Academic Developers October round up

Posted on by Simona Connelly
a picture of a megaphone, a mobile phone, a lightbulb, a magnifying glass and the YouTube logo, to indicate announcing information

Upcoming events

Globally Networked Learning: Discovery Day

Wednesday 18th October 12:00 until 13:30 

Do you teach modules that involve international topics? Would your students benefit from engaging with international students and peers? Would you like to enrich your curriculum through new intercultural interactions and global perspectives? Then join Global Engagement and Educational Enhancement for a workshop about Globally Networked Learning. View our webpage for more information. 

Getting Started with Scholarship 

Tuesday 24 October 11:00 until 12:30 

In this session Prof. Wendy Garnham will introduce you to: 

  • how scholarship is defined and the widening sphere of influence  
  • SoTL resources at Sussex and in the wider sector  
  • areas of interest in HE Scholarship  
  • output opportunities   

Book your place on Eventbrite. 

Developing Inclusive Learning Communities in Teaching 

Thursday 26 October 13:00 until 15:00 

Katrina Jia and Catherine Rogers lead this workshop, which is an initiative stemming from collaborative work of colleagues in MAH International Student Experience Working Group. It will help participants gain deeper insights into the experiences of our international student body by reflecting on their perspectives and experiences around internationalisation with the aim of fostering a more inclusive community. 

Book your place via Eventbrite 

Scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) updates and opportunities 

Learning Matters 

DARE to Transform, the University’s Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) blog, has changed its name and its scope to the Learning Matters scholarship forum. Visit the forum to read about the rationale for these changes and to find out how to contribute a scholarship article, blog post or case study.  

Active Learning Network 

Recordings of sessions from the 2023 Active Learning Conference are now available on the Active Learning Network YouTube channel. 

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Professions: a collaborative practice workshop

Thursday 23 November 9:30 until 15:00, venue Checkland Building, University of Brighton, Falmer Campus

Brighton and Sussex Medical School are hosting a collaborative interprofessional workshop intended to bring together academics from professional disciplines* across the Universities of Sussex and Brighton to explore the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). The aims of the workshop include:

  • To explore opportunities to work collaboratively in the SoTL space.
  • To strengthen and optimise the impact of the SoTL through collaboration.
  • To develop a shared understanding of the SoTL landscape and to establish strengths and opportunities for collaborative practice.
  • To develop a network of stakeholders across the local HIE landscape and form a community of practice.

The workshop will include two guest speakers:

  • Prof. Karen Mattick (Professor of Medical Education and Director of the Centre for Research in Professional Learning, University of Exeter) and
  • Dr Catherine McConnell (Head of Student Academic Success, University of Brighton)

There will also be a variety of small-group exercises to ascertain priorities and areas for collaboration.

Faculty with a role in leading, or interest in research into the pedagogy of their professional discipline are strongly encouraged to attend. Book your place

Education and Innovation Fund 

The first Education and Innovation Fund was launched on 21 October 2022. A total of £50,000 is available for the awards this academic year, with a maximum award of up to £5,000 per individual project. The Education and Innovation Fund is designed to provide funds for projects that explore new ideas in teaching and learning at Sussex. Read more about the fund and apply.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Teaching and Assessment at the University 

Posted in Academic Development, Educational Enhancement, Technology Enhanced Learning, Uncategorized

4 Great new features in Padlet

Posted on by George Robinson

Padlet has come a long way since it was first introduced as a teaching tool at the university with a number of updates and new features that have been added to it. In this blog post we’ll explore four recent features and explain how they can help you use Padlet within your teaching

1 – Polls!

You can now create polls directly within Padlet, these are currently restricted to multiple choice polls but can serve as a quick way of assessing your students on a question or getting a group consensus.

For example you may wish to do some brief informal knowledge assessment of your students, having some Padlet polls which give them some MCQ questions they can use to test their understanding of a subject.

In terms of getting group consensus you might want to get students to pick an area they’d like to focus on next.

