FBMH Online/Blended Delivery Strategy 20-21

The FBMH Online/Blended Delivery Strategy aims to provide oversight to support colleagues in the changes required for delivery of teaching and learning in 2020-21. It also provides an opportunity to review and revise the organisation of teaching and assessment, enhance the student and staff experience and achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery and assessment of all our taught programmes at all levels. It has been developed in consultation with Programme teams across the Faculty and recognises the different levels of experience staff have in this arena. 

The Strategy has been developed to enable colleagues to undertake the transition towards online/blended delivery and is underpinned by a series of underlying principles.  

Underlying Principles 

Programme teams will:

• have reviewed feasibility of running their programme and, if running, identified any changes to the suite of units delivered for semester 1/2
• consider whether clinical/practical components can and must be taught online and how they can meet accreditation standards
• ensure that all units/modules delivered have a team of at least two members of academic staff to engage in the design, delivery and assessment
• replace exam room assessments (including January exams) with alternative approaches. Cases where this is not possible will need to be identified, justified and measures to implement them approved at Faculty level.
• ensure that clear approaches for the student voice to feed into any decisions are identified and outcomes from this partnership fully documented
• ensure external examiners are informed of overall programme changes
• if relevant, adhere to professional standards and liaise with professional bodies to ensure programmes continue to meet accreditation standards
• remain agile in their ability to respond to government advice and University/Faculty guidance and change teaching delivery approaches accordingly and at short notice if needed 

 All staff involved in teaching delivery:

• with no prior experience of  delivering an online course will have engaged with at least week 1 of the Open University's 'Take your teaching online' course (3 hours)
• will ensure material delivered will meet a minimum expectation 
• will allow all students to engage with their studies flexibly and, if delivered live, content recorded and available asynchronously in recognition that access to internet and digital resources will not be equal
• will deliver core material at a flexible pace with multiple opportunities and methods of engagement for learners
• ensure that all teaching and learning materials and approaches are fully inclusive 
• will make regular contact with any students that they are academic advisor to 
• will ensure regular opportunities to support student learning and engagement e.g. through discussion boards, virtual ’office hours’ or ‘drop in’ sessions

How the FBMH eLearning Team can support you  

The eLearning team will provide pedagogically-led targeted support to teaching teams at every stage of the design, development and delivery process through a series of complementary function-based eLearning teams in the areas of:

• Learning design
• Training and support with use of apps
• Creation support
• Video recording, editing and image support
• Innovative/exceptional content creation

Instead of using any usual eLearning team contacts please contact FBMHcontact@manchester.ac.uk

For any other queries please contact Caroline.bowsher@manchester.ac.uk