A full day of insightful educational workshops and presentations, including a keynote address, about working with and inspiring students
Date: 04 July 2019
London Met staff packed out the Henry Thomas Room to attend the sixteenth annual Learning and Teaching Conference, on 25 June.
The theme for this year’s conference was Working Together, Inspiring Students, which delves into collaborations and partnerships for inspirational learning and teaching which benefit our students.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Lynn Dobbs opened the conference: “This event is one of the most important in the University’s calendar, giving lecturers the opportunity to explore key issues in the wider sector, and the ways we can solve them.
“Working together, a key focus of this conference, is incredibly important and it connects strongly with the University’s new strategy. I think of London Met as a family of different organisations working together to transform student lives, continuously thinking of ways to achieve student success.”
Inspiration and innovation
Lecturers and professional staff presented a whole host of workshops and presentations in a morning and afternoon session, sharing innovative ideas and successful practice for fostering student engagement and achievement.
The topics covered in the sessions ranged from unlocking creativity with mindful play; introducing the topic of menstruation as part of the curriculum for Politics and International Relations students; celebrating student mums; Lego exercises; and effective practices for inspiring and supporting underachieving students.
The event was enthusiastically received by attendees, with one attendee said: “The sessions were great, and the event inspired me to do my own session next year. It was great to share practices across schools and departments.”
Another said: “I made lots of new connections with staff, and learnt lots of strategies to take forward following the event. I now have lots of meetings with staff lined up as a result of the event.”
Before the workshops, a panel made of staff and students discussed how learning and teaching operates within the University. The panel was compromised of:
- Cecile Tschirhart, Head of Student Experience at The Cass, and a National Teaching Fellow
- Deborah Ingram, a Student Ambassador who is studying Community Development
- Jevis Lawton, an international student and Success Coach who recently finished his BA Business Management, with First class honours
- Trevor Norris, Course Leader of Creative Writing and English Literature
- Antonella Petrocco, a Student Rep and President of the Maths Society, who just completed second-year BSc Maths
- Ronke Shoderu, Principal Lecturer in Law and Course Leader of LLB Laws and Business Law
After the morning session of workshops and presentations, Professor Alison James, Professor of Learning and Teaching and Director of Academic Quality and Development at the University of Winchester, took to the stage for the keynote address.
Her talk, titled Play and Creativity for Complex Learning and Creating Community, shared stories of creative and playful learning, and of the spaces by which students can be inspired.
It is customary for the new University Teaching Fellowships to be given at the annual event. Both Ron Cambridge, Senior Lecturer and Course Leader in Banking and Finance BSc, and Rosemarie McGoldrick, Head of Cass Fine Art and Course Leader in BA Fine Art, were presented with these awards for teaching excellence.
