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Supporting you to support students: a survey

Centre for Excellence in Learning

As part of the Fair Access Research project we would like academic staff to complete this survey to help us understand how students are supported at BU. The area we are focusing on is support for students’ health and wellbeing, as this is becoming increasingly important for students and staff in universities. Your responses to the survey will help us find ways to support you in supporting students to succeed at BU.

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Questions of access to higher education do not end (or start) at the university gates. Widening participation involves an engagement with long and complex cycles of learning.

The Fair Access Research project seeks to understand the experiences of students from different backgrounds in order to develop practical solutions to enhance outcomes and maximise opportunities. This includes understanding how students are supported at BU.

In the words of Vincent Tinto: “Access without support is not opportunity”. If we are committed to opening up higher education, we must be committed to supporting all students to succeed across the university learning journey.

A recent survey by the NUS found that 78 per cent of students said they experienced mental health issues over the last year. More than half of the students said that they sought no support.

In a report to HEFCE by the Institute for Employment Studies (IES) and Researching Equity, Access and Partnership (REAP) it was found that students with mental health and social/communicative impairments (such as autism) have doubled since 2008-09. These significant increases are impacting the structures of support that institutions have in place, including academic support

Living with challenging health and wellbeing needs, and not always seeking support, shapes whether or not you stay and impacts upon attainment. It re-orients (or, perhaps, disorients) your whole student experience. And that includes your interactions with academic staff.

With all this in mind, we are surveying academic staff to find out more about how they understand their role in supporting students’ health and wellbeing.

We have developed a short survey for you all to complete. It should take no more than 10 minutes to complete and we hope that it will lead us to develop ways to support you with your students:

To complete the survey click here

Please complete the survey and share with your colleagues from across the university. Your responses will help us to find ways to support you to better support your students, particularly those most in need.

If you want any more information about the survey please email Alex on awardrop@bournemouth.ac.uk

For more information about the Fair Access Research project please email the Principal Investigators, Dr Vanessa Heaslip (vheaslip@bournemouth.ac.uk) and Dr Clive Hunt (chunt@bournemouth.ac.uk)

Launch of the TEL Toolkit

Centre for Excellence in Learning

We are delighted to announce the launch of BU’s TEL Toolkit.

The toolkit – created by academics, for academics – has been developed to support you in the application of TEL, including information on ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘who’ to approach for more information.

To find out more about how the TEL Toolkit can help enhance your teaching and your students’ learning experience, come along to one of our launch events, taking place during the week commencing Monday 1 February.

Launch Event Dates

Tuesday 2 February, 11am to 1pm – Atrium, Poole House

Thursday 4 February, 11am to 1pm– Ground Floor, EBC

Friday 5 February, 11am to 1pm – Ground Floor, Bournemouth House

TEL Video

Take at look at our video which explains our vision for Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) at BU

We look forward to seeing you there and please encourage your colleagues to attend too.

Education for sustainable development – and Fairtrade

Centre for Excellence in Learning

In the next few weeks I shall be sending out a call for case studies (its going to be a competition with prizes) to gather case studies of approaches used at BU to develop the knowledge, skills and competences to address the need for sustainable development. I shall be asking staff to illustrate how their teaching and learning is preparing learners to make a better job of sustaining the planet than previous generations (more details to follow).

In the meantime can I remind you that

Fairtrade Fortnight is the 29 February – 13 March.

The theme this year is

‘Sit down for Breakfast, stand up for farmers’.

We shall be celebrating Fairtrade Fortnight at venues across campus but as part of being a Fairtrade University we commit to educating our students about how Fairtrade, as an alternative mechanism works to support those less fortunate and with less opportunity to participate in trading systems. Fairtrade is one aspect of BU’s work to be a sustainable university.

It would be great if you were able to introduce the concept of Fairtrade to your students during Fairtrade Fortnight. Here is a link to a book a colleague and myself once wrote wjhen we introduced Fairtrade to BU. https://microsites.bournemouth.ac.uk/the-global-perspective/files/2015/04/GuidetoFairTrade-final.pdf

Please contact me if you want to discuss ideas.

I know it is a challenge to introduce Fairtrade in some subjects but if you can it would be really appreciated. Alternatively, perhaps you could consider holding an event in your Faculty/Department – a Fairtrade Breakfast perhaps?

Latest BU Nursing publication

Centre for Excellence in Learning, writing

Scammel J Clin Nurse 2016Congratulations to Janet Scammell, Vanessa Heaslip and Emma Crowley in FHSS on their new publication which appeared at the very end of 2015.  Their most recent paper is the first systematic review of service user involvement in non-mental health specific preregistration  nurse education.  The paper ‘Service user involvement in preregistration general nurse education: a systematic review’ is published in the current issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing. [1]

Well done!

Prof. Edwin van Teijlingen

CMMPH

Reference:

  1. Scammell, J., Heaslip, V., Crowley, E. (2015) ‘Service user involvement in preregistration general nurse education: a systematic review’ Journal of Clinical Nursing 25:53-69.

CEL funding for final year co-creation projects

Centre for Excellence in Learning, Funding opportunities

The Centre for Excellence in Learning (CEL) is offering funding for ten student-led projects, co-created with academics.

Taking part in a co-created project gives you the opportunity to develop news skills and confidence, learn how to apply knowledge, inform career decisions and increase your employability.

This is open to final year undergraduates and if you are interested you will need to identify a topic of relevance and an academic you would like to work with on a project that will be delivered in semester two of 2015/16. You will also need to write a brief project plan with intended outcomes (eg: publication, presentation, product). There will be £500 available per successful project.

Criteria

  • The project brings together a student and academic to work collaboratively
  • The project is delivered within 4 months
  • The project will lead to specific outputs e.g. publication, presentation, product
  • A short report on the outputs will be submitted to the programme leader on completion of the project.

Timescales

  • 23 November 2015 – Co-creation call for student led projects
  • 26 November 2015 – Co-creation workshop for students; PG30a 15.00-16.00
  • 2 December 2015 – Co-creation workshop for students; Lansdowne 12.00-13.00 R301
  • 31 December 2015 – Co-creation project bids due in
  • 6 January 2016 – Co-creation panel to meet; feedback to students within one week
  • 31 July 2016 – Brief reports from each project to be submitted

For more information and to apply please read the bidding form.