Lightning Workshops are hands-on 1 hour sessions that develop your teaching and course in a collaborative environment! In each workshop, you will have the opportunity to design, refine and implement strategies to improve the student learning experience. Open to all teaching staff, each workshop begins with a 10 minute presentation on common student and staff concerns before engaging in discussion and collaborative work. The sessions are highly collaborative, informal and have a community atmosphere. Participants include academic staff, educational developers and support staff. Casual staff are welcome to attend. Sessions such as those on assessment design have educational technology support assistance available. After each session staff are free to utilise the drop-in session time to collaborate further, ask questions or discuss blue sky ideas in teaching and learning. This term we introduce several new topics and will be joined by special guests from a range of specialist educational services at UNSW, so keep on the lookout for our continually updated offerings.
Staff are asked to bring with them resources relevant to each session such as, their course outline, a learning activity and the highest weighted assessment they are currently using in the course or alternatively an assessment they have identified an issue with.
Please review the sessions below, select those that suit your schedule.
O-Week
- 10am Tuesday 5 September - Planning Interactive Learning Sessions (Lecture, Tutorial, Seminars)
- In this session, you will collaborate to create a learning sequence where students are active, and you play a facilitator role.
- 2pm Wednesday 6 September - Planning Interactive Learning Sessions (Lecture, Tutorial, Seminars) (Repeat workshop)
- 2pm Thursday 7 September - Unpacking Disciplinary Language with your Students
- In this session, we will explore simple strategies to boost students discipline specific literacy so they can better understand the terminology including the pedagogical language of the discipline.
Week 1
- 3pm Thursday 14 September - Scaffolding and Supporting Student Learning to Follow
- In this session, you will construct a learning task or activity using scaffolding structures that progressively build skills.
Week 2
- 12pm Tuesday 19 September - Developing AI prompts for students to use in Self-Regulated Learning
- In this introductory session, we will explore using discipline specific prompts to help your support student learning by using AI with clearly defined parameters such as, as a Socratic tutor.
- 2pm Thursday 21 September - Developing AI prompts for students to use in Self-Regulated Learning (Repeat workshop)
Week 3
- 2pm Wednesday 27 September - Improving assessment with Transparency in Teaching & Learning (TiLT)
- In this session, you will apply strategies from TiLT to make the clarity of your assessment design explicit to students.
- 12pm Thursday 28 September - Improving assessment with Transparency in Teaching & Learning (TiLT) (Repeat workshop)
Week 4
- 10am Wednesday 4 October - From Pencil to AI Designing Assessment for Learning
- In this session, you will look at creative ways you can tweak your assessment to address AI while ensuring that quality learning can take place.
- 2pm Thursday 5 October - From Pencil to AI Designing Assessment for Learning (Repeat workshop)
Week 5
- 10am Wednesday 11 October - Designing Effective MCQ Questions
- In this session, you will explore effective questioning strategies for use in the classroom and assessment. Follow up drop-in sessions will be run specifically for hands on assistance in designing MCQ and Essay Questions.
- 2pm Thursday 12 October - Designing Effective Essay Questions
Week 6
- 2pm Thursday 19 October - Designing Effective MCQ Questions (Repeat workshop)
Week 7
- 10am Tuesday 24 October - Communication Strategies to Support Diverse Learning Needs
- Explore strategies to communicate with students and build quality classroom relationships to support learning.
- 10am Wednesday 25 October - From Feedback to Feedforward
- Use efficient feedback practices to get better quality student learning and assessment.
- 2pm Thursday 26 October - Designing Rubrics That Work
- Design a new rubric or refine an existing rubric in this popular session.
Week 8
- 2pm Tuesday 31 October - Teacher Presence
- In this session, you will have the opportunity to experiment with different teaching styles in the classroom, classroom organisation and management.
- 2pm Wednesday 1 November - Integrating Group Work and Teamwork Assessment in your class
- In this session, you will design a group or teamwork-based task based on evidence-based teaching practices.
- 12pm Thursday 2 November - From Feedback to Feedforward (Repeat workshop)
Week 9
- 12pm Tuesday 7 November - From Feedback to Feedforward (Repeat workshop)
Week 10
- 2pm Tuesday 14 November - Integrating Group Work and Teamwork Assessment in your class (Repeat workshop)
- 2pm Wednesday 15 November - Motivating Your Students to Learn
- Develop a plan to motivate your students to learn based on evidenced based practices from Self-Determination Theory and Self-Regulation theory.
Please register for the sessions you wish to attend. You are welcome to register for as many sessions as you would like.
Facilitators
Dr Ben Phipps, Educational Developer, EF Development
Ben completed his PhD in Ethnomusicology and Jazz Studies at UNSW and has published on curriculum design and online learning in music education. He currently works as an educational developer in EF Development improving learning experiences and building teacher efficacy in our learning community. Prior to this role he has ten years’ experience teaching at university, school and vocational settings.
Clem Wong, Senior Education Designer
Clem has been teaching in both primary and secondary schools for a decade and is currently Senior Education Designer with the PVCESE. Clem has a keen focus on supporting students with diverse learning needs and sees the student learning experience as one that is student centred, enables student voice, extends student’s problem solving and thinking, embeds adequate support mechanisms, and encourages an interactive learning environment. He loves being able to enable and empower staff in their learning and teaching with these key areas; and enjoys the collaborative process of solving new challenges in the classroom.