding: covering the precision with which an audience for the proposal has been identified, how appropriate that choice is, how well they have been understood and served by the proposal. 

• Presentation & Communication: covering the overall quality of the writing, structure, and use of language.” 

Dave Jarman, Associate Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, CfIE 

VIEW PRESENTATION

“In the UK final year marks count heavily towards students’ degree performance.  At leading universities such as the University of Bristol or the University of Warwick, final year marks count 60 percent towards students’ final degree. Making good choices when deciding on electives has therefore a substantive impact on students’ degree outcomes and employability prospects. 

In this project we explore how economics students in Bristol choose final year electives, what information they use, and how universities can best guide students to improve the course-student match. 

We use qualitative research methods to analyse student focus groups to gather detailed insights on the approaches students take and challenges they face when choosing electives. On the basis of our data, we suggest ways in which instructors and institutions can better guide students. 

An effective course-student match can enhance student experience and reduce administrative costs for universities. Choosing the right electives matter to students beyond grades. Students who have a positive experience with their course choices are likely to engage better in their learning and dedicate more effort towards their studies. On the other hand, being on the ‘wrong course’ could lower motivation, engagement and not just lead to poor academic performance but also affect mental health and wellbeing. In addition, poor student choices create costs for teachers and the university, considering the additional support which may be required. 

There is limited research in the field. Coleman and McKeachie 1981, Owen and Jensen 2008, Hedges et al. 2014, Scott and Savage 2022 find that students consider factors like the learning value, career objectives, lecturer reputation, peer feedback when selecting courses. Hedges et. al. (2014) point out that if too little or the wrong information is shared, students may make poor course choices. This research project contributes to this literature. 

References 

Coleman, J.; McKeachie, J.W. 1981, “Effects of instructor/course evaluations on student course selection”, Journal of Educational Psychology, 73(2), pp. 224-226. 

Hedges, M.A.; Pacheo, G.A.; Webber, D.J. 2014, “What determines students’ choices of elective modules?”, International Review of Economics Education, 17, pp. 39-54. 

Owen, L.A.; Jensen, J.E. 2008, “Social Learning and Course Choice”, International Review of Economics Education, 7(1), pp. 9-35. 

Scott, M.; Savage, A.D. 2022, “Lemons in the university: asymmetric information, academic shopping and subject selection”, Higher Education Research and Development, 41(4), pp. 1247-1261.” 

Satadru is a lecturer in the Teaching Pathway in the School of Economics who primarily teaches undergraduate Economics units and supervises MSc EFM dissertations. 

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“The rise of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT has various implications for assessment in higher education. Here, via a review of current practice and through surveys and focus groups, we present our findings to highlight the risks and advantages of such tools, and how we may incorporate AI into, or AI-proof, our assessments. Ultimately, this research aims to inform a briefing paper suitable for senior management outlining these key findings and proposing recommendations for use of AI in assessment, and in turn inform the creation of academic guidance outlining how best to approach and implement AI in assessment.” 

Kathryn Ford has a research background in molecular plant pathology and is a lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences. She is also an Academic Integrity Officer. 

Tauheed Ali is a lecturer in the School of Accounting and Finance. She is one of the Academic Integrity Officer for the faculty, so has an interest in how generative AI tools are used by students. 

VIEW PRESENTATION

“Invited, unexpected and clandestine use of AI is changing the teaching and learning landscape at speed. Discussions on how to respond to AI in higher education are now commonplace. These conversations often forget to include students, however. This presentation provides insights into the views of sixty-seven students who attended focus groups last year, to ensure inclusion of the student voice on this emergent issue (Tierney, Peasey & Gould 2025). Importantly, the research methods ensure that students set the terms of reference when discussing AI – something rarely seen in the existing literature. The presentation will showcase student views and where there have been shared within the University, as well as noting recommendations for AI in HE. 

Tierney, A., Peasey, P., & Gould, J. (2025). Student perceptions on the impact of AI on their teaching and learning experiences in higher education. Research and Practice in Technology Enhanced Learning, 20, 005. https://doi.org/10.58459/rptel.2025.20005 “ 

Dr Aisling Tierney is a Lecturer working across academic staff development, curriculum development and pedagogic research at the University of Bristol. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AdvanceHE) and a Visiting Fellow at the Cultural Heritage Institute (Royal Agricultural University. 

Dr Peter Peasey is a Digital Education Developer at the University of Bristol, attached to the Digital Education Office. He holds a PhD in Theatre and Performance Studies and has extensive experience teaching in both theatre and liberal arts. 

VIEW PRESENTATION

“This session reflects on strategies integrated into to my teaching and assessment practices within two undergraduate final year units during the 23-24 academic year, in response to the growing prevalence of AI-enabled Large Language Models (LLMs).  Addressing concerns surrounding the sophistication of LLM-generated content and potential issues of over-reliance, veracity and coherence of generated content, the session explores student perceptions and usage of LLM technologies.  

We will consider the use of responsive prompt-based chatbots such as Chat GPT to generate instantaneous personalised feedback on their academic writing using an approach developed by Rose (2023) building on the ‘active feedback’ approaches of Nichol (2001).  As part of their assessment, students were asked to provide a reflection on the development of their coursework assignment including their use of emerging LLM technologies.  I will analyse these reflections to glean insights into student engagement with these tools. 

The session goes on to will discuss a coursework assessment redesign to emphasize the “”nuanced critical thinking and analytical skills required for comprehensive synthesis and critical writing”” which “”remain distinctly within the human domain”” (Nugyen et al 2024). The redesign aims to foster responsible engagement with LLMs, steering away from prohibition and refocusing on academic skill development. Applications of LLMs in academic writing and literature searches are explored and we will consider whether this approach might help students address concerns about their lack of proficiency in both English language and academic writing which might lead them to over-rely on LLM generated content.  The student voice will be incorporated into this section via feedback from focus groups.” 

Nguyen, A., Hong, Y., Dang, B. & Huang, X., 2024. Human-AI collaboration patterns in AI-assisted academic writing, Studies in Higher Education. 

Nicol, D., 2021. The power of internal feedback: Exploiting natural comparison processes. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 46(5), pp.756-778. 

Rose, J., 2023. ChatGPT as a teaching tool, not a cheating tool. Times Higher Education, 21 February. 

Sam Bell is a Senior Lecturer in Accounting at the Business School.  Having trained, qualified and worked for some years as a Chartered Accountant, Sam moved into professional accounting education before then transitioning into academic teaching.  In her current teaching focused role, Sam leads two undergraduate final year unit on the Accounting programmes.  A focus of Sam’s teaching practice is to design content which encourages students to link academic theory and literature to the realities of the accounting professional world with a particular emphasis on corporate financial and sustainability reporting and auditing.  She enjoys exploring and experimenting with active learning approaches and educational technologies to boost student participation and critical thinking. More recently, Sam has been particularly interested in the impact and use of large language models (LLMs) such as Chat GPT in relation to undergraduate assessment and whether assessment design can assist students in developing a responsible approach to using these tools. 

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“The School of Geographical Sciences at Bristol prides itself on the opportunities for lab and field-based learning, to give students practical skills in collecting and analysing real world data that open up unique opportunities for dissertations and make them highly sought after and employable graduates. However, an increasing number of our students face barriers in accessing such learning opportunities. Students struggling with anxiety or other mental health challenges can find lab and field environments overwhelming and sometimes impossible to engage with. 

A new project within the School of Geographical Sciences aims to try to overcome some of these challenges through the creation of ‘Virtual Labs’ – virtual reality spaces where students can explore our laboratory environment in advance of in person taught activities. These virtual spaces will allow students time to become familiar with what to expect from a lab environment and to observe the techniques that they will need to undertake. This talk will outline the short-term goals of our project, the progress made to date and the wider opportunities that work like this may offer to our neurodiverse student body.” 

Becky Collins is a Lecturer in the School of Geographical Sciences in the areas of River Science and Quantitative Methods. Her interests include 3D modelling of landscapes and in particular how 3D models and virtual environments can be used to create interactive and virtual reality learning materials for students. 

VIEW PRESENTATION

“Are you interested in your students applying their learning outside the classroom whilst responding to real-world societal challenges? Come along to this workshop to learn about community engaged learning and how you can embed this pedagogical approach in your teaching in response to relevant societal challenges. 

Community engaged learning describes opportunities for students to work in partnership with local, national and international community organisations to engage with real-world questions as part of their curriculum through applying theory to real-world contexts. 

The Engaged Learning team will explain the context of community engaged learning (CEL) and share examples before walking you through the process of designing a CEL project in a unit or programme starting with societal challenges at the beginning of the curriculum design process. You will work in response to a known societal challenge you bring to the session or in response to example challenges you can use if you wish. Throughout the workshop, we will progress through the stages of developing a community engaged learning opportunity within a unit or programme that responds to this challenge whilst furthering learning opportunities for students. You will leave the session with a brief outline for embedding a CEL project which you can further develop with support from the Engaged Learning team following the session if appropriate. 

From working in this space, we can see the benefits to both community partners and students involved in CEL opportunities. Community organisations are offered the opportunity to work with students and gain new perspectives and insights into challenges specific to their contexts. Students learn how their skills and knowledge can be applied in multiple settings and are exposed to the benefits of coproduction alongside community. 

This workshop will be of most value to academic and teaching staff who may be able to take ideas forward into practice but may also appeal to others who want to gain insights into CEL and understand the benefits of this pedagogical approach.” 

Hannah Tweddell is Engaged Learning Adviser and has been working in community engaged learning and education for sustainable development for the past decade.  She has worked with academics across the university and developed opportunities with hundreds of community organisations.  Her work enhancing the student experience has been recognised with a Bristol Teaching Award. 

Hannah Cowell is Engaged Learning Adviser and has been working in community engaged learning for almost six years at the University of Bristol. Her role is to advise on curriculum development to embed mutually beneficial community engaged learning into the curriculum. 

