Festive message from the Education Incubator

A festive message from the Exeter Education Incubator

Wishing you Season’s Greetings and a happy and successful New Year Sarah, Karen, Katie and Estelle

It has been a fabulous year in the Exeter Education Incubator In this, the first of the annual ‘round robin’ messages from the Exeter Education Incubator, we are proud to showcase some of our highlights of 2018.

It has been a fabulous year in the Incubator, as the projects we supported in the inaugural year completed their planned activities, and moved on to the next stages of development, and the 201819 projects started. The incubator team has changed too, we said farewell to Simon, Matthew, Sam, Josh and Cameron, and welcomed Karen, Katie and Estelle.

The impact of the Incubator has been huge. Projects have been disseminated at a variety of external events. We have hosted events internally to promote and disseminate the innovative and inspiring projects, as well as helping to foster opportunities for networking and collaboration.

Working with our colleagues across the three campuses We have had an amazing year of events, here are some of the ways that the Incubator projects got involved on our three campuses.

#EduExe 2018 EduExe 2018, on 4th May 2018, saw Incubator Fellows share their work at the University’s annual education conference. The event was very well attended, with over 170 delegates in total. Each of the Incubator themes presented a joint symposium, showcasing their work to their peers. The projects also took part in the poster showcase at lunchtime, allowing them to disseminate to a wider audience.

Learning Spaces Symposium Do we need lecture theatres in the 21st Century?

As part of Sue Prince’s Incubator project, a Learning Spaces Symposium was held at Streatham campus on 3rd May. The symposium considered teaching spaces: how they are used, and how they might change in the future. The event was opened by Prof Tim Quine, and hosted external speakers, Prof Norma Clement, University of Leeds, Prof Alejandro Armellini, University of Northampton, Sian Minnett, UCL, as well as Bryony Loveless, VP Students Guild, Helen Wallace, Head of Space Management and Design, Prof Sue Prince and Dr Sarah Dyer from Exeter. The event was a great success, with over 50 attendees.

Feedback from both internal and external guests was extremely positive.

Learning Spaces Walk Following the success of the Learning Spaces Symposium in May, it was no surprise that the Learning Spaces Walk on 6th June was also a triumph. Led by Prof Sue Prince and Helen Wallace attendees were guided across Streatham campus, via a variety of ‘learning spaces’, and encouraged to critically examine the spaces. Rooms were ranked using a version of ‘Top Trumps’, which gave the presenters an immediate sense of the attendees’ opinions of each room/space. Lunch allowed a creative exploration of an outside space, using drawing and modelling to suggest possible ways to utilise our outside spaces for effective learning.

Capstone Event On 18th June the Education Incubator hosted a writing retreat at Dartington House, as a capstone event to round off a successful inaugural year. The event was attended by Incubator fellows, student researchers and some of the Incubator team. The retreat followed a ‘Structured Writing Retreat’ format, where writing blocks were broken up by creative thinking, brief discussions, and strategic planning. We enjoyed a thinking walk, which was followed up by a brief writing session, to consider the possibilities for the future of HE. These ideas have been collated, and will feed in to the University’s Strategy. All attendees spoke about the boost to their writing output that the retreat provided.

Cultivating Innovation Workshop On the 6th and 9th of July, these workshops brought together Incubator fellows to focus on innovation and communication.

The sessions were challenging, and took participants out of their ‘comfort zone’. Fresh understandings of projects were developed, and new contacts made between attendees. This was a surprising, and sometimes uncomfortable session, but ultimately, highly rewarding.

Incubator Café On the 13th July the Education Incubator hosted a networking event, inviting past and future incubator fellows to chat about their projects and brainstorm ideas.

The event used a ‘knowledge café’ format: the room was set up with a table per project with the Incubator fellow as a ‘host’. The time was divided into ten minute slots and guests moved around the tables to find out about the projects that they were most interested in. This format maximised the time for questions and discussions and minimised the need for formal ‘presentations’.

There was a chance to enjoy a cream tea, with scones and jam and clotted cream, whilst networking.

Student Engagement in the Exeter Education Incubator In July and August Karen undertook a small scale piece of research, looking at student engagement. She interviewed students and academics from 2017-18 projects about their experiences of student engagement. Initial findings were disseminated to all 2018-19 Incubator Fellows during their initial project meeting. Publications are currently being prepared for wider dissemination.

Aspire guidance session Tamsin Kilner, Director of ASPIRE PRP, delivered a guidance session to Incubator Fellows in October. She explained the PRP process, and helped to get attendees started on their Senior Fellowship applications. There was the opportunity to consider how to write about experiences in an application, as well as advice on the next steps which may need to be taken in order to widen the spheres of influence to Senior Fellow level. Another session is planned for late spring/early summer to help fellows complete their applications.

