The LTExChange Network – what is the purpose of the network?
Intended primarily as an online community of practice, the new LTExChange Network will bring together education and service-based practitioners working across the University to inform, support, and share learning and teaching practice innovations and initiatives.
The Network is staff-focused, providing and supporting relevant and worthwhile opportunities for academic and professional service staff to share and discuss learning and teaching practices, projects, and initiatives, as well as the chance to co-host and co-facilitate LTExChange symposia.
How do I get involved?
If you haven’t already done so, please contact LTE@tees.ac.uk if you wish to register as a LTExChange Network member. Members can access symposia recordings and materials, as well as sign up to additional events and offerings throughout the academic year.
Looking back at the 2022-23 LTExChange Network Symposia Series
Last year’s symposia series focused on supporting and advancing “Inclusive Communities of Learning”. More specifically, the series comprised three themed online events:
‘The compassionate curriculum’ – November 30th, 2022 – This event was an exposition of relational approaches to pedagogic practice and learning design for a truly inclusive future facing higher education. Keynote speaker: Professor Peter Felton (Elon University, US).
‘Decolonising learning and teaching’ – March 29th, 2023 – This event explored ideas of equality, diversity, and identity as a lens for inclusive pedagogic practices. Keynote speaker: Professor Sally Everett (Kings College London, UK).
‘Mattering and belonging in student engagement’ – May 17th, 2023 – This event critically considered what it means to meaningfully engage students and staff in increasingly digital communities of learning. Keynote speaker: Dr. Karen Gravett (University of Surrey, UK).
Focus for 2023-24: “The Connected University”
Universities and educators have had to adapt to the demands of changing patterns of work and student learning, with the enactment of academic practice occurring across a multitude of inter-connected, digital, and physical environments. Relatedly, emerging innovations in digital technology are rapidly shifting expectations, practices, and discourse around what matters most in effective curriculum and learning design, necessarily extending the locus of student learning experiences beyond the classroom, placing particular emphasis on nurturing social connection and responsible action. In response, as educators our learning and teaching designs increasingly need to be enacted as ‘more than digital’ (Gourlay, 2023) in being flexible and networked, agile and connected, engaging students and staff as partners in authentic practice communities that recognise and equip students with the skills to function in culturally diverse environments. Such connectivity encourages students to respect and value differences, while being able to critically reflect on, and practically work with, local and global perspectives within and across specific disciplines. Indeed, it has never been more important for universities to take an affirmative, open position on the (possible) future(s) of higher education provision and the multiplicity of connections to people, place, and community it affords.
The annual LTExChange Symposia Series will bring together and engage key stakeholders to support new thinking and share practice innovations as we consider what it means to be a truly “Connected University” in what is an increasingly uncertain higher education landscape. Through the series we will be considering, more specifically, what it means for the university, staff and students to be ‘globally connected’ and how we can prepare our staff and students to adapt and develop ‘socially and ethically engaged’ approaches to learning that will meet future challenges.
The 2023-24 Symposium series aims to provide designated space and scope for interrogating a range of theoretical and applied interpretations and perspectives and generating collaborative, reflexive discussions, and debate.
2023-24 LTExChange Symposia Series
LTExChange Symposium 1: Wednesday November 29th – “Entangled Pedagogy – collective, responsive and ethical practice” – Dr. Tim Fawns (Monash University).
LTExChange Symposium 2: Wednesday February 28th – “Connected Communities – Learner Relationships in Global Higher Education” – Professor Monika Foster (Northumbria University).
LTExChange Symposium 3: April 24th – “The Connected Student – The Value of Student-Staff Partnership Work in Preparing for a Globally Connected World” – Professor Alison Cook-Sather (Bryn Mawr College, US).
To book on one of the Symposium Events please click here.