Author: jmenglishby

Hi all!

Thanks Eda, for passing on this link: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/times-higher-education-best-university-workplace-survey/2005988.article

Click on the link above and complete the Times Higher Education survey and say how you feel about your institution!

Best wishes all and hope you are having a good summer…

Harriet

As many of you know, Doris Schedlitzki, Carol Jarvis, Gareth Edwards and I have been running the Creative Leadership Project over the past few weeks, here at UWE. This has included a series of workshops based on the topics of: Language, Innovation and Space, where we present research from our current work, invite industry experts to comment on our findings…and ask participants to engage in interactive creative conversations (more details on the project can be found in previous posts on this blog).

We have had a great response from both academics and practitioners and the sessions seem to have sparked some really interesting thoughts, ideas and reflections…in us and those who have attended!

Last night (Tuesday 2nd July) we held our last workshop on Space, in the lovely Street Café on the Frenchay campus – thanks to all those who came along – we hope you enjoyed the time and space to talk about…space!

We hope to continue the work we have started and will be putting together a bid for funding to develop and grow this project…so watch this space for more details and updates, and we hope to see even more of you at the next set of events!

Finally, a note to all those who participated – your conversations were highly valued! And thank you too to all our industry experts – your energy and enthusiasm are much appreciated.

Harriet

I found a great article in the University of Bath alumni magazine a few weeks ago: Alumnus Chris Brill (BSc Mechanical Engineering, 1983) is working with two Bath students, Alex Marshall ( International Management and Modern Languages) and James Isbister (Computer Sciences with Mathematics), to launch a revision app that could change the way young people revise!

‘In Brain is a revision app that uses iPhones and iPads as memory prompts’ the article states. It goes on to detail how this works: ‘InBrain works by the user taking a picture of an everyday view seen on a familiar journey and then drawing a ‘zone’ around an object in the image. This zone can then be linked to an education resource such as a YouTube video, webpage or the student’s own notes or audio clips. The image acts as a memory prompt, much like a flash card, so that the next time the user thinks of an object it reminds them of the learning material. The student ‘walks’ the journey (mentally or for real) and the views and pictures prompt recall of the learning materials. Using InBrain to build a journey in this way means the different images can be linked to different elements of the course. James said: “The process of attaching information you need to remember to familiar objects is proven to increase long term recall by 70 per cent”‘.

Alex and James have already won prizes for their work, including the 2012 Apps Crunch Competition and are currently trialing the app with a variety of students. Once the app is completed, Alex and James will be sending it to Apple, and ‘if accepted, it will be hosted in the Apple Store’.

For me, this not only provokes thought in terms of how we support students with their revision (and how we could approach this in different ways), but also in terms of the overall learning and teaching experience – what other tools can we use to help long term recall? How can we make learning more ‘material’? How could we start to use the classroom environment, and the objects within it, in this process of attaching information that students need to remember? Perhaps these are the sorts of ideas we could take forward into the next academic year…

Harriet

The Aspiring Top Leaders Innovation Workshop took place this week, here at UWE. The workshop focussed on how to generate and develop novel and useful ideas, while working in diverse groups.

It was a great day, full of enthusiasm from our fantastic participants – many of whom form our current cohort on the Aspiring Top Leaders programme, in partnership with NHS South of England and NHS Trust North Bristol. The workshop was lively and thoughtful, and was made all the more interactive with the use of ‘real’ problems from our guest clients – Claire Shepherd, Promoting Organisational Learning Project Manager from the Royal United Hospital, Bath and Steve Boxall, Head of Capital Projects at the Royal United Hospital, Bath. Claire and Steve worked with all our participants on two relevant and ‘live’ problems. The groups used these client briefs to apply divergent/ convergent thinking creative tools and to think about what helps and hinders creativity.

Thank you to all those who participated, shared their experiences and their creativity. Thank you also to Claire and Steve, for their time and enthusiasm, and to Dr Rob Sheffield, the workshop leader and our facilitators.

A recent article in the Times Higher (13th June 2013) not only discusses the website ‘Rate Your Lecturer’ and the various views for and against, but also features our very own Dr Olivier Ratle! Olivier reveals the potential flaws in the site through his very own experiment…follow the link below to find out more!

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/lecturers-dont-rate-rate-your-lecturer-site/2004807.article

Our colleague Dr Eda Ulus has highlighted the seminar below, which may of interest to some of you!

Luce Irigaray International Seminar Symposium

Please see further details and follow this link: http://bristol.ac.uk/ias/workshops/current-workshops/luce-irigaray.html