2024 Festival of Learning and Teaching: A Celebration of Innovation and Collaboration
The University of Salford proudly hosted its annual Festival of Learning and Teaching on the 2nd and 3rd of September, 2024.
This year’s festival, themed “Future Facing Horizons in L&T Practice,” brought together 194 individuals from across the university and beyond to share practices, network, and explore innovative approaches to education.
Organized by The University’s of Salford Learning and Teaching Enhancement Centre (LTEC), the festival focused on three key areas:
· community, collaboration, and networking;
· curriculum innovation for impacts on the student experience;
· inspirational digital enablement.
These themes align with the university’s emerging strategy of “enriching lives,” building on the strong foundations already in place.
The event featured over 60 contributors who engaged attendees through workshops, discussions, presentations, and posters. A new addition this year was a showcase allowing attendees to connect with various professional service teams. External partners included Katie Scott from Advance HE, Salford’s business partner, and ThingLink, a tech company enhancing AI technology enablement at the university.
Vice-Chancellor Prof Nic Beech and PVC Student, Prof Sam Grogan Professor Sam Grogan welcomed attendees, celebrating the university’s achievements, including the TEF Silver award and a solid “good” rating in the recent Ofsted inspection for apprenticeships. Special praise was given to India Amos and her team for their 2024 CATES award for the Minority Ethnic Student Collective.
The festival featured three keynote speakers. Tara Brabazon AM delivered a morning keynote on multimodality, emphasizing the importance of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and challenging attendees to be agents of change for a future-facing curriculum. In the afternoon Melanie-Marie Haywood, Ph.D, PFHEA highlighted the significance of lived experiences and cultural identity, advocating for storytelling to create belonging and equity.
Our final keynote Professor Andy Miah ? inspired the auditorium and expanded our understanding of Generation Alpha’s expectations of future-facing technology. He showcased how industry is experimenting with AI and what opportunities the future of AI holds for educators and learners. AI is a critical friend, and as educators we must embrace the opportunities and explore how our learners can engage it to make meaningful authentic learning experiences. This was underpinned by a strong technology theme throughout our festival with the technology workshops wowing the participants as everyone was able to get hands on.
APVC Learning and Teaching Enhancement, Prof Jess Power PFHEA NTF CText FTI FCMI, emphasized the dynamic and exciting environment at Salford, highlighting recent promotions in L&T and the university’s upward trajectory in key metrics, including a top 10 national ranking in the PTES (Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey). She also noted the significant increase in applications and awards with Advance HE, including a 30% increase in AFHEA and a 12% increase in SF, along with the introduction of the newly accredited PGCAP and the internal accredited Advance HE award scheme “SALT.” She emphasized the need to “stand up and shout out” to showcase our individual, organizational, and sector excellence, highlighting the significant headway made at the University.
At The University of Salford, we are committed to enhancing academic practice. We have supported six L&T scholarships in 2023, all of whom presented at this year’s festival, covering themes such as cultural inclusivity, academic literacy, innovative modes of delivery, and building Communities of Practice (CoP).
The festival also featured the announcement of new awardees, celebrating their achievements. Furthermore it was wonderful to hear the student voice interwoven throughout the festival and equity and fairness embedded throughout.
The LTEC Team and the University’s Learning and Teaching scholarly group showcased what’s next. We launched our first community of practice for pedagogical research, which is based upon the critical mass we have been developing for the last two years. We are also publishing conference proceedings this year, based on the success of our first post-festival publication last year and LTEC will launch an external website in the next month to showcase L&T at The University of Salford, so watch this space.
We are also extending upon the extensive work LTEC and the Academic School’s have undertaken with other professional services and SU during the last 18 months to support progression and good degrees for students joining us with vocational qualifications QAA: Quality Insights Conference 2024. This work enabled us to gain significant insights into what works enabling, inspiring and supporting students to pass, all modules first time.
The Learning Development team is working towards creating an immersive festival experience for those who were not able to attend this years event, and all was captured to share internally post-festival, so watch this space. We are looking forward to continuing to work with our partners across the university.
Running parallel to the festival was a satellite international event led by Nancy Cooke and her international team. We were joined by delegates from our partnerships in Germany and Ukraine to explore perspectives on global citizenship.
The festival underscored the university’s commitment to internationalization, addressing student loneliness, and creating immersive experiences. The best practices and ideas shared during the event will continue to shape out thinking and development in the coming months. We remain on a learning journey, building on our solid foundations and looking towards the future horizon in L&T practice.
Thanks to everyone who contributed; this was a truly wonderful coming together of minds with lots to take forward for our future-facing curriculum. A particular call out to the amazing Davina Whitnall, Dr. Calum Thomson and Dr Dean Irwin from LTEC who pulled together the operational aspects of the festival with partners from around the university. THANK YOU are simply amazing.
For more information about the University of Salford’s Festival of Learning and Teaching, please contact the Learning and Teaching Enhancement Centre (LTEC).
Contact: University of Salford Learning and Teaching Enhancement Centre (LTEC) Email: ltec@salford.ac.uk