VIEW POSTER

“The poster will capture the work of the newly launched Student Academic Representation Network. The aims of the network are to: 

• provide a forum for staff and students involved in school level academic taught student representation to share experiences, common challenges, innovation and best practice 
• provide a forum through which Bristol Students’ Union can disseminate relevant information 
• contribute to the development of school level academic student representation and voice, and collaborate to address challenges 
• help identify training needs for students and staff involved in school-level academic representation 

The BILT conference provides a key opportunity to communicate about the network more widely.” 

VIEW POSTER

“Constant access to the Internet allows individuals to access information anytime and anywhere. As a result, users’ memory is frequently “outsourced” to search engines such as Google. In my research raises an intriguing question: How does easily accessible information online affect users’ management of knowledge? My research, recently published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, demonstrates that when individuals perceive that information about a new product is searchable through search engines, they are more likely to remember how to access the information (e.g., a keyword for a search engine query) but less likely to remember detailed information. The research shows that this effect is more profound for those with high working memory capacity (i.e., smarter learners). This research also demonstrates that those with higher working memory capacity are more likely to ensure easy access to information by subscribing to information sources. 

The study explains that individuals are “cognitive misers,” with an inherent tendency to minimize their cognitive demand (i.e., the amount of information they have to hold in their head) and avoid cognitive effort (i.e., how much effort it takes to remember details). When information is easily accessible and retrievable via search engines, individuals are not inclined to deeply process detailed information because they can easily look the information up whenever needed. To reduce cognitive load, cognitive misers tend to use selective attention strategies to focus on key information and reduce the amount of attention they give to detailed information when the information is easily accessible. Interestingly, this research demonstrates that those with higher working memory capacity make more efficient use of attentional resources. 

The findings suggest that cognitive miserliness is not due to users’ lack of available cognitive capacity but to the accessibility of the information and efficient execution of attentional resources. The results show that the capability to efficiently and strategically manage attentional resources can determine how individuals utilize the benefits of easy access. A common perspective of online communication is that greater access to information leads to greater learning. However, this research offers educators a cautionary note about greater accessibility in that easy access may not directly guarantee users’ involvement in learning or paying attention to the information. Also, prior research has rarely considered cognitive capacity in how users may deliberately ignore and forget online information. Thus, these findings offer unique and interesting implications indicating that smart learners efficiently allocate cognitive resources online. 

Reference: 

Kang, Esther (2023), “Easily Accessible but Easily Forgettable: How Ease of Access to Information Online Affects Cognitive Miserliness,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 29(3), 620–630. https://doi.org/10.1037/xap0000412.” 

Esther Kang, Ph.D., is a Lecturer in Marketing at the University of Bristol Business School. Her research interests include consumer learning, memory, information search/overload, and information processing. Substantively, she investigates consumer psychology and behaviour related to technological experience, social media usage, and search engine inquiries. Prior to joining the University of Bristol, Esther worked as Assistant Professor of Consumer Psychology and Behaviour at the University of Cologne, Germany. She holds a Ph.D. in Marketing with a focus on Consumer Behaviour from the State University of New York at Buffalo, USA. 

VIEW POSTER

“Aerosols in School is a community engaged learning project conceived to support postgraduates in the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Aerosol Science to put the skills they are learning in the service of responding to the “real world” concerns of a community.  

The Aerosol Science CDT, established in 2019, is the first centre of its kind to offer foundational training for postgraduates (PGRs) in this rapidly evolving, interdisciplinary field. Their unique pedagogical approach is designed to create a network of highly skilled doctoral practitioners in aerosol science, capable of addressing the biggest problems and ethical dilemmas of our age, such as healthy ageing, sustainable and safe consumer products, and climate geoengineering. 

As part of their training, Aerosol Science PGRs learn to take and analyse air quality measurements around Bristol. Aerosols in School gives these students the opportunity to put these skills to the use of a community with concerns about air quality.  

St Werburghs Primary School, like many inner-city schools, is situated next to a busy road. In fact, it is sandwiched between a main railway line, a gas works, a busy A-road into the city and the M32 motorway. Students and families at St Werburghs are increasingly concerned about the air quality issues around their school and community and recently staged a protest to raise drivers’ awareness to the impact idling vehicle emissions are causing for the children’s health. Aerosols in School brings together St Werburghs Primary’s “Green Team” after school club and Aerosol Science PGRs to explore the nature of air quality issues in the neighbourhood.  

The Aerosols in School project methodology draws on Citizen Science, Engaged Learning and arts-based methodologies to offer a unique experience for both students and school children to explore air quality issues in context with expert facilitation by an engaged arts practitioner. Our artist facilitator, Morgan Tipping, has extensive experience of facilitating projects that explore social relationships and challenge power imbalances.   

In our 10-minute presentation, we will share our learning from the Aerosols in School project – what has worked, what could have worked better, how arts-based methodologies contribute to engaged learning pedagogies and how this project will shape Aerosol Science learning into the future.” 

Mireia Bes i Garcia is a Public Engagement Associate at the University of Bristol. She has worked in in public engagement with research for more than 15 years both in the UK and in Spain. One of her main interests is in collaborations with the arts for Public Engagement and has led a variety of projects working with researchers and socially engaged artists. In the last years Mireia has also been exploring the opportunities that Responsible Research and Innovation offer to work with researchers in a more reflexive way with a special focus on how we can work on our responsibility towards the environment and future generations by giving them a voice in research. 

Rachael Miles is a Lecturer and Course Director for the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Aerosol Science, a seven institution CDT led by the University of Bristol. Rachael is responsible for the design, oversight and delivery of the CDTs four-year training and research PhD programme, which includes a first taught year at Bristol. Rachael is a Fellow of the HEA and Chair of the Aerosol Science CDT ED&I committee and has a specific interest in the design and implementation of inclusive teaching and learning practices. 

Vivienne Kuh is a Lecturer in Responsible Innovation at the University of Bristol. She has been working on RI within a diverse range of disciplines in science and engineering since 2016, in EU and EPSRC funded projects. She has a particular interest in engaging publics in the co-imagining of desirable futures with science and technology and the application of engaged learning methodologies in the teaching of RI. Recently, Viv has been leading the Aerosols in School project, working with Aerosol Science students and children at St Werburghs Primary School in Bristol to explore air quality in inner city Bristol through the lived experiences of the children living there. 

VIEW POSTER

“Each September, hundreds of students from all over the world join the University of Bristol’s International Foundation Programme (IFP). During this academic year-long programme, students practise and develop their academic language, skills and subject knowledge in preparation for their undergraduate programme the following September. The student body is diverse with a wide range of social, cultural and national backgrounds, previous educational and life experiences, and motivations, hopes and dreams. From the beginning of the programme, the students work together on collaborative tasks which draw on their varied experiences, knowledge and skills to address real-world challenges of their choice that are important to them both on a global and local scale. 

Our poster will present some of the learning activities and assessment tasks on the English for Academic Purposes (EAP) units on the IFP which have been designed to empower students to make choices and use their voices, and to be more inclusive and celebrate the diversity of our students. For example, for a Poster Project during TB1, students work in small groups to select one of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) which is meaningful to them in terms of their own experiences in their home countries and in their new environment in Bristol, and also to their field of study. They conduct primary and secondary research into their chosen real-world problem and present their findings to peers and staff at a Poster Mingle at the end of term. The feedback from students is that they find this project empowering as they have free choice of SDG and conduct their own research, and eye-opening as they learn about other SDGs and global challenges researched by their peers. The Poster Project culminates in a summative assessment in which students reflect on their choices, participation and the development of their knowledge and skills during the process and identify how they could do things differently in future group projects. 

We will also include in our poster data from student and teacher feedback collected at the end of this academic year and use it to consider how we can develop the EAP units to be more inclusive, decolonised and empowering for our students.  

Finally, we would embrace the opportunity to share our practice and experiences of empowering student choice and voice on the IFP with colleagues from across the university and to learn from their practice and experiences.” 

The poster team: 

Hazel Newton, English for Academic Purposes Course Coordinator, Centre for Academic Language and Development 

Sophia Vanttinen-Newton, English for Academic Purposes Course Coordinator, Centre for Academic Language and Development 

Cathy Faulkner, English for Academic Purposes Course Coordinator, Centre for Academic Language and Development 

Nathalie Vermeire,  English for Academic Purposes Subject Lead, Centre for Academic Language and Development 

Nick Roll, English for Academic Purposes Subject Lead, Centre for Academic Language and Development 

“As part of the 4th year of our integrated MSci, students work as part of a team to produce an innovative solution to a global challenge.  One aspect of the assessment is to assign marks to group members based on their contribution to the task.  Group work can be challenging for students, as can the process of marking their peers’ contribution, as well as their own.  To overcome some of these challenges I worked with students to develop a group working ‘charter’.  We discussed best practice in group work and the students decided on the qualities that they most valued in team members.  All students contributed to and agreed on the charter.  I then used this charter as the basis for the marking criteria for the assessment and mapped it onto existing faculty 21-point criteria.  

The value of this process was two-fold.  It provided a framework for the students to refer to when holding group members to account and provided them with clear guidance for their peer marking task. 

Although there have been various iterations of this process now, each year the cohort discusses and agrees on the charter before the task is undertaken.  I have had to make some changes to the process to avoid grade inflation but on the whole the process works well.  Student comments have been mature and insightful.  Alongside providing guidance and agency to students, the process has also helped them to develop their self-reflection skills; a key requirement of our assessment at 4th year.” 

PW3 Senior lecturer in physiology, pharmacology and neuroscience (PPN).  Previous BILT fellow in the theme of assessment and successful recipient of BILT and faculty innovation funds. 