2 – AI image generation, i.e. I can’t draw

Have you ever spent time trying to find the perfect image for your teaching materials, or indeed found that you couldn’t find an image that matched what you wanted? Well those are now problems of the past as image generation has now appeared within Padlet!

When creating a Padlet post you can select the option “I can’t draw” which will allow you to then write a text based prompt, an image will then be generated based on this prompt.

In the below example images I wrote a prompt for “a seagull eating chips” and then “A squirrel in formal attire” which quickly produced the below images. These are the sorts of images that would either be beyond my ability to create or would have taken huge chunks of time to either create or track down online and that wouldn’t have been worth the investment of time vs the value to learning in most cases, but by getting the AI to create these images it only takes me a minute or two to write the prompt and download the image.

2 of AI generated art, 1st image is a seagull eating chips, the 2nd image is a squirrel in formal attire.

This quick way of creating images can be fantastic if you’d like to literally illustrate a point, provide a visual metaphor or use an image to provoke questions or a debate.  Students can also use this feature to generate images in the same manner, you could incorporate this into activities i.e. asking students to create an image that summarises their thoughts on a question or concept.

3 – Schedule posts

It’s now possible to schedule Padlet posts, this means that rather then a post appearing immediately you can choose a specific date and time for the post to appear, this could be useful if you have a Padlet you use over a semester and wished to have weekly content appear to students at the start of each week. Rather then having to manually go in and post each time you can instead have a post appear automatically at the set time/date.

This could also be useful if you wanted to use Padlet within a session and wanted answers or expanded information to appear part way through the lesson.

This feature can also be used by students, this could be useful in cases where you might want students to individually write out a response to a post but you don’t want everyone else to necessarily see it at the same time i.e. if you didn’t want students to influence each others answers by seeing what people are posting immediately. In a case like this you could get all students to schedule their posts to appear in say 10 minutes time when they’d all appear together.

4 – AI powered moderation

There can be cases where students may abuse the ability to have anonymity when posting to leave inappropriate comments or materials, particularly when you are dealing with large cohorts, previously this would have been a choice between either trusting that no-one would post such a comment or expanding a vast amount of time manually moderating all the comments yourself (which is impractical most of the time). But now there is a third option, using the new Auto detection feature, this will use AI to attempt to automatically moderate posts, any that the AI detects will be flagged up to you for moderation where you can then decide if it can be approved or not. In this way you can attempt moderation with large amounts of students if required in a more sustainable fashion.

Conclusion

Hopefully you’ve found one or more of these new features interesting and can apply them within your teaching, if you’d like any help using Padlet please get in touch with Educational Enhancement at EducationalEnchanment@sussex.ac.uk

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Posted in Learning Technologies

AI in Teaching and Assessment: October 2023 update

Posted on by Katie Piatt
Decorative image. A close up of a toy robot.
Photo by Tincho Franco on Unsplash 

Welcome to the first of, what we anticipate will become, regular (monthly-ish) updates on new developments in AI and Higher Education.  

As this is the first such blog post, and one which comes at the end of a summer which has seen some significant developments in the Higher Education sector and UK government response to generative AI, this is something of a bumper edition.  

But first, let me update you on developments within Sussex.  

What is the Sussex response? 

In summary, the University is taking the approach that: 

“through innovative, authentic, and appropriate assessment design, along with staff and student education, we can continue to measure attainment through a wide range of assessments.  

 “We don’t need to revert to in-person exams: this is a great opportunity for the sector to explore new assessment techniques that measure learners on critical thinking, problem solving and reasoning skills rather than essay-writing abilities” (JISC, 2023) ”  

UoS Statement on Advances in Technology and Academic Integrity, March 2023

What does this mean in practice? 

For more information about the University of Sussex response, see the newly updated guidance on the AI in teaching and assessment section of the Educational Enhancement website. In developing these pages, we liaised with colleagues from AQP, Academic Regulations, Skills Hub, Careers & Entrepreneurship, the Library, and with academic colleagues across the University to ensure our message is consistent with the wider institution and reflects sector best practice. The screen shot below shows the links on the main page, which also provides a full list of the support we offer to Sussex colleagues and links to some of our favourite resources elsewhere on the web. 

