Annual Academic Development Symposium 2019

Enhancing the Student Experience in a Changing Higher Education Climate, Thursday 25 April 2019 

The theme for the 11th Annual Academic Development Symposium was aligned with the current QAA Scotland Enhancement Theme, Evidence for Enhancement: Improving the Student Experience. The Symposium provided an opportunity for staff across the University to engage with and discuss the current Theme.

The Symposium took place on the afternoon of Thursday 25 April, opening with a keynote speech entitled ‘Zombie Universities and Happy Academics: Negotiating ‘Excellence’ in the Measured University’.  Professor Martha Caddell, Professor of HE Policy and Pedagogy and Director of the Heriot-Watt Learning and Teaching Academy, drew on her recent study of how mid- and early career academics negotiate their work (Caddell & Wilder 2018). 

The keynote was followed by parallel ‘swap shops’ to share practice including:

1. Teaching Outside the Classroom - Using a Visit to Aberdeen Science Centre to Engage Students with the Realities of Science Communication
2. Improving Student Retention in History
3. Future Proofing Your Students’ Skills
4. Enhanced Student Support through Sociocultural Coaching for Transitioning Postgraduate Students
5. Higher Education Academy (HEA) Compendium
6. eLearning Compendium

The event concluded with a plenary session entitled " Perspectives on the Changing HE Climate: Internal and External Perspectives" with Dr Karen Foster, Provost AFG College with the University of Aberdeen, Doha, Qatar; Ann Davidson, Enterprise Programme Director, Scottish Institute for Enterprise (SIE) and Stuart McNab, BEng (Hons) Mechanical Engineering Graduate and Assurance Associate at Ernst Young.  Finally, the inaugural Principal’s Teaching Excellence prize was awarded, along with a prize for the best Symposium poster.  

Programme

• Download a copy of the programme.

Annual Academic Development Symposium: Poster Competition

During the Symposium a range of posters has been displayed to summarise pedagogical research, evaluation approaches and teaching practice from across the University. As part of the programme these posters have been available for delegates to view, and discuss with their author(s).

For a complete collection of the posters please click here. 

The best judged poster on the day, as voted for by symposium delegates, was:

Explaining Assignments through Lecturer-Videos: 'Humanizing' the VLE   

• Author: Mirjam Brady-Van den Bos