“Careers in psychology offer a vast and wide range of options, spanning from research and clinical practice to education, management, and marketing. Students are presented with an array of potential professional pathways to explore, and this can create uncertainty for students contemplating post-university aspirations. This uncertainty may even affect students’ connection to and relationship with their degree course. Moreover, many students arrive at university unaware of the breadth of career options. Research indicates that 91% attend with the intention to pursue a career in mental health, with 51% specifically aiming for a career in clinical psychology. However, it is estimated that only 6% of psychology students become registered clinical psychologists (Palmer et al, 2021). This disparity highlights the importance of providing students with exposure to diverse career paths during their academic journey, to foster informed decision-making and increase sense of agency. In addition, students from varied socioeconomic backgrounds may face unique challenges.  

Limited exposure to psychology professionals due to social class homogeneity may heighten uncertainty about career paths and impact students differently in their academic and professional journeys. While universities typically host broad career fairs, some may not fully address psychology-student-related career opportunities. Recognising this gap, the School of Psychological Science’s student EDI representative and other student helpers, collaborated with the School’s Employability Lead and other staff co-create a Psychology-specific careers fair. This initiative was also guided by wider student perspectives to ensure the fair’s relevance to student needs. The careers fair provided opportunities to speak to professionals from a huge variety of fields and aimed to empower students to explore various career paths and take ownership of their professional journey. In parallel, we conducted research to measure impact of the careers fair. Using questionnaire methodology, students were surveyed using a combination of point-response questionnaire items and free-text options to gauge motivations for attending, level of career awareness, clarity about potential career paths, confidence in decision-making, relevance of their degree program to future careers, and practical insights gained from engaging with professionals at the careers fair.  

Our presentation at the BILT Annual Conference 2024 will showcase the findings from our research on the impact of the Psychology-specific careers fair, alongside insights and experiences gained from organizing the event. Additionally, we will discuss other initiatives aimed at embedding employability within psychology, all of which have been informed by student perspectives (co-creation). While the context is psychology, we believe that our experiences and findings will offer valuable insights for staff and students from other fields as well. Through our presentation, we aim to discuss strategies for enhancing career awareness, fostering student empowerment and promoting inclusivity in higher education.” 

Dr Kristopher Magee is a Lecturer in the School of Psychological Science. He teaches Psychological Research Methods and is the Unit Coordinator for the Year 1 Transitions to University Workshops seminar series. He is also Careers and Employability Lead and is an active member of a number of working groups focused on curriculum development and enhancement. Part of his works focuses on seeking to create opportunities for students.  

Lana el Assaad is a final year undergraduate Psychology student at the University of Bristol. She is the EDI representative for psychological sciences and oversees a monthly newsletter delivered to students within the department. She was involved in the development of the Psychology-specific careers fair. Her main interests lie within clinical psychology hence her work within an eating disorder inpatient unit alongside her studies. She aims to pursue a clinical psychology doctorate following her undergraduate degree. 

Donna and Martha have both co-created blog posts and other artefacts with CALD Pre-Sessional students, which have been published on the CALD Teaching and Learning Network and The Global Lounge. Donna’s collaborative blogging began with a wish to see “students as agentic actors rather than objects of research” (Charteris, 2020). Both Donna and Martha’s research interests developed through a ‘students as partners’ critical perspective. These are the titles of co-created work so far:

Volunteering with the Global Lounge – Student blog

Blog by Dabatsawin Thirapongphaiboon https://global-lounge.bristol.ac.uk/2024/01/22/student-blog-summer-volunteering/ 22.01.24

Challenging chats: Exploring AI Literacy on a Pre-sessional Course Martha Partridge, Liming Chen, YenEn Kuo, Nattanan Hamapongnitinan and Haoyuan Huang October 2023

The lived experience of problem-based learning: Food, Friendship and PBL Donna MacLean September 2023

An Interview with Anya Pavlova: Secrets of my Presentation Success Donna MacLean, 杨一书 Yishu, , 任峻奇, Chun-chi, 蒋世晨, Shichen, 孙若禹, Ruoyu, สกุณภัค กิติมานนต์ , Fern, นันทวัน ช่อช่ ทับทิม , Alexa, พัชญ์สิตา มั่นคง มั่ , Polly. August, 2022.

Co-Creation of a Blog with CALD Pre-sessional Students Donna MacLean September 2022.

‘Gen Z, Post-95ers/95后, Satori Generation さとり世代 and Teachers’ Use of Emojis’. Donna MacLean, Wayne(殷志嘉), Barry(李煦芃), Tao(徐文滔), Feng(冯恩旸)🐷

Chao(赵魏宇), E(杨翼翰）🚬, Lin(丁琳）₫, Bowen（刘博文）👊, Yusuke(宮脇裕亮), Michael J (万智俊). September 2021.

Both Donna and Martha’s collaborative blogs have demonstrated that in giving students agency and voice, students feel valued as partners in the co-construction of knowledge. Student expertise on and implications for curriculum and assessment design, as well as other insights into the student experience can also be gleaned. The proposal is to show what can be gained through collaborative blogging, writing and research with international students, and the critical contexts pertinent to curriculum and assessment design which co-creation reveals. They also aim to show and how in 2024 they will develop international student agency and expertise further, in taking the next step beyond co-creation into facilitating a student-edited series of student-created mini blogs and vlogs around the themes of curriculum and assessment design, course feedback and the student experience.

Through CALD’s Research and Publication Community of Practice, Donna and Martha are also preparing work for publication around these themes.

Charteris, J. Roseanna Bourke and Judith Loveridge (eds.): Radical Collegiality Through Student Voice: Educational Experience, Policy and Practice. NZ J Educ Stud 55, 267–269 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40841-019-00152-1.

VIEW PRESENTATION

“According to Bloom (1984), Formative assessments in comparison to other assessment practices drives student ownership of learning and are seen as a unique and extremely effective and flexible method for improving learning (Leahy et al., 2005). Whilst some argue that this approach is more teacher than student centred (Miliband, 2003), others (Gipps et al., 2000, p. 6) assert that involving students is what makes the assessment formative because it enables deeper learning and understanding and through their involvement, students are empowered to develop ‘self-efficacy for specific learning and, more generally, they develop skills that contribute to increased self-regulation and self-assessment of learning’ (Brookhart et al., 2009, p. 52). Assessments in general, however, can be for different purposes e.g., assessment ‘for’ learning, ‘as’ learning and assessment ‘of’ learning (Hulme, 2009). Scholars (Hargreaves, 2003; Hulme, 2009) explain that assessment ‘of’ and ‘for’ learning encompass co-construction of Knowledge as both teacher and learners are learning by doing through inquiry into a topical issue for addressing the big societal challenges. This paper examines the role of assessments for empowering students’ agency in their learning for addressing current and future societal issues.” 

My name is Dr Oghale Ayetuoma. I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Lecturer of HRM & Work with the University of Bristol Business School where I am currently involved in small and large group teaching to both undergraduate and postgraduate students of a diverse cohort and a unit director of a first year undergraduate and a postgraduate unit. I am particularly interested in providing a supportive learning environment to facilitate a conducive learning experience for students that drives and contributes to higher student engagement and performance in their studies. Hence, I am currently a Senior Tutor with the School of Management Postgraduate Tutor Team and Personal Tutor to undergraduate students. I wish to see more underrepresented students’ enrolment with the University and this vision is driven by my participation in the teaching on the University’s Widening Participation and other EDI initiatives. I conducted my research on the UK Public sector in Talent Management (TM), a specialist area in Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM). My research interests are: TM & Leadership, SHRM & IHRM, Strategy, Business & Management, Organisation Behaviour and pedagogic research focused on how to improve the student learning and overall experience, their engagement and belonging. 

VIEW PRESENTATION

“Co-creation is rooted in constructivism and a process that allows integration of student voices from a diverse range of backgrounds in higher education practices. Producing guidance for a continuous assessment that involves teamwork and the creation of a recorded presentation, I am aware that this guidance only addresses those points that I deem important and/or difficult. I therefore embarked on a project where I worked with student partners to co-create assessment guidance that better reflects student’s needs and integrates a range of different views. In this presentation I will report on this project and will share my suggestions for best practice in this area.” 

Daniela Dietrich is a lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol and her work focuses on plant responses to the environment and improving the teaching and learning experience of our students. 

VIEW PRESENTATION

“Students at master level needs to develop a wide range of professional skills to be ready to tackle very different challenges than the one they faced during their undergrads. Research has shown that authentic assessments, ADD Definition, helps students’ engagement, overall learning and skills development. 

Group Project is a unit of the recent taught MSc in bioinformatics of the university of Bristol. 

As unit director, I developed a unit that allow our students to work on their expert skills in bioinformatics, as well as to grow their employability and self-confidence through an authentic portfolio assessment. 

Group project is designed in the form of a mock professional project where each group of students will be put in a typical situation of being given a dataset and a biological question to resolve with some pointers but a lot of freedom. Their goal is to analyse this dataset, solve the question, but also to present their whole work in a way that it reproducible and understandable by a non-expert, as they would to a group of collaborators or partner in a professional context. 

To support our students acquiring these skills, I designed a program including lectures at the start of the unit, followed by weekly drop-in sessions to give them guidance and support regularly. This planning was also supported by formative assessments at set times to support them structuring their time, as much as for me to check if appropriate progresses were made by each group. During most of the unit, I use a coaching and mentoring approach to support students’ decision-making process, developing of their self-confidence and sense of expertise. I believe that this approach works particularly well as master level as students are already engaged and motivated, although sometimes still expecting the “right answer” to be given to them, and afraid of affirming their own expertise. 

Group work is another potentially difficult part of this unit, particularly as our cohort is very diverse in many ways, but it is also the reflect of what will likely be their profession. To help them making the best of this diversity, we discuss this aspect of their work, and they are invited to reflect on it through their projects. 

The final summative assessment is a portfolio of documents complementing each other, where students have the opportunity to express their own qualities and individualities in addition to showcase their newly learned bioinformatics skills. 

