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Our future - Teaching and Learning

15 Jul 2022

What we've achieved in the Teaching and Learning theme of our strategic plan and what's next

student smiles in lecture

We aim to strengthen our community of academics, professionals and students, working in partnership to develop the best educational experiences.

To do this our ambitions for teaching and learning are to enhance the quality of our teaching, deliver transformative student experiences, help our students to realise their potential, deliver an education which prepares our students for futures as leaders and global citizens and make sure our students have access to lifelong and flexible learning.

You can find out more about our theme plan.

Achievements to July 2022 

Help our students to realise their potential  

We have been supporting our students through extra resources for our support services, additional financial support for those finding things difficult, simplifying the process for mitigating circumstancesfor assessments, and lots more. 

There is an emphasis on mental health support, including through our Greater Manchester Mental Health Hub.  

Life long and flexible learning 

We’ve been supporting our staff through the transition to online learning during the pandemic, and now back onto campus. This has accelerated our development of flexible learning and led to some excellent digital enhancements. This includes the allocation of etextbook, professional screen recording and video editing and the annotation of digital copies of documents and articles pilot. 

To develop the Flexible Learning strategy which will go to Senate for endorsement in October 2022, we engaged with more than 650 students and staff. Drawing on this feedback, the strategy will be underpinned by an approach of enabling, not enforcing change. We aim to put in place the processes, infrastructure, policies and incentives that will allow us to be agile and adapt with the minimum of friction as the world continues to change around us. 

Enhancing the quality of our teaching 

We are helping our staff get recognition for their outstanding work. Our Institute for Teaching and Learning (ITL) has made an amazing difference.  

  • 9,531 staff, student partners and sector colleagues have engaged with ITL. 
  • 1,133 awards at all levels for AdvanceHE Fellowships.
  • 167 colleagues have won Teaching and Learning awards and prizes internally and externally, raising the profile of teaching excellence. 

We have seen improvements in our NSS scores for learning resources, learning community and learning opportunities – all of which we have prioritised in the past year. We still have a long way to go in improving areas like assessment and feedback and student voice.

Transformative student experience 

We’ve been working in partnership with our students, developing and delivering projects together. We have employed more than 100 Student Partners, with lots more to come; and our students are increasingly partnering or even leading on some of our key priorities, like our Student Experience Action Plans (SEAPS). 

 

Focus for 2022/23  

Flexible and lifelong learning  

We’re investing in a flexible learning innovation space on campus for staff and students to co-create and trial different ways to teach and learn. The space will also include some dedicated space for living at home students. You will hear more about this from August.  

Transformative student experience 

We’ll be developing our Student Survey Strategy to get more information from more students at every stage of their journey, including piloting real-time, live student feedback. 

Help our students to realise their potential  

Our harm reduction work is in its early stages and already being well-received. We will be developing this further through the year. It’s a great example of an initiative truly co-produced by our PS and academic staff and our students. 

Global leadership  

We will be further developing our Stellify programme. This brings together transformational academic and extra-curricular activities to help students stand out and make their mark. This year 446 students completed the award which focused on activities around five core values of learning without boundaries, understanding issues that matter, making a difference, stepping up to lead and creating their future.