A screenshot of to AI in teaching and assessment webpages showing links to pages on: Uses and limitations of generative AI, AI and academic misconduct, Assessment in an AI world, Talking to students about AI
Screenshot of new AI resources page

A new ‘Advances in Technology and Academic Integrity Group’ has emerged from these conversations which will feed into the ongoing institutional response to generative AI and more. Also, Educational Enhancement has contributed an update on AI to briefings for module convenors in MAH on academic misconduct (and are happy to do the same for others).  

We are also poised to launch an AI Community of Practice for the university. Look out for announcements and/or email EducationalEnhancement@sussex.ac.uk and ask to be added to the mailing list. 

We ran, last week, the first of our workshops for staff on ‘Assessment in an AI world’ and have another session planned for Monday 9th October (see ‘What’s on this month’, below for links). 

Updates from the HE sector 

The Sussex response to generative AI is in-keeping with much of the sector. For example, here are a few headlines from the last few months: 

AI detection software dies a quiet death: In June, Open AI, the creators of ChatGPT quietly withdrew their AI detection software due to its low rate of accuracy (poor detection rates and many false positives).  In fact, there are no independently validated tools that can reliably and accurately detect generative AI-produced material.  This isn’t the only reason we ask colleagues not to use such tools. Doing so means uploading student work to unsupported and unregulated sites. We don’t have their permission to do so and we would just be further feeding the beast.  

AI detectors are biased: In July, researchers from Stanford published the results of their research demonstrating that GPT detectors are biased against non-native English writers  

Russell Group principles on use of AI in education: Also published in July, the Russell Group’s new set of principles seek to shape institution and course-level work to support the ethical and responsible use of generative AI. The five principles recognise the need for the sector to: support students and staff to become AI-literate; use generative AI tools effectively and appropriately; adapt teaching and assessment to incorporate the ethical and equitable use of generative AI; ensure academic rigour and integrity is upheld; and work collaboratively to share best practice as the technology and its application in education evolves. 

Happily, the principle of collaborative working and sharing best practice has been with us from the start. Like us, many universities have been busy updating their guidance for staff and students over the summer, often under a creative commons license, which seeks to build staff and student AI literacy and provide clarity of academic integrity and ethics related to its’ use. See, for example, new guidance published by University College London, Kings College London, Sydney university (the latter also provides a handy summary of a selection more common AI tools and their pros and cons). Examples of great practice are also being shared via a host of international networks and webinars. See our Teaching with AI collaborative padlet and links to upcoming events below….  

The QAA response to the DfE consultation on generative AI in education: Published on 7th September, the QAA response makes for a challenging read. They explain how, over time, human-Ai writing will be considered the norm and argue the sector will need to reconsider what it means by ‘plagiarism’ and associated academic misconduct and that the sector may need to re-think or re-establish the baseline level of achievements students are capable of in order to maintain the integrity of the grade classification system. Also, while the Russell group Principles manage to side step the issue of a return to in person exams, the QAA: 

“warn against any knee-jerk reactions to the re-design of assessments that see a return to in-person, invigilated exams as the predominant form of assessment, as it has been shown to be a poor reflection of student ability, inaccessible for many with disabilities and additional needs, and not adequately preparing students for the workplace.” 

(see the QAA website for guidance on how to address some of these challenges) 

What’s on this month 

Sign up to join the Educational Enhancement ‘Assessment in an AI world online workshop’, (online) on Monday 9th October, 14:00-15:30.  

Join the ‘Empowering Tomorrow: Unleashing Creativity through Generative AI’ conference, being run by the University of Kent, 18th October, 14:00-19:00. Joining links for sessions can be found on the conference programme. See also Kent’s back catalogue Digitally Enhanced Education Webinars, which provide short talks on practical examples of AI in education.  

And just missed, but available online – see WonkHE’s session, recorded 28th September, which asks How do students want to learn about AI? 