I believe that the outcome of this design is a very authentic project and final assessment, appreciated by the students, despite its highly challenging nature. Student feedback has been excellent, formally through surveys, as well as informally through conversation where students reported that the experience of Group project allowed them to tackle a new and challenging task during their research project with confidence rather than panic. 

I would like to present the details of this assessment, as well as the rational for this design as an example of authentic assessment at postgraduate taught level.” 

I am currently a lecturer in Biology, Acting deputy head of the MSc Bioinformatics, and unit director for group project. I am passionate about student learning and professional development. I am also a coach and mentor, and use this skill set to help my student to grow and succeed. 

I will change role in the spring 2024 to join the People Development team to work on research management and the preparation for REF2029. 

VIEW PRESENTATION

“‘Composite materials for sustainability’ is a new unit, worth 20 credit points, and is offered to students on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes at the University of Bristol. The unit is compulsory for PGT students taking MSc Advanced Composites and PGR students who are enrolled on the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Composite Materials. The unit is also available as an option to students in the 4th year of MEng Aerospace Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and Engineering Design. Previously, a 10-credit unit called ‘Sustainable composite materials’ (SCM) was taught to the same PGR (compulsory) and PGT (optional) cohorts, with ten didactic lectures and four interactive journal club sessions. SCM was assessed through a single written assessment, where students submitted a report of maximum ten pages. Since the class size was between 15-20, SCM was taught by, and assessed by, one academic. 

The following changes have been implemented in the new unit, ‘Composite materials for sustainability’: 

• Individual written assessment (75% summative) is now limited to 2500 words and to be written in the style of an opinion piece 

• Introduction of podcast assessment (25% summative, in pairs) 

• Introduction of formative podcast assessment and multiple-choice test 

• Journal club sessions run in small groups 

• Unit delivery and assessment supported by Teaching Associates 

In this talk we will present an overview of the changes that have been implemented in the new unit, reflecting on things that did and did not go well. The talk will focus on the authenticity of the formative and summative podcast assessments, and the engagement and feedback from students.” 

Neha Chandarana is a Lecturer in bio-based and sustainable composites and is a member of the Bristol Composites Institute as well as the Engineering Education Research Group. Her research spans from composite materials (in particular, non-destructive testing, structural health monitoring, sustainability, and life cycle assessment) to equity, diversity, and inclusion of students and staff in engineering. Neha currently leads a Royal Academy of Engineering Diversity Impact Programme project, ‘Ca-pow!’, which looks to understand and improve the educational experiences of intersectionally disadvantaged students in engineering at Bristol. 

VIEW PRESENTATION

“Arriving at a university is accompanied by many new, challenging and at times uncomfortable experiences including living away from home, making new friends, and adapting to new ways of studying and learning in an academic environment (e.g. Booth, 2001; Thomas, 2012; Wernersbach et al. 2014).  The global expansion of HE institutions into mass educator with increasing participation and the impact of the Covid19 pandemic has steered research into the field of successful ‘transitions’ (e.g.  Christie et al 2008, 2013; Thomas, 2012; Coertjen et al. 2017; Pownal et al. 2021).  

Drawing on the work of Gravett (2021), Gravett and Winstone (2021), Cage et al (2021), Gravett at al (2021; 2020), Taylor and Harris-Evans (2018) and Gale and Parker (2014) we explore whether the current framing of student transitions as a linear journey with entry and exit points that aim to ease student discomfort is a relevant and realistic objective in an increasingly challenging social and economic environment for students to navigate.  By looking at students lived ‘micro’ experiences as complex, interconnected fragments that are embodied with both human and non-human influences, we hope to reveal how students transform and ‘become’ during their time at university, and how they recognise and cope with any discomfort they experience (Gravett, 2021). 

Reflective practices provide many benefits as a learning tool including skills development, sense-making and overcoming challenges (Dewey, 1986; Gibb, 1988; Kolb, 2014; Rolfe et al, 2001).  During TB1 international student participants from two large masters’ cohorts in the Business School completed a series of reflections on topics provided to them.  Several topics were linked to academic activities and events organised to help build community and develop students’ academic and personal skills.  We are delving deeper into students’ TB1 experiences in interviews during Mar-Apr 2024, including observations from their reflective practices.  We are currently collecting data, so are unable to provide findings at this time, but will be able to do this at the conference.  

The intention of this project is to assess the need to reframe how we think about transition for international postgraduate students and to recognise students’ agency in managing interconnected (micro) experiences.  We anticipate that our findings could contribute to informing improvements in interconnected student support and the use of reflective practices as a valuable tool for navigating challenges whether this is through the curriculum, tutoring or as extra curricula activities.  

Please note: given our fieldwork is qualitative and still in progress the focus of our project may evolve depending on our findings. ” 

Claire Spencer is a Senior Lecturer in Accounting and Finance and Head of Tutoring at the Business School.  Her research explores the interconnectedness of tutoring, transition, and wellbeing of students, with a focus on international students and postgraduate cohorts. 

VIEW PRESENTATION

“International students have to overcome many barriers when they come to study at universities in the UK, not only in terms of culture but also language and academic approaches or ‘pedagogical shock’ (Ryan, 2011). With the number of international students increasing and Bristol aiming to attract more students across all its programmes, the aim of this research has been to develop a toolkit for educators to support students, and provide an opportunity for them to develop skills to adapt more easily to their new context and to create a  ‘third space’ (McKinley et al, 2019) where learning can take place. 

Working with International Foundations students, the researcher gathered thoughts on what the students felt would effectively support them in their transition to UK university, firstly through a survey and then followed up by a series of focus groups. Materials were developed and shared with the research participants who then provided the researcher with their thoughts on the materials, and suggested adaptations, thereby the researcher was able to co-construct more relevant material for future students with the research participants. 

The presenter will share the findings of the research and provide examples of some of the materials that have been developed with students. 

While this project has its roots in the International Foundations programme, it has cross-disciplinary benefits too as the materials can be adapted to provide a series of workshops for all students, whether home or international, that can help them work together more effectively and build a comfortable learning space where all belong.” 

Fiona is a Lecturer in Academic Development at BILT. She has taught in a range of international contexts, both student and academic facing – always maintaining her passion for learning for the long term. She is particularly interested in the international student experience as well as learning design and how to make course content meaningful and accessible to all with the support of technology when needed.

“The transition to university is a significant and challenging leap for most students because it necessitates increased academic and personal autonomy. The School of Psychological Science has pioneered an academic and social support initiative for Year1 students navigating this critical phase. Our approach involves small-group, in-person workshop sessions specifically tailored to help students adjust to new expectations and independent study and settle into the academic community. Crucially, these sessions are delivered by a team of current senior students, both undergraduate and postgraduate (~20), who bring a wealth of lived experience as Transitions to University Mentors. Our distinctive approach centres on co-creation, which is central to one of the conference themes.  Active collaboration between the Unit Director and student team is a key feature of the teaching structure. This collaboration plays an instrumental role in shaping workshop content, structuring lessons and crafting the Transitions curriculum. This partnership ensures that support provided is relevant to the unique challenges faced by transitioning students. By embracing co-creation, we empower students to navigate the complexities of university life and foster a sense of belonging within the academic community. In addition to highly positive unit evaluations from both new students and mentors, we are currently conducting research to further measure the impact of our Transitions sessions. This includes focus groups and questionnaire research, aimed at providing a deeper understanding of the effectiveness of our co-created teaching. Our presentation at the BILT Annual Conference 2024 will share practice and insights from our unit development journey, including the perspective of student mentor co-creators, and provide an overview of the Transitions workshops themes and topics. We will also present outcomes from our research study, providing insights into the impact of our teaching sessions and the broader student transition experience. We look forward to engaging in discussions on effective practices for enhancing student engagement and outcomes in higher education.” 

Dr Kristopher Magee is a Lecturer in the School of Psychological Science. He teaches Psychological Research Methods and is the Unit Coordinator for the Year 1 Transitions to University Workshops seminar series. He is also Careers and Employability Lead and is an active member of a number of working groups focused on curriculum development and enhancement. Tom Hawkins is a master’s by Research student, his research currently focuses on investigating computational modelling of multi-target search organisation, and the cognitive skills that underpin this.

Lucy Jackson is a master’s by Research student investigating the psychological factors behind education bias towards autistic children in UK state education. Both Lucy and Tom have undertaken the role of mentor and workshop leader while working as part of the Transitions to University Workshops teaching team and they are currently collaborating with Dr Kristopher Magee on research to measure the impact of our Transitions to University teaching and to investigate the transition more generally. 

VIEW PRESENTATION

“This short presentation will explore the BILT Student Journal and how it can ideally be used to promote students as researchers. Within this, it will briefly illuminate the organisation of the journal and go on to highlight the development made within this initiative over time. Leading on from this, I will elaborate on the benefits of the Journal for students and the university community as a whole, making recommendations on how to foster engagement with and learning from the journal moving forward. Finally, the presentation will turn to how the lessons learned from the BILT Student Journal can be applied to other initiatives aimed at student agency and empowerment.” 

Carla is a BILT Student Fellow for 2023-24 and editor-in-chief of this year’s BILT Student Journal.

VIEW PRESENTATION

“The 2023/24 academic year saw the re-emergence of the Lunch and Learn series at the Bristol Doctoral College (BDC). The series was designed to foster student-led learning by encouraging student agency and co-creation within the PGR student community. Put on hold due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the series was renewed with the appointment of the Postgraduate Engagement Advocates (PEAs) Abigail, Siyu and Amy, three postgraduate researchers (PGRs) each at different stages of their PhD projects. Now coming towards the end of their roles as PEAs, the BILT Annual Conference 2024 provides an excellent opportunity to showcase the success of these Lunch and Learn events that were created by PGRs, for PGRs. 

