Micro-credential Short Course: Enhancing Your Teaching for 2024-25

Micro-credential Short Course: Enhancing Your Teaching for 2024-25

The popular micro-credential short course is returning in summer 2024. The course comprises four, 1-hour session topics around teaching and learning. As part of the Aberdeen 2040 Strategy, these Principles for the Delivery of Education build upon our established teaching innovations and achievements and will underpin teaching in the coming academic year. Successful participation in all four topics will see staff gain a digital certificate of completion. 

Details of Course Topics below.

Visit the Course Booking System to book your sessions.

 

Course Topics

Topic 1: Principles for the Delivery of Education and Aberdeen 2040

Facilitators: Dr Aaron Thom & Dr Mary Pryor, Centre for Academic Development

This interactive session will explore the University of Aberdeen’s five Principles for the Delivery of Education, which underpin all teaching and learning activities at the University.  The cross-disciplinary principles relate to a variety of teaching and learning methods and are applicable to teaching that is done in-person or online. Furthermore, since 1495, the University of Aberdeen has been open to all and dedicated to the pursuit of truth in the service of others. The themes of: Inclusivity, Interdisciplinary, Internationalisation, and Sustainability will be covered in relation to teaching.

Topic 2: Professional Values for Learning

Facilitators: Dr Darren Comber, Dr Mary Pryor & Dr Aaron Thom, Centre for Academic Development

This session will explore the notion of values-driven education. Starting with your own values and how you think they are enacted through your teaching, within the session participants will compare those with the professional values laid out in Advance HE’s Professional Standards Framework 2023.  This exploration will begin to unpack notions of academic identity and professionalism, using as a backdrop Barnett’s (2000) notion of teaching in an age of ‘supercomplexity’ to question how the sector has developed over the intervening quarter century since its publication and what the implications for us are as educators. 

Topic 3: Assessment for Learning

Facilitators: Dr Aaron Thom & Dr Mary Pryor, Centre for Academic Development

This session will look at the purpose of formative assessments in Higher Education teaching and learning.  It will consider the extent to which they can gauge how students are learning on a course. With various types of formative assessments being adopted by staff, and consequently students experiencing a range of them, this micro-credential will encourage participants to consider the role and function of assessments for learning rather than of learning.

Topic 4: Course and Programme Design and Co-ordination 

Facilitators: Dr Donna MacCallum, Institute of Medical Sciences & Dr Aaron Thom, Centre for Academic Development

This session will cover some essential components related to delivering a course or programme. It will focus on key elements for those who are designing a new course or even refreshing materials ahead of co-ordinating an existing course in the new academic year. There will be an interactive element for participants to exchange ideas with colleagues from a range of disciplines.