If you are aware of events coming up that aren’t featured here, please contact us or add them to the UoS Teaching with AI Collaborative Padlet. 

Posted in AI, Learning Technologies

It’s Been a Year!

Posted on by Helen Morley

29th September 2023 will mark one whole year since I joined the University of Sussex as a Learning Technologist. I joined the fantastic Educational Enhancement team and was informed on day one that I would be supporting Media, Arts and Humanities (MAH) and Central Foundation Year (CFY), which I think has been a very good fit.

The Learning Technologist’s role is, as per my job description, to ‘help maximise the effective use of digital technologies and transform the learning experience at Sussex’, which is no small challenge! The verb ‘transform’ is a particularly interesting one: at what point can something be said to have been ‘transformed’?

Five weeks after joining the university, I became a Sussexian when we packed up our house in Surrey and moved to a short-term let in Worthing. The hat was knitted by Anne Hole of Educational Enhancement.
© Sam Morley, Husband Extraordinaire.

I had been at Sussex for two weeks when I was given my first project, an investigation into the cheating software available online. I know what you’re thinking but no, this was only October 2022, Generative AI was but a distant whisper and didn’t feature at all in the work I, and the brilliant Tyrone Knight, did on the topic. It was Ty, incidentally, who showed me what a great team I had joined: he sourced some of the heftier articles on online plagiarism and modelled excellent teamwork by setting up a Box folder for us to collaborate. The fact that he named the folder Beatin’ Cheatin’ was a bonus.

We presented our findings to Academic Quality and Partnerships and others and now, almost a year on, I still pinch myself that the work Ty and I did directly influenced university policy.

Digital plagiarism and AI have continued to be a key element of my work. I have the pleasure of supporting the Department of Language Studies who, due to the nature of their subject and the international reach of their students, were able to recognise the potential vulnerability of their assessments and were proactive in learning more. The department really impressed me with how open they were to trying new approaches, including using OneDrive during the online Pre-Sessional course to share live documents with students around the world so they could meet the requirement to have an example of spontaneous writing from all learners.

My second big project was to respond to student feedback regarding the Canvas template used in MAH. Should you wish, you can read all about it here in my blog post from February: Considering the user experience of VLEs: reviewing our Canvas templates.

The result of this project has been very rewarding. There has been positive feedback from the MAH Student Representatives who were given sight of it before rollout. I must say here how kind and generous those student representatives were, they all found something unique to speak positively about and raised queries in a way that showed they recognised the work that had gone into the product. Sussex is lucky to have them. Staff report they have found the set-up process this year intuitive, clear and less tricky than some had anticipated. I am grateful to the colleagues who have taken the time to share their experiences and ask questions and to those who reached out when they needed help. We do not pretend that the process for setting up modules for 23/24 is as straightforward as ‘rolling over’ and we recognise and appreciate the work colleagues are undertaking to ensure the new template is a success.

My third project was to complete the Fundamentals of Teaching and Learning in HE course. To my team and my line manager Dan, who couldn’t escape my discomfort at being back in the position of learner, I can only thank you for not losing your patience with me. It was difficult, as someone with two PGCEs already, to switch my thinking to university teaching: much was familiar but then there would be something completely alien which would throw me and I would become frustrated. I’ll tell myself it was useful experience to change role as uncomfortable as it was, and I 100% believe that getting insight into how we teach at Sussex is priceless. This year I will complete the rest of the Certificate and am looking forward to joining the Graduation ceremony in the Summer. Having seen the videos of previous graduates, I wonder what I’ll do when I got on that stage.