A primary focus of the BDC is identifying issues that PGRs face in a research degree. Employing the PEAs has allowed the BDC to learn further insight into these challenges from the PGR perspective and promotes student agency by allowing PGRs to craft events to combat the issues. Often PGRs feel acute isolation, often it is unclear where and how to access the support available to PGRs, and sometimes they just need some help developing their research skills. These factors can impact a PGRs productivity and, more importantly, their mental health. The adoption of the peer-led approach with the Lunch and Learn series has been a crucial step in managing these issues by allowing PGRs to create the content and work with facilitators to produce learning sessions that are devoted to PGRs and are directly there to provide PGRs with the skills and information necessary to overcome their issues. 

The diversity of the PEAs, with each PEA working at different stages of their research degrees and different schools, has been central to the success of the Lunch and Learns. Co-creating the Lunch and Learns with their distinct perspectives has encouraged widespread engagement as the events have been designed to serve all PGRs. This highlights the positive nature of peer-led learning as the creation of events by PEAs with diverse perspectives ensures that the Lunch and Learns cater to the varied needs of PGRs, whether their roadblocks range from academic writing, confidence in presenting, or making us of AI in their research. 

The ‘PEAs in a Pod’ Q&A panel offers an opportunity for PEAs to gather and reflect on their experience in organizing the Lunch and Learns. The panel will act as a platform where the PEAs can discuss the positive peer-led nature of the events and detail some of the points for improvement that could be made for the next cohort of PEAs. This panel serves not only as a celebration of past achievements but also as a forum for brainstorming innovative strategies to elevate future Lunch and Learn sessions in the upcoming academic year.” 

Abigail Weaver – Abigail is a third year PhD student in the English Department at the University of Bristol. Alongside her studies she works as a Graduate Teacher Level 2 for the History Department and she was the committee lead for this year’s successful Centre for Medieval Studies PGR conference: ‘Bodies and Boundaries’. Abigail also works as a PGR Engagement Advocate (PEA) for the Bristol Doctoral College, alongside Amy Smith and Siyu Chen. Their primary roles as a PEAs are to organise the Lunch and Learn series, providing fellow PGRs with a space to learn and expand new skills in a supportive, social, and welcoming environment. 

Amy Smith – Amy Smith has recently completed her PhD at the University of Bristol with sponsorship from the South West and Wales Doctoral Training partnership. Prior to that, she did a part-time MA in History at the University of Bristol, supporting herself through freelance copywriting and marketing work. She was awarded Proxime Accessit in the Royal Historical Society’s Best UK Dissertation category for her master’s dissertation. During her final year as a PhD student, she worked as a PGR Engagement Advocate with Siyu Chen and Abigail Weaver. This included managing the Lunch and Learn series of events, performing market research for the Bristol Doctoral College, and assisting students in setting up their own BDC-sponsored networking groups. 

Siyu Chen – Siyu Chen is currently a second-year PhD student in Neuroscience at the University of Bristol, with funding from the China Scholarship Council. Prior to this, she completed her Master of Research in Brain Sciences at University College London. In her role as a PGR Engagement Advocate, Siyu has worked alongside Amy Smith and Abigail Weaver, contributing to the planning of professional and personal development workshops and social events, as well as engaging in research and community development. 

Pippa Sloan – Pippa helps to support the communications and engagement activities for the Bristol Doctoral College, helping to organize engagement events and ensure effective communication with the PGR community. Pippa graduated from the University of Bristol with a BA in Classical Studies and has worked within the CAME School of Engineering since 2021, providing administrative support to academic colleagues and students. 

Laura Etheridge – Laura leads on the communications and engagement activities for the Bristol Doctoral College by delivering an effective communications and engagement strategy, working to grow, develop and support our thriving community of postgraduate research students across all research degree programmes at the University of Bristol. Laura has worked at the University of Bristol for the last 10 years in various marketing, comms and events-based roles, subsequent to studying for her master’s here in Film and Television. 

VIEW PRESENTATION

“Peer-to-peer teaching has been shown to enhance communication skills, aid revision, improve exam results and allow students to gain a deeper understanding of teaching delivery.[1,2] Student teams undertaking a Masters level unit in the School of Chemistry at the University of Bristol were tasked with creating taught content and delivering a lecture and problem session to their peers to assist with revision for a final year general chemistry exam paper. 

Students were provided with pedagogical training and were tasked with enhancing their communication and collaboration skills through a group working contract alongside developing and delivering level appropriate content. Students were empowered in their own learning by having agency on topic delivery choice and were best placed to understand the background knowledge of their peers. The unit was designed to encourage student ownership and co-creation by asking students to assist with development of the summative peer assessed marking rubric in a workshop session.[3–5] The unit also incorporated authentic assessment by delivering the student created lectures to other undergraduate students revising in lower years for their own end of year exams and providing a repository of revision material.[6,7] Initial survey results, findings and learnings will be presented. 

References: 

1 A. M. Danowitz, J Chem Educ, 2021, 98, 1556–1561. 

2 Y. D. Mitchell, J. Ippolito and S. E. Lewis, Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 2012, 13, 378–383. 

3 C. Moore and S. Teather, Engaging students in peer review: Feedback as learning, Special Issue, 2013, vol. 23. 

4 N. Falchikov and J. Goldfinch, Student Peer Assessment in Higher Education: A Meta-Analysis Comparing Peer and Teacher Marks, 2000, vol. 70. 

5 F. Dochy, M. Segers and D. Sluijsmans, Studies in Higher Education, 1999, 24, 331–350. 

6 Z. Sokhanvar, K. Salehi and F. Sokhanvar, Studies in Educational Evaluation, 2021, 70. 

7 M. Schultz, K. Young, T. K. Gunning and M. L. Harvey, Assess Eval High Educ, 2022, 47, 77–94.” 

Dr Francesca Dennis and Dr Juliet Collins are lecturers in Chemistry on the educational pathway. They are both heavily involved in direct teaching across a number of units, laboratory delivery and pastoral care of students. Juliet is also the Chemistry Senior Tutor for Foundation and First year students. Francesca is the unit director on the first-year laboratory and maths course. Fran and Juliet are now co-unit directors for a new master’s level chemistry educational unit. 

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“Background: 

The role of Student Experience Lead was introduced at Bristol Vet School in 2018, partly in response to perceptions of poor Student Voice apparent in National Student Survey results.  The role incorporates analysis of student and other outcomes data, as well as close working with the course rep community around hearing every student’s voice and closing the feedback loop. 

During this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to explore ways of engaging with the student community in meaningful, impactful ways.  Through sharing examples and lessons learnt from our own experiences as Student Experience Leads at Bristol Vet School, we will encourage participants to explore new ideas in their own contexts. The workshop will focus on two area: engaging students during student-staff liaison committees and working in partnership with students to close the feedback loop. 

1. Engaging students during student-staff liaison committees (SSLC) 

Previously, at the Vet School, these meetings were chaired by members of the Senior Management Team, held online and with variable attendance. Following discussions between senior leaders and the Student Experience Leads, various measures were introduced including School-specific training for course reps and associated academics. During the workshop you will learn what worked, and what didn’t work to bolster attendance and engagement during student-staff liaison committees. There will be the opportunity for participants to brainstorm ideas for their own context, leaving the workshop with a clear vision to implement in their School.   

2. Working in partnership with students to close the feedback loop 

Another area which has received attention is how the School relays the outcomes of feedback discussions to the busy student, thereby closing the feedback loop – an important step in allowing students to feel heard. The Student Experience Leads gathered feedback from course reps about ways to connect student cohorts with their course reps and feedback outcomes. Suggestions included the use of various media and community sites which have led to increased networking across the course rep community. During the workshop participants will explore practices, based on innovative examples provided from the Vet School, and develop their own ideas. 

Future plans: 

Sarah and Ellie are working closely with programme directors and senior management streamlining the various student feedback routes across the School and considering efficient methods to monitor the outcomes. Student partnership will remain a priority within Student Voice and the format of SSLC will continuously evolve in response to student feedback.” 

Ellie Sellers, Student Experience Co-Lead, Bristol Veterinary School – Following almost a decade as a Vet in general practice, Ellie became the first Clinical Demonstrator at Bristol Vet School in 2018. Ellie now co-leads the team of 20+ who provide practical teaching across all years and bring the Spectrum of Care perspective to final year rotations. Following her passion for producing resilient and independent graduates she became Student Experience co-lead in summer 2022 and alongside her colleague, Sarah O’Shaughnessy, works on raising the profile of Student Voice across the School.

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“Staff student partnerships have been shown to benefit both parties by increasing student agency and engagement in learning and teaching activities (Cook-Sather, Bovill and Felten, 2014).  

This presentation will showcase how we have adapted our staff-student liaison committee (SSLC) and Peer-Assisted Study Sessions (PASS) in the School of Biological Sciences to increase student engagement and agency. These changes are very simple and transferable to any discipline.  

SSLC meetings often occur too infrequently to be able to make significant changes that positively impact existing student cohorts. During the pandemic we increased the frequency of our SSLC meetings to respond more rapidly to emerging issues, and since returning to in-person teaching we have retained our ‘rapid response’ SSLC structure. More recently we have empowered student academic representatives to co-create our rules of engagement and run our SSLC.  

The university-wide Peer-Assisted Study Session (PASS) scheme has a lot of potential, but in our school these sessions were often poorly attended, and PASS leaders struggled with logistics and deciding what to do in their sessions.  The partnership we have co-created with student PASS leaders, academics and professional services has significantly improved student engagement and perceived value of PASS.   School-based professional services staff support the logistics (room bookings and timetabling) and academic staff provided more scaffolding for sessions (sharing assessment landscapes and exemplars with PASS leaders). We have several student partner research projects in our school. 

Effective staff-student partnerships in the School of Biological Sciences have resulted in the development of several school-wide enhancement initiatives which will be shared in this presentation.” 

