The main aim of the project was to create an online Interdisciplinary Staff Hub that supports educators in designing and delivering interdisciplinary teaching and learning, from activities to assessment. A key output of the project has been the identification and analysis of case studies across Warwick of good interdisciplinary practice to demonstrate the applicability of interdisciplinarity across subjects and departments. The wide range of cases enable staff to reflect on their own practice while taking inspiration from leaders for interdisciplinarity. Work on the Hub is ongoing and the WIHEA Interdisciplinary Learning Circle will continue to make contributions to the Hub in future.
Co-Led by Rebecca Stone (Arts) and Sara Hattersley (ADC)
This project has provided the desired initial architecture for the Warwick Postgraduate Teaching Community. This includes: a central web space for access to materials, news and information; an active Twitter account; a Moodle resource repository; a buddy system to connect PGR teachers; a revised TfLO course for PGRs (with a pilot cohort); a call for papers for a PGR teacher journal and finally a survey of PGRs about the experience of teaching at Warwick. These streams of activity were initiated and driven by team members and will reach a point of conclusion at the start of the Autumn Term 2021. Key outputs will be embedded into ADC activities to ensure sustainability.
Co-Led by Jennie Mills (ADC) and Naomi Waltham-Smith (CIM)
The Listening@Warwick project created a podcast series which captures reflections on teaching and learning during a pandemic year. Each episode listens-in to a conversation between two students or two members of staff, who share with each other their thoughts and feelings. We hear about the challenges and triumphs of online learning, how we have come together whilst being apart, how we have balanced home life and work life, and what has characterised individual experiences of lockdown learning. In the final episode the podcast team reflect upon what inspired the project, the production process, and what we can learn from listening.
The co-created Learning from Crisis project explored what might be learned and embedded from the experience of and responses to Covid-19 in relation to teaching and learning at Warwick. It has resulted in a WIHEA Learning Circle co-created by students and staff, events run by the RSA for WIHEA and the wider University community, and an enquiry project which will be reporting its findings during autumn 2021. In addition, toolkits for teachers and learners across the University will support opportunities for reflective learning from the experiences of 2020-21. Key themes that have emerged during the project have included cultures of care, and the value of supporting and capturing innovative practices as they develop.
Led by Sam Hardy (Work-based & Professional Learning)
As a result of this project, Engineering and Digital Technology Solutions pathways on the Mobius online maths bridging resource have been completed and rolled out to degree apprentices in WMG and the School of Engineering. School of Engineering offer holders were also given access to Mobius in August, enabling them to gain maths skills and confidence prior to starting their undergraduate degree courses.
A proposed plan of content for an ‘Apprentice Core Skills’ Moodle site has been created, mapped to the skills that apprentices need to progress through their apprenticeships, to meet the Knowledge, Skills and Behaviours (KSBs) set out in their individual learning plans.
Co-Led by Rebecca Stone (Arts) and Jess Humphreys (ADC)
The Digital Pedagogy Library showcases the excellent work that is taking place across the Faculty of Arts and beyond in the field of digital pedagogy. By drawing together examples of excellence in digital teaching, learning, assessment and student experience, the project shares disciplinary and interdisciplinary best practice with the aim to inspire broader engagement and innovation within the digital sphere. The Library demonstrates the role and value of the Arts in the digital age, creates a space for colleagues to learn from staff and students’ expertise and stimulate further advances in this field.
Co-Led by Emily Roisin Reid (WMS) and Bo Kelestyn (Chemistry)
The competition yielded 12 high quality outputs in the form of 2-minute videos or a virtual poster which can be found via the project web page. These outputs provided innovative visions for Employability which there is already commitment to taking forwards across the institution. The interdisciplinary mingling of students with different members of professional and academic staff has spawned a cross-pollination of exciting new ideas. The purpose of this project was to start the dialogue on this important topic; feedback indicates that the aim of starting an institutional dialogue has been realised setting the foundations for wider cultural change.
Co-Led by Rachel Dickinson (WBS/DOS) and Elena Riva (IATL)
Starting with the idea of a Writing Circle, the project team commissioned writer, poet and educator George Ttoouli to design and try out a series of writing resources intended to prompt reflection on workplace wellbeing. The event was open to all staff with a student facing dimension to their work. In total twenty-five colleagues participated in the Writing Circle, which provided a valuable opportunity to reflect on some of the benefits of (and barriers to) active participation, as well as to explore the potential of writing as a tool for promoting wellbeing.
This project has gained an insight into the experiences of Neurodiverse students (survey and interviews), learning what they would like to see from the University to improve their student experience. Funded over 2020/21 and 2021/22, the project team continue their work and will gather best practice examples from staff during October 2021 and combine this information together to create best practice pedagogical recipes for supporting neurodiverse students.