So, that’s my three significant projects from Year One. Of course, though, those projects are not how I spend my day-to-day. My day-to-day comprises answering emails or jumping onto Teams to explain a little niggle that Canvas has thrown up and put a colleague off their path; digging into Turnitin to find out how come a piece of work that shows as submitted is nowhere to be found; taking a lap around the beautiful library when I realise I’ve been sitting for too long; investigating possible solutions to exciting queries and then feeding back with options that would work; messaging other team members at least twice a week because I still don’t know the answer to something; popping into Arts office to say ‘Hi’; some pretty rotten data tasks that I don’t enjoy at all but know that the whole team is working on and we can grumble about together; playing with tools like Padlet and Poll Everywhere; working with the wonderful Learning Technologists on planning and resourcing all the workshops we run and will run; trying to keep up with all the developments in the sector; working with Sarah Watson (Academic Developer) and our MAH colleagues on the faculty’s plans; getting distracted by the course content on a lot of modules and wishing I could enrol (especially the CFY ones which are just brilliant) and much more than I could list.

So, back to that job description: I think I do ‘help maximise the effective use of digital technologies’, although I know I still have a lot to learn. As for ‘transforming the learning experience at Sussex’ I have been honoured by how far my influence has been allowed to reach and am proud of what we’ve achieved. It’s been reciprocal though: Sussex has started to transform me too.

Posted in Uncategorized

Academic Developers September round-up

Posted on by Katie Piatt

Get Ready for the Start of TermA

Decorative image
AI image created in Padlet

If you’re not sure where to start with these updates or have any questions, get in touch with the Educational Enhancement team, who are happy to help.  

For the 23/24 Academic Year, the University of Sussex is continuing to deliver high quality Blended Learning. We will continue to prioritise delivery of teaching sessions primarily in-person, except for Online Distance Learning (ODL) courses.  

Our new Sussex Scholarship Programme 2023-24 supports academic colleagues to develop their Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL), with a focus on both teaching practice and career progression. Sessions are open to all staff at the University, but are likely to be of particular interest to colleagues in Education and Scholarship roles. Scholarship case studies and articles are now available on the rebranded DARE blog, with a new name, Learning Matters.

Details on the latest schedule of workshops and other staff development opportunities can be found on the Education Enhancement website. New workshops include:  

We are pleased to announce Buddycheck, a new tool for peer evaluation, is now available for all modules thorugh Canvas. BuddyCheck is a platform for peer evaluation and can help improve outcomes from group work activity. For example, it can adjust group work marks based on contribution, or be used formatively as a prompt for reflection and a source of feedback. Speak to your Learning Technologist or Academic Developer for more information or visit our new BuddyCheck pages. 

Updated information, support and guidance on the use of Generative AI technology for teaching, learning and assessment is coming to help you navigate the complexities and the opportunities whilst maintaining academic integrity. There is also a new group set up to look specifically at how the University responds to such developments, ensuring accessibility, inclusion and academic integrity are front and centre. 

With the start of term just around the corner, now would be a good time to check over our updated module set-up guidance. Depending on the School you are in will depend on which guidance to follow, be sure to choose the correct one.

The Annual Course Review (ACR) process and associated guidance for 2023/24 is under review and will be updated in October and will be communicated via your Director of Teaching and Learning. The Course Leader Training Programme (Wednesday 6th December, 2-3:30) will focus on the new ACR process.

Finally – if you have 5 minutes, please fill in this short Skills Hub survey, to provide feedback on the use of the Skills Hub in your teaching. Thank you.

Posted in Blended learning, Events, Technology Enhanced Learning

Summer 2023 Conference Round-up

Posted on by Katie Piatt

Educational Enhancement (EE) team members have been attending and presenting at a range of conferences over the summer months, to disseminating our own good practice and research and follow sector developments. This post summarises some of the events we have attended with reflections from the team.

ICT for Education

June 2023, Helen Morley
ICT For Education – Regional Technology Conferences For Teachers

ICT for Education support schools to deliver ICT, both in terms of teaching the curriculum subjects associated with Computing and in connecting educators to service and equipment providers. ICT for Education hold events around the country throughout the year.

In June, a regional conference for Sussex was held at AMEX. It attracted teachers from a variety of schools across the county and presentations covered topics such as how to reconcile the demands of the GCSE courses with timetabling constraints, how AI can support inclusive teaching, the need for all teachers in schools to have a high level of digital literacy and to expect students to demonstrate the same, and how to find opportunities to use the technology to add play to learning.