Presenting team: 

Sheila Amici-Dargan is the academic lead for SSLC and PASS in Biological Sciences.  

Daisy Johnston Barrett and Nasira Tejan Franken are senior PASS leaders in Biological Sciences.    

Izzie Best, Rachel Piper and Natalie Bridge are student representatives in Biological Sciences.   

Julia Bunting and Lorenzo Zancani are involved in student administration in Biological Sciences. 

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“A workshop to explore the possibilities for changes in curriculum and teaching/learning approaches across disciplines through critical engagement with (decolonial and open) futures thinking. 

This workshop with support and challenge those teaching and setting curriculum to consider their content and approach through the eyes of the next generation of skilled labourers in their fields – i.e. their students. Are we helping students build the capacity to envision possible and preferable futures? Or are we currently preparing them for a determined future where they will be expected to fit and replicate the status quo? What jobs will our students have? What will they need to be able to do, and how will they need to be able to think and imagine in order to live well, in balance with planetary thriving and in a just and equitable society? 

With a decolonial lens, the workshop will ask participants to consider the history of their disciplines and the way they are currently taught and experienced by students, in order to imagine how we can teach and align our curriculum for sustainable, equitable and reparative futures, in partnership with our diverse student community. 

Futures thinking should be done in partnership with our students, who are the future thinkers, researchers and doers. Our students will be in leadership positions across industries when we are looking to retire. They will see and take part in dramatic changes to the ways that we work, live, study and play. How can we bring positive, inter-generational influence to bear in education, engineering, arts, humanities, sciences and innovation? 

The workshop will be both interactive and require personal reflection. Please come open and curious. ” 

Shandin is Education for Sustainability Lead at Bristol Students’ Union. She previously worked in the Cabot Institute for the Environment and the now Centre for Study Abroad at University of Bristol. Before joining UoB in 2022 she worked for 12 years in international education (including study abroad, global civic education and international student recruitment) in the US, Romania, Canada, and the UK, with experience managing international programmes and partnerships in the Americas and East Asia. 

Shandin is proudly a working class, first generation student, and is currently finishing her MSc Education (Policy & International Development) at UoB. She is particularly interested in education as a space for transformation and disruption of the status quo, for building just and sustainable futures as well as empowering students (and staff) to take action in and for the present. She is keen to change educational practice and policy to foster cultures of care, equity and flourishing. 

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“International students arrive in Bristol with IELTS or equivalent test scores which give a limited indication of what the student can actually do and where they need further development. One of the reasons for this lack of transparency is the focus on the four traditional language skills (reading, writing, listening and speaking), while the academic communicative skills that students will actually need on a university programme are so much more complex, varied and integrated. We believe that the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) provides an opportunity to define the communication skills and strategies that will form a foundation for student autonomy in their learning. The CEFR also gives academics the opportunity to work together with students on their learning goals throughout a course, as students build evidence to demonstrate their skills. The CEFR encourages us to focus on what learners Can Do rather than focusing on deficits. In this sense, we move away from broad generalisations about students’ skills towards a detailed framework that can guide their progress and the support we provide. 

While the CEFR (2001) is not new, it has recently been re-invigorated by the publication of a Companion Volume (2020) and the launch of a supplementary Handbook (2022). The inclusion of detailed sections on, for example, Interaction and Mediation represents an opportunity for us to re-imagine our use of the CEFR in innovative ways that are aligned more closely with the educational processes that students experience in their disciplinary settings. Mediation, for example, can include text mediation (paraphrasing, summarising and note-taking) and concept mediation. In an early pilot of this workshop, a participant noted that mediation “is where we’re doing economics.” This workshop will allow you to dig into the framework and see the elements that are most crucial to your discipline and faculty. Utilizing the CEFR as a guiding tool will help you better understand how communication skills develop over time and help facilitate a student’s learning journey. 

One of the session’s key take-aways is the collaborative potential of using the CEFR with students. The insights from the CEFR form the basis for a partnership in which students become active cocreators of their education, contributing to the development of tailored learning experiences. Engaging in a reflective process, educators gain a deeper understanding of their students, their teaching practices and the larger ecosystem of language learning. The session aims to inspire participants to reconsider their approaches to informally assessing students’ English skills and give them a common vocabulary and tools, ultimately fostering a culture of transparency, collaboration and empowerment.” 

Kathleen Mitchell Burrows (Katie) is Assessment Coordinator at the University Bristol’s Centre for Academic Language and Development. She is interested in feedback, authentic assessment, curriculum development, writing instruction, game-based learning, and English for specific purposes. Kathleen has presented internationally on these topics and has worked on large-scale assessment, professional development, and curriculum projects with the U.S. Department of State, the International Baccalaureate, and others. She has taught in Albania, Germany, Thailand, the United States, and the United Kingdom. 

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“This presentation explores the creation and evolution of a reading skills workshop devised and delivered by students working in partnership with Study Skills staff. The development of this workshop followed a ‘students as partners’ (SaP) approach (Matthews, 2017), in which students and staff sought to collaborate together in a partnership of equals. In this presentation we explore SaP as a long-term journey which requires trial, reflection, adjustment and retrial from the creators. This approach led to the development of an innovative reading skills workshop incorporating the exploration of AI tools to empower students in their learning.  

Study skills workshops are small group events for students run by students (Allison and Lina) in the capacity of Student Advocates in partnership with Study Skills staff (Tim). We focus on discussion and building students’ academic skills. As international students, we particularly recognized the challenge of navigating numerous readings, especially when presented in languages other than our own, and compounded by intricate terminology and academic vocabulary. Whilst the study skills team already ran workshops on academic reading, we wanted to create a session aimed at non-native English language speakers based around our experiences of reading English as a second language, providing a space for students to share experiences, frustrations, and useful tips. 

From running our first session, we have progressively learned from ourselves and our participants through a process of discussion and reflection on attendee feedback in collaboration with staff. Our peers’ participation has effectively co-created future workshops as we take their feedback into account to revise and improve future sessions. We realized that despite possessing foundational reading skills, obstacles frequently arise due to issues with time management, note-taking methods, and language barriers. In response to these insights, we evolved our workshop, integrating tailored tips and activities to address these specific challenges. Following conversations with attendees we also integrated discussions and activities concerning the advantages and limitations of AI tools for academic reading into the workshop, with the aim of equipping students with the knowledge and skills to use these tools effectively and appropriately in line with university regulations. 

By focusing on advanced skills required for academic readings and encouraging participants to bring their own materials, we’ve fostered a collaborative environment where collective knowledge is shared. As we share tips from previous participants and encourage new attendees to share theirs, we as students have shaped Study Skills into not just a service provided by the University to students but a truly collaborative project which empowers student learning by building a safe space to share knowledge with one another.  

In our presentation we will show how SaP collaboration can lead to this empowerment. We will discuss the roles which staff and students should play within this collaboration in order to equip educators with a toolkit for developing their own SaP projects and demonstrate the value of a ‘journeyed’ approach to SaP practice. 

References: Matthews, K. E. (2017) ‘Five Propositions for Genuine Students As Partners Practice’, International Journal for Students as Partners, 1(2). doi: 10.15173/ijsap.v1i2.3315. ” 

Presenting Team: 

Tim Worth: Student Skills Coordinator. 

Allison Sia: An undergraduate final year law student working in Study Skills as an Advocate and workshop facilitator. 

Lina Maria Carrero-Hurtado: Postgraduate law student, doing a master’s in Human Rights Law. Advocate and workshop facilitator of the Student Skills team.

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“In the past 18 months the use of generative artificial Intelligence (AI) tools such as ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini has become commonplace among the student population. Whilst some may be using it to write their coursework, many are finding positive ways to use generative AI tools to enhance and strategically rationalise their studying. The HE community has been on a rapid and dizzying journey in understanding and evaluating AI tools, frequently playing catch up with the students who are using them. Following the original fears and outcry, the desire to ban their use was rapidly followed by the realisation of the impossibility of detecting and banning their use. This occurred parallel to the community recognising the potential of generative AIs to create learning materials and an understanding of their potential as study aids. 

In this paper we present how the Study Skills team and DEO, in liaison with the University’s academic Integrity network, has created an online learning resource “Using AI at University” aimed at empowering students to use AI tools in an ethical and efficient manner, whilst also alerting them to the pitfalls and dangers of such tools. The resource was created through a combination of using current research and benchmarking against the practice of other universities, guidance from sources such as HEA, UNESCO and JISC, discussion with current students and staff and attending discussion groups and events at the University of Bristol and nationally. The resource emphasises play and experimentation, critical evaluation and iterative approaches to using these tools. Following review by academic staff, students and the University’s academic integrity network, the resource launched in October 2023.   It has been well received, gaining positive feedback from within and beyond the University. It has had over 6300 site visits between its launch and March 2024.  

Importantly, the student voice has been essential in development and refinement of the resource, which has been strongly informed by the innovations already being made by current students, for example, using AI tools to create an interactive AI study skills tutor. The conversational capability of chatbot AI tools thereby enables the student to enhance their own learning through discussion with the tool. In this paper we will therefore discuss the potential that these tools bring and suggest ways in which staff may empower students to: 

• Make strong ethical choices regarding the use of generative AI tools 
• Use generative AI tools to enhance their learning 
• Critically evaluate the output of AI tools 

Whilst the Study Skills “Using AI at University” resource is an effective learning tool, it does not constitute a set of rules or official guidance on what is acceptable use of generative AI tools at the University of Bristol. For this we recommend that Schools engage in an ongoing dialogue with their students, with implications not just for study but also for how assessment of learning happens. This idea will form the final part of the paper. ” 

Simon is the Head of the Study Skills service and Study Skills tutor for the Faculty of Health Sciences. He originally worked as a cancer research scientist at Imperial College London and Brunel University, before moving into academic development tutoring. He has previously worked as a learning support tutor in the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Portsmouth, where he developed his interest in academic support for health sciences students. In his own time, he teaches drawing and painting skills and was recently co-chair of the University’s staff LGBT+ network. 