Education Incubator Propeller Event To launch the 2018-2019 projects, and introduce this year’s fellows to each other, a networking event was held in the Old Library on 10th October. Sarah introduced both the event and our two new project officers, Katie and Estelle.

Over a light buffet lunch, guests were invited to network outside of their own incubator stream, and were asked to contribute to our feedback wall – who is their target audience, what social media channels are appropriate for their projects and what events would they like to see over the coming year.

Developing your education project In partnership with our colleagues in the Innovation Impact and Business team, the Education Incubator has planned a mini workshop series, to support projects as they seek to develop their projects in the wider community. Workshops will cover how SETsquared can support business development, impactful engagement with the public and engaging with external organisations.

Tour of the Digital Humanities Lab On the 19th December Incubator fellows are invited to tour the new Digital Humanities Lab. This resource, which celebrated its one year anniversary in October, offers colleagues the opportunity learn about, and use, state of the art digital equipment in their teaching and research.

Taking our ideas further afield Society for Research into Higher Education SRHE Dec 2018 In December Incubator Director, Dr Sarah Dyer and Dr Lewis Winks will present a paper: Writing, talking, eating: nurturing spaces and cultures of pedagogical creativity in higher education. This paper, currently under review with Higher Education Research and Development, draws on experiences at the Exeter Education Incubator ‘Capstone Event’ at Dartington House in June 2018.

Reimagine Education Conference Nov 2018 InVEnTA (Interactive Virtual Environments for Teaching and Assessment) was shortlisted for the ICT Tools for Learning and Teaching Award at the Reimagine Education Conference in San Francisco. Dr Sarah Dyer and Matt Newcombe presented details of the project, to an international audience.

IGS British Branch Meeting Sep 2018 Dr Damien Mansell: InVEnTA (Interactive Virtual Environments for Teaching and Assessment) – Poster presentation 3rd Annual Conference on the Geographies of Education Sep 2018 Dr Matt Finn and his team of student researchers: A-level reform and implications for transition to University: the case of Geography RGS IBG Conference Aug 2018 Dr Matt Finn and his team of student researchers: A-level reform and implications for transition to University: the case of Geography Enhancing Student Learning Through Innovative Scholarship (ESLTIS) Bristol – 11-12 July Dr Damien Mansell: InVEnTA (Interactive Virtual Environments for Teaching and Assessment) Dr Alison Hill: Mind the Gap: Addressing the Mathematics Gap in Biosciences Dr Matt Finn: A-level reform and implications for transition to University Dr Sarah Dyer and Dr Lewis Winks: Exeter Education Incubator as a Community of Practice Advance HE Teaching and Learning Conference July 2018 Dr Emma Taylor and Dr Vrinda Nayak: 'Integration of students’ reflective analysis of skills with the University student support system' Dr Andy Pye: What do our students consider to be ‘academic support’? Implications for interpreting the National Student Survey (NSS) data Global Systems Institute – Creating Transformative Solutions Conference – 3 July 2018 Dr Damien Mansell, Dr Steve Palmer and Dr Anne Le Brocq: InVEnTA (Interactive Virtual Environments for Teaching and Assessment) EsriUk Annual Conference Exeter Geography Alumni Event - InVEnTA - May 22nd 2018 Dr Damien Mansell, Dr Steve Palmer and Dr Anne Le Brocq: InVEnTA (Interactive Virtual Environments for Teaching and Assessment) UK Advising and Tutoring Annual Conference March 2018 Dr Emma Taylor and Dr Vrinda Nayak: 'Integration of students’ reflective analysis of skills with the University student support system' Dr Andy Pye: What do our students consider to be ‘academic support’? Implications for interpreting the National Student Survey (NSS) data Advance HE STEM conference Jan 2018 Dr Barrie Cooper: Towards a digital pedagogy in Mathematics

Future Focus The Education Incubator team would like to welcome new fellows for 2019-20, to be part of a dynamic community of like-minded innovators. As well as support for their projects, past fellows have seen their Incubator experiences provide them with evidence for ASPIRE fellowship as well as general career development opportunities. The Education Incubator can provide training and information that fellows may not find elsewhere.

Applications will open in December for our 2019 round of funding. This year we will be offering a series of development workshops to help potential projects to prepare the best possible applications.

Once again we intend to fund and support projects which will enhance innovative pedagogy at the University.

If you have an idea for a new module, a new delivery style, a new way to support colleagues or students or another innovative way to enhance pedagogy then please send us an expression of interest, and join the Exeter Education Incubator community.

If you would like more information about the application process please contact us educationincubator@exeter.ac.uk Find out more, follow our blog https://uoeeduinc.wordpress.com/ Our website gives details of past and current projects http://www.exeter.ac.uk/teachingexcellence/educationincubator/about/ @UoeEduInc