I was pleased to attend the conference and was particularly interested in the keynote on ICT across the curriculum: I spent many INSET days as a teacher witnessing colleagues’ reactions to being told we needed to embed literacy (the language skills often left to the English teachers) in all subjects and it was refreshing to see another subject in the spotlight. I spoke to delegates about the expectations university puts on learners to have strong skills in computing, not least the requirement to complete typed exams online which most were completely unaware of.

ICT for Education will be back at Sussex in February, where I will join the list of speakers.

EdTech World Forum

May 2023, Tyrone Knight
EdTech World Forum Conference

(c) Free Stock Photo (pexels.com)

This event was a chance to hear from education sector projects taking place all over the world. The event was well attended and allowed for plenty of time to network with specialist attendees, speakers and companies. The presentations included academics and organisations sharing their excitement and recent work around AI, the metaverse, career skills platforms, coding opportunities and much more.

Ai projects, including those around ChatGPT, covered work on writing assistants, making large volumes of content more manageable, assessment and feedback, translation, data collection and analysis, audio restoration, and academic support.

Playful Learning 2023

July 2023, Faye Brockwell
Playful Learning Conference

Playful Learning is pitched at the intersection of learning and play for adults. Playful in approach and outlook, yet underpinned by robust research and working practices, it provides a space where teachers, researchers and students can play, learn and think together. A space to meet other playful people and be inspired by talks, workshops, activities and events.

Key themes from this year’s conference included discussions about building playful learning communities, the barriers that HE processes can impose and how embracing failure is key to playful learning. Faye Brockwell (Learning Technologist) attended and has written a blog post reflecting on her experience.

The next Playful Learning will take place on 3-5 July 2024 at the University of Sussex in Brighton. Follow #PlayLearn on Instagram or Twitter for conference news, and sign-up for notifications.

A colourful circular tool for slecting playful activities with interlocking circles made of paper, with Playful learning in the centre.
(c) Playful Learning and Jay Williams

Interdisciplinary Teaching & Learning Conference

April 2023, Sam Hemsley
Interdisciplinary Teaching & learning conference

Held at Anglia Ruskin University, where all undergraduate students complete an interdisciplinary ‘Ruskin Module’ in their 2nd year, the 7th Interdisciplinary Teaching & learning conference , attended by Sam Hemsley (Academic Developer), provided insights into innovative approaches to teaching, assessment and building learning communities that can be applied to disciplinary and interdisciplinary module. These included approaches to enabling student choice, providing flexible assessments, encouraging reflection on learning through assessment and teaching with ‘wicked problems’. Sam’s former colleagues, from The University of Manchester’s University College for Interdisciplinary Learning, will be hosting the conference in 2024.

The conference programme and presentations are available online.

SEDA Spring Conference

May 2023, Charlie Crouch
SEDA Spring Conference

This spring, the SEDA conference focused on ‘the role of the Educational Developer in an ever-evolving landscape.’ Hosted online, the day began with keynote talks on the changing identities of academic/ educational developers (ADs). Caitriona Cunningham asked us to consider the depth and breadth of the role, especially as we often act as connectors across the university, and our expertise can impact policies and teaching programmes. Jackie Potter thought about how we work with individual teams, often across our institutions and sometimes, at a national or international level in the field of educational development.

Talks also focused on the unconventional routes many of us follow to become academic developers, and why imposter syndrome can be prevalent. Several talks considered how we can bring our previous experiences to the role; for example, Sarah Wolfenden provided an inspiring example of bringing coaching and contemplative practice to the PGCert. We also heard examples of how ADs can contribute to work on designing assessments, decolonising the curriculum and inclusive toolkits.