Orcid ID 0000-0003-2880-5874 

Steve Cole is a Senior Digital Learning Materials Developer in the Digital Education Office (DEO).  He is responsible for creating the majority of the online learning materials produced by the Study Skills Team and their digital presence on various University platforms. 

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“In an era where the landscape of education and employment is constantly evolving, universities play a pivotal role in shaping the future of their students. AI and Automation is changing the skills that students need to develop and there is an increased demand for higher cognitive, social, emotional and technological skills. 

The Bristol Skills Profile is a new initiative which responds to the need for self-reflection and adaptation, as well as the demand for an ever-evolving skills base. The profile is designed to empower students to assess and self-evaluate the skills they are developing in all aspects of their university experience. By offering a structured platform for self-assessment, the profile encourages students to reflect on skills gained throughout their academic and non-academic experience. 

Our presentation introduces the framework of the Bristol Skills Profile, a university-wide endeavour focused on assisting students in auditing the diverse skill sets they acquire during their time at the university. We will also highlight the skills covered by the profile, including academic, research and knowledge handling skills, working well independently, with others and across communities, and self-awareness and well-being. 

Key components of the presentation include an overview of the assessment process, and introduce the online platform created to ensure accessibility for all students. The integration of the Bristol Skills Profile into the academic curriculum and extracurricular activities will be discussed, emphasising the importance incorporation into the overall student experience. 

Furthermore, the presentation will delve into the potential benefits of the Bristol Skills Profile in empowering students in their own learning. Attendees will gain insights into how this initiative fosters a culture of continuous improvement and leave with concrete ideas about how to use the profile in their work and interactions with students.” 

Amy Lee- Faculty Employability Advisor for Economics 

Sam Cook- Employability Consultant 

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“This presentation will report on an ongoing investigation into International Foundations Progamme (IFP) subject unit success, with a particular focus on knowledge practices. Knowledge practices in this project will be explored in relation to Bernstein’s concept of ‘grammaticality’, which refers to “relations between ideas and their empirical data” (Maton, 2011: p.63). 

The presentation will attempt to show how knowledge practices can be captured and made more visible within the field of production (source texts), and how those practices emerge in course documents as well as successful student writing. It will do this through an analysis of interview data with a subject tutor and course documents, as well as a systemic functional linguistic field analysis of successful student writing, in order to highlight the transfer of knowledge through Bernstein’s Pedagogic Device (Singh, 2002). 

It is hoped that by making knowledge practices within subject areas more explicit, the design of and preparation of students for discipline specific assessment tasks, from an English for Academic Purposes perspective, might be transformed in ways which account for disciplinary diversity, enhancing the educational experiences of a diverse student body with diverse future aspirations. This presentation proposes that making knowledge practices more visible for students may enhance their engagement in constructively aligned assessments in a more disciplinary principled way. It will also emphasize the value of the Pedagogic Device in highlighting opportunities for addressing questions around the decolonization of the curriculum. This could have implications for thinking around “the hidden coloniality, voices, ideology, and assumptions, … (which could) open the discursive space for decolonial and transformative interventions in higher education curricula” (Hlatshwayo et al., 2022: 7).” 

Grant’s interests are exploring the relationships between language and knowledge, as well as exploring how Systemic Functional Linguistics and Legitimation Code Theory can make these relationships clearer for students. 

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“Past literature linking culture and Students as Partners practices focused on two areas: the implementation of student-staff partnerships in a non-Anglophone context (Liang and Matthews, 2021) and the topic of intercultural partnerships (Zhang, Matthews and Liu, 2023). 

In this session, I will present the findings of a paper exploring intercultural partnership dynamics through the use of collaborative autoethnography, submitted to the upcoming issue of the Journal of Educational Innovation, Partnership and Change and co-authored with students. 

I will discuss potential practices which may aid students and staff in building authentic intercultural partnerships derived from my and the student authors’ experiences and aimed at encouraging further reflection on the topic.” 

Ania Udalowska is a Digital Education Officer for Engineering at the University of Bristol. In her role, she supports staff and students in using technology for learning and teaching, promoting research-evidenced pedagogical practices. Her particular educational interest lies in promoting student agency through the Students as Partners (SaP) approach. She facilitated multiple partnership projects, made contributions to the SaP scholarly literature both as an author and peer reviewer, and acted as a reviewer for the SEDA Student Partnership Impact Award. 

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“Inspired by decolonial theory, I propose decolonising psychology’s research methods curricula by the inclusion of epistemological reflections and community-based research methods. To learn the relevance and feasibility of this proposal, I conducted a workshop series aiming to get feedback from 2nd year psychology students (two sessions of 2 hours each: n = 12; n = 13) and psychology research methods instructors across the UK (two sessions of 3 hours each: n = 7; n = 6). My data collection involved audio recording of workshop discussions, and pre/post-workshop surveys. The workshop content and language was tailored to each group, but generally involved reflections on decolonisation, and presenting three key decolonial theory concepts that could potentially be useful in research methods classes: geopolitics of knowledge, to reflect the “system” in which we produce knowledge and inequalities within it; coloniality of knowledge, to reflect the power dynamics in research and the cultural bias we have in Western academia; and epistemic racism, to reflect which epistemic perspectives we value and why. Additionally, I proposed integrating hands-on community-based research methods into student learning to facilitate opportunities to dismantle research colonial dynamics in practice and scholarly activism.  

Participants were also prompted to develop interventions and activities inspired by the proposal. Among the outcomes, students’ responses expressed excitement, stating that the presentation and discussion during the workshop helped them on understanding decolonisation, and called for more opportunities for such discussions, citing previous encounters with the theme as “rushed” and not embedded into curricula. They highlighted reflections of power dynamics in the research process as particularly interesting. Students presented mixed feelings about learning community-based research, stating that it could be daunting and overwhelming, and therefore, there would be a need for clear communication and support. However, they reflected about the potential of community engagement to connect research with real world issues.  

On the other hand, instructors discussed difficulties in implementing decolonisation changes in the curriculum due to lack of knowledge; and power dynamics over decision-making, where those in power often do not accept the necessary radical changes. Additionally, they presented difficulties related to making decolonisation seem relevant to students from all demographics, and in getting students to think critically and reflectively instead of just looking for “right” or “wrong” answers. Instructors developed several decolonisation activities that could be implemented in research methods classes, and the concepts presented were discussed as useful tools for decolonisation reflections throughout the research methods course. While instructors positively welcomed the teaching of community-based research, they presented concerns about teaching this methodology ethically and inclusively.  

Overall, the workshops provided a valuable platform for in-depth discussions about decolonising the curriculum, acknowledging both challenges and opportunities for meaningful implementation beyond surface-level approaches. This presentation will share methodologies and findings from the workshops. This project was funded by the Faculty of Life Sciences Education Innovation Fund.” 

Isabella is a second-year PhD student in Psychology participating in a cotutelle programme between the University of Bristol and Macquarie University in Australia. Her research focuses on the decolonisation of psychology’s research methods curricula, drawing upon decolonial social theories and participatory research methods. Prior to her doctoral studies, Isabella conducted research on mental health and Islamophobia at her alma mater, the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil. She is deeply passionate about reshaping psychology into a discipline that embraces cultural diversity and is actively involved in promoting social justice transformation.  

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“Over the last three years, the biomedical sciences schools at the University of Bristol have worked towards decolonising and diversifying their undergraduate curricula. Outcomes from a research project into staff and student attitudes towards the topic led to the development of a framework for this work: the 3Rs Framework: Rediscovery, Representation, Readiness. This framework was tiused to guide the design of a workshop allowing students to explore ideas around decolonial thinking in their field. A pilot version of the workshop, funded with support of a BILT grant, was run as an extracurricular activity and was positively received, with students reporting statistically significant increases in understanding following the workshop. Building on this success, with further funding from BILT, we introduced a new workshop into a mandatory Year 2 undergraduate course taken by 400 students.  

An introduction was given to frame the topic and students worked in groups to discuss issues in the biomedical field. In the Rediscovery field students discussed topics such as biopiracy, whilst in the Representation theme they talked about issues of representation in the sciences and bias in biomedical datasets. All the topics aimed to build Readiness, preparing the students to be agents of change beyond the university. Evaluation of post-workshop surveys (n=147) revealed that 84% of respondents said they enjoyed the workshop, and 86% said they valued it. There was a significant increase in perceived understanding about decolonising and diversifying biomedical science following the workshop. Our aim is to support our students to identify ways to make science more equitable and representative, enabling them to take on global challenges in the future.” 

Lara Lalemi is the Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Officer for the Faculty of Life Sciences and the School of Biochemistry; she has a long-standing interest in decolonising the science curriculum. 

Maria Pulman is a Research Assistant in pedagogic research culture; she has worked on several projects involving decolonising the curriculum and sustainable development. 

Maisie Varcoe is a third year undergraduate studying for a BSc in Biochemistry, completing her final year dissertation on decolonising and diversifying the curriculum. 

Ames Mosley is Equality, Diversity & Inclusion Officer for the School of Physiology, Pharmacology & Neuroscience and co-chairs the School EDI committee. 

Zafar Bashir is a Professor of Cellular Neuroscience in the School of Physiology, Pharmacology & Neuroscience and academic lead in School EDI committee. 

Bronwen Burton is a teaching focussed Senior Lecturer in Immunology and academic EDI lead in the School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine. 

Alice Robson is an Associate Professor in Biochemistry Education with an interest in embedding employability and research skills in the curriculum.   

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“This research project focuses on capitalising on the students’ experiences of group work to produce guidelines for both academics and students for successful setting and undertaking this type of assessment. We aim to develop a better understanding of current group dynamics and also the perceptions from the cohort. We are particularly interested to explore whether group coursework is perceived as inclusive by the students and also in determining the factors that can make group coursework successful from a student’s point of view. This is work currently in process.” 

This project is run by a team of six members. Three academics (two from engineering, one from education) and three 4th year Mechanical Engineering students. 

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“Assessments are a critical element of learning in Higher Education (HE), yet as Hanesworth (2019) points out, they are “neither value-neutral nor culture-free: within its procedures, structures and systems it codifies cultural, disciplinary and individual norms, values and knowledge hierarchies”. Research has indicated that experiences with assessment and feedback which contribute to a sense of exclusion through mechanisms of alienation, loss of agency, and self-esteem (Mann, 2001; Mountford-Zimdars et al., 2015; Sambell, 2016). This exploratory study aims to facilitate the inclusion of student voice into the development of inclusive assessment practices at the University of Bristol. Using data collected from focus groups with students in the FSSL that identified as coming from ‘historically excluded’ groups in HE, this presentation will convey the cross-cutting themes that emerged from the perspectives put forward in relation to experiences of assessment and inclusivity.” 

Robynne Grant-Jepps is a PhD researcher within the School for Sociology, Politics, and International Studies. She is a student fellow at BILT, working on the theme ‘Designed for All Assessment Activities’ 

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“Assessments in higher education should be part of student learning (assessment for learning), enable demonstration of competency in skills and/or understanding for accreditation purposes (assessment of learning), and be authentic so that students are prepared for life beyond academia (Boud and Soler, 2016). Inclusive assessments achieve these outcomes in a way that is fair (by proactively minimising disadvantage through assessment), accessible, compassionate and recognizes the diversity in student learning (Knight & Ferrell, 2022 Tai et al., 2023).  As student bodies become more diverse (Marginson, 2016), universities need to adapt assessments to be more inclusive within their institutional context (Hanesworth, 2019). Although much work has been done to develop theoretical approaches to inclusive assessment (Madriaga et al., 2010), the literature is relatively scarce of research exploring the practicalities of inclusive assessment (Tai et al., 2021).   

The University of Bristol assessment strategy highlights that assessments should be integrated, inclusive, and authentic. Priority 2 of the strategy highlights that assessment and feedback should be designed for all, offering variety in assessment types, having a balance between formative and summative assessments where formative assessment builds into summative, and acknowledging the value of diverse student backgrounds. However, it is unclear how inclusive students perceive current approaches to assessment to be, and how their perceptions differ in relation to the variety of assessment types that are used within the university. Nor is it known how perceptions vary between demographic groups, and amongst those with potential barriers to inclusion.  We have conducted a scoping review and a large-scale survey of university students to explore the perceived inclusivity of a range of assessments currently used within the university, formative and summative, UG and PG, as well as students’ views on which assessments best enable them to demonstrate their learning, and which they view as most authentic.   

We will describe our preliminary results identifying features of assessment deemed to be inclusive in content and delivery, and how these vary with student demographics (including presence of a disability, caring responsibility and need to work).  We will also explore links between assessment type and attainment.  In order to produce university guidance on inclusive assessments, we also need to consider practicality, feasibility and the experience and opinions of staff, both academic and administrative integral to this consideration. This session will include opportunities to discuss our survey results to date and to contribute your views to the university guidance that results.”  

Nicola Rooney is Senior Lecturer, and MSc Programme Director in Bristol Vet School. Nicola is a Mental Health Champion and with a background in primary school education is passionate about a compassionate inclusive approach to education and assessment.   

Craig Gunn is a Lecturer in the School of Psychological Sciences and the Principal Senior Tutor. He has a keen interest in how human cognition is influenced by various conditions and states. I am dedicated to shaping the educational landscape with a focus on optimizing assessment methodologies across the degree programme and am passionate about developing a stimulating and exciting academic journey by creating environments where students can showcase their abilities to the fullest.  

Tirion Cobby is a recent graduate of the MSc Global Wildlife Health and Conservation which she completed following a BVSc in Veterinary Science and an intercalated BSc in Zoology. She has a strong interest in research which led to her joining this project as a research assistant following her studies.   

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“Understanding how assessment and feedback are being considered and delivered across an institution is critical for those who are involved in curriculum enhancement and quality assurance (Boyd, 2019; Walker et al., 2019). While it may be relatively straightforward to measure volume and varieties of assessment, student satisfaction with assessment and feedback, and assessment-linked metrics such as progression and continuation rates, understanding the design of assessment and feedback at programme level and its impact on students’ experience is a more challenging endeavour (Gibbs and Dunbar-Goddet, 2009; Jessop, 2023). 

In 2022, University of Bristol launched an assessment and feedback strategy underpinned by the three strategic priorities of Integrated Assessment Design, Designed for All assessment and Authentic Assessment (University of Bristol, 2022). Through school-level workshops, the Curriculum Enhancement team supported academics in understanding the priorities in terms of existing practices and planning changes in assessment and feedback on each programme. Though the workshops were well received, measuring their longer-term impact on assessment and feedback practices and students’ experiences proved more difficult. 

Our research sought to evaluate the impact of the strategy and workshops by working with staff to develop case studies of assessment and feedback approaches in a variety of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes across the institution. The purpose of the case studies was threefold: to build a rich picture of what the assessment priorities look like in practice; to support programme teams in continuing to develop their approaches; and to inspire staff on other programmes to apply aspects of these approaches to assessment and feedback in their own context. 

Each case study draws on three sources of data: interviews with Programme Directors around the development and implementation of their assessment and feedback approach, student focus groups discussing their experiences of the approach, and Programme Directors’ self-evaluation of assessment and feedback on their programmes measured against the strategic priorities and underlying principles, using the Curriculum Enhancement team’s Assessment Strategy Self-Evaluation Tool (ASSET). In particular, the ASSET has been helpful in uncovering and visualising the strategic thinking and transformative changes which have taken place within programmes and across the institution.  

Our research is likely to be of interest to academics, educational developers and policymakers seeking to understand and share existing good practices in assessment and feedback, and then use this to develop and evaluate new approaches. 

Boyd, P. (2019) ‘Enhancing assessment and feedback in higher education’, Assessment in MENA (AIM) 2019 Conference: Developing a Culture of Effective Assessment for Continuous Improvement, 7-8 April 2019, Abu Dhabi University, United Arab Emirates. (Unpublished) 

Gibbs, G. and Dunbar-Goddet, H. (2009) ‘Characterising programme-level assessment environments that support learning’, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 34(4), pp.481-489. 

Jessop, T. (2023) Student Agency and Engagement: Transforming Assessment and Feedback in Higher Education. Taylor & Francis. 

University of Bristol (2022) University Assessment and Feedback Strategy 2022-30. Available at: https://www.bristol.ac.uk/academic-quality/assessment/assessment-and-feedback-strategy/. (Accessed: 28 February 2024). 

Walker, S., Salines, E., Abdillahi, A., Mason, S., Jadav, A. and Molesworth, C. (2019) ‘Identifying and resolving key institutional challenges in feedback and assessment: a case study for implementing change’, Higher Education Pedagogies, 4(1), pp.422-434.” 

Dave Gatrell is a Lecturer in Academic Development with the Bristol Institute for Learning and Teaching, specialising in curriculum enhancement and assessment. He recently completed his PhD in technology enhanced learning, for which he analysed the design and implementation of video-based peer feedback tasks to develop students’ communication skills in a variety of subject disciplines.  Before returning to the UK in 2022, he lived in Prague, Barcelona and Hong Kong, where he taught English to speakers of other languages, trained primary and secondary teachers, designed online courses, and led funded research projects in technology-enhanced learning and assessment. He is particularly interested in partnering with academics and students to design, implement and evaluate integrated, inclusive and authentic approaches to assessment. 

Joe Gould is a Research Associate in the Curriculum Enhancement Programme team. He works with programmes across the University to understand more about students’ experiences of assessment and feedback, as well as facilitating staff workshops informed by current strategy and developing practices in assessment and feedback. Joe’s background is in education, and he has taught in a range of secondary schools as well as serving as a staff governor and completing his MSc in Education. 

VIEW PRESENTATION

“The use and play of games are an invaluable educational tool. It is widely used in primary and secondary education and has proven to be a pedagogical success. There is an increasing interest in using games in higher education and embedding them as part of the curricula. Elements of games can be added to any discipline. Still, for this to be successful and sustainable, it has to provide students with additional knowledge on their studies and opportunities to create memorable moments with their peers. I use games to enhance students’ participation and engagement with my discipline, microbiology. 

Sessions with elements of games create a relaxed environment where students can interact with peers and play without the fear of failing. This type of session is especially important for 1st-year students as they have the appropriate environment to create new relationships with other students. Students learn from both correct and incorrect answers. And very importantly, students revise the unit material while playing. The success of this type of activity is achieved by providing flexible rules that can be adapted to the diversity of the individuals in the groups and by giving them a common challenge. Games are also designed to consider non-native English speaker students, who might feel the language is a barrier. 

By making students part of the creation of the games, we ensure that the game’s content is attractive to students and pitched to the right level of knowledge. Co-creation has a dual benefit: the learning occurs during the creation and the playing. 

I want to share the games I have co-created with students to allow the audience to try them and to inspire them to use elements of games to convert our disciplines into a more enjoyable and engaging educational practice.” 

Isabel’s mini-bio: I am a Senior Lecturer in microbiology at the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. I have always been interested in empowering students with educational tools, which they can use to collaborate with other students, to socialise and build a sense of community while they are learning and revising the course material. Gamification provides all those elements, and this is a part of education I am very interested in continuing to explore. During the Covid-19 pandemic, I was one of the University Digital Champions and helped to enhance the digital education across the Schools in my Faculty. I am a member of the Equality, Diversity and Inclusion committee in my School, and I believe that we can build a better education with the student collaboration.