International Assessment in HE Conference

June 2023, Sam Hemsley
Assessment in HE

Held in Manchester, the conference welcomed over 280 delegates from 20 countries, including many of the ‘rock stars’ of the world of Pedagogy practice and research. This wonderfully collegiate conference provided lots of insights into great research informed practice from around the world, calls for collaboration and plenty of challenge and food for thought. The conference included over 175 presentations of research or innovative practice in assessment and feedback (the programme with embedded presentations is available online). Many included aspects of generative AI including products such as ChatGPT (GPT stands for ‘generative pre-trained transformer’) and the keynote speaker, Paul Kleiman, famously introduced a generic term for these AI products of ‘Chatty G’ which, despite the persistent attempts of Sam Hemsley (Academic Developer), has yet to gain traction at Sussex.

Posted in Events, External events

Am I having fun yet? Dipping a toe into Playful Learning

Posted on by Faye Brockwell

In July I was lucky enough to attend the Playful Learning Conference at the University of Leicester. This is where people who are passionate about incorporating play into Higher Education gather to share ideas, experiences and, most importantly, their failures.

Full disclosure: my notes from the train on the way up to Leicester read ‘I’m feeling nervous… I don’t think I’m very playful.’ But I always try to make my own teaching sessions as active for my learners as possible, and wanted to pick up some ideas to make my own sessions more engaging, so I grabbed my recorder, slapped some sparkly stars on my face and joined the party.*

To forge a sense of belonging, we were put into campfire groups. And I was lucky enough to be in a group with some amazing, supportive, inspirational, very playful people. Like Professor Pen Holland, who co-developed the Catastrophic card game at the University of York to support core Biology learning during the transition to Higher Education. And Professor Nicola Whitton, who has worked on several books and articles on Playful Learning (including ‘Using games to enhance learning and teaching : a beginner’s guide [1] which is available via our library). And Giskin Day from Imperial, whose conference keynote shared several wonderful ideas, my favourite being Imperial’s genius Breaking Bag, which is an escape room in a backpack designed as an engaging way for GCSE maths and science students to consolidate their learning. And… so many more inspiring people. And all of them seemingly so much more playful than me.

So, I got to thinking… OK. I’m not at their level. But what can I try to start me on my journey? What can I share with other Playful-curious newbies out there?

One of the conference sessions asked people to share their playful ‘breadcrumbs’: easily accessible ideas to add a dash of play to your teaching. These included adding photos of students’ pets to the bottom of Canvas announcements (students shared their photos with the lecturer and there was a real buzz as to whose pet would appear each week); adding silly things to the end of Panopto recordings, to reward students who actually watched the video; or hiding ‘easter eggs’ in online module handbooks.

A few of the speakers shared their ideas for adapting well-known UK TV shows for use in their teaching. Such as information literacy ‘Would I lie to you’, where students were presented with a statement and then asked to vote whether the statement was true or false. And a diabetes version of Play Your Cards Right, which asked whether the answer to a question was higher or lower than the number on the card. I’ve done something similar in the past to jazz up the dull but essential topic of data protection (so maybe I’m more playful than I think?).

With my Learning Technologist hat on, there are some easy ways to get a bit more playful using the digital tools we have to hand here at Sussex:

  • Explore competition mode in PollEverywhere to create your own version of your favourite TV game show, to check students’ understanding in an engaging way.
  • Play with the different formats in Padlet that could lend themselves to play, such as using a Wall with Sections option (previously called Shelf) for a simple card game (even better if your students develop it themselves).
  • Consider making an escape room in OneNote, as proposed by Nina Walker in the Active Learning Network’s 100 Ideas for Active Learning Even something as simple as the appear animation feature in PowerPoint can be used to make a trusty Play Your Cards Right game, should you too need to jazz up something as fun as data protection.

Whatever you want to try, I and my colleagues on the Educational Enhancement team are here to help you get started. You can contact us on tel@sussex.ac.uk

And what’s next on my own journey? Well, I’m going to start with the books written by my conference campfire mates. And I’d love to learn from colleagues here at Sussex who use a playful approach in their teaching, so please do share with me any examples you have. And make sure you watch the next video I make for marking in Canvas or module rollover… maybe there’ll be a hidden treasure for you.

*This year’s conference had a festival theme which involved face painting, campfires, cowboys and lots and lots of games.

[1] Whitton, Nicola (Editor) and Moseley, Alex (Editor) (2012) Using games to enhance learning and teaching: a beginner’s guide,

Tagged with:
Posted in Active learning

Academic Developers August round-up

Posted on by Simona Connelly
four people sitting at a table, having a discussion at a workshop

New tool to support group work at Sussex 

Coming soon to Canvas – ‘Buddycheck’, a new peer evaluation and feedback tool, will be available from August. It can help make group work fairer, more transparent and reduce workloads for staff. It’s Learning Tech that dreams are made of!  Read our blog post to learn more about the application and who to speak to if you’d like to learn more. Sign up for a Buddycheck: Getting Started workshop in September.

Research shows bias in AI detectors

We strongly advise against using AI “detectors” to check students work for personation.  In addition to serious concerns about the lack of reliability of such detection tools, and the ethical and GDPR implications of uploading student work to un-approved sites, a recent research paper exposes how AI “detectors” are biased against non-native English speakers who are more likely to have their work incorrectly flagged as being written by Chat GPT.

AI guidance being developed 

Educational Enhancement are in the process of developing guidance on responding to generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, in teaching and assessment. To ensure our recommendations are consistent with those from other PS teams at Sussex we’re working in collaboration with Academic Quality and Partnerships, the Academic Skills team, Library and Academic Regulations.  In the interim, keep up to date with the rapid developments in the sector, see the University of Sussex Teaching with AI collaborative padlet for resources and examples of the use of AI in Education.  

Scholarship at Sussex Programme 2023/24 

Over the summer we have been busy organising our Scholarship at Sussex programme (23/24). We are delighted to say that almost all the details are finalised and we have some brilliant facilitators running our sessions. The programme is tailored to colleagues on the Education and Scholarship track, but all colleagues with an interest in scholarship are welcome. See the programme. Register your interest by emailing Simona Connelly.  

University Pasts and Futures Symposium 

On the 15th September, Media, Arts and Humanities will host the University Pasts and Futures symposium. This event delves into the University’s pasts, reflects on its potential futures, and explores actions we can take forward in teaching and research. We welcome all staff, students, and alumni to join us in the discussions and activities of the day, which we hope will serve as an intellectual and communal start to the autumn term. See the programme and register via Eventbrite. 

New University of Sussex Guidance on the use of Content Notes and content advice in teaching

New guidance is available for staff on the use of content notes to support teaching and facilitate student engagement with sensitive topics.

Course Leadership Programme

Educational Enhancement are running a programme of information sessions designed for Sussex staff who are new to course leadership or who are already in post but would like further support. 

There will be five sessions in total, plus an informal coffee morning, and you can book places for the first two sessions now.

12 September 2023

14 September 2023

Education and Innovation Fund Round Three

We’re very pleased to announce results of the third round of the Education and Innovation Fund.  The winners, and their projects, are;

Carli Rowell – (School of Law, Politics and Sociology): A View from Within: Pedagogy, Practice & Possibilities

Jeremy Sheldon – (School of Media, Arts and Humanities): Sussex Innovative Teaching Film

Olivia Taylor – (School of Global Studies): The Sussex Climate Classroom: A Toolkit for effective and empowering climate education

Verona Ni Drisceoil – (School of Law, Politics and Sociology): Walk with me: Understanding, and Navigating, Community, Belonging and Inclusion in Higher Education

Steven Follen – (School of Engineering and Informatics): ‘Making it real’ – embedding sustainability and making into the curriculum

Xianming Tao and Josephine Van-Ess – (University of Sussex Business School): Dissertation Navigator: Steering Postgraduates to Research Excellence

Sue Robbins – (School of Media, Arts and Humanities): Develop Your English: with the UN Sustainable Development Goals

How enhanced technology has improved PS

Our Academic Enhancement Officer Simona Connelly recently published a blog recollecting her memories of the early days at Sussex, and how advances in technology have helped to shape Professional Services

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