VicTeach events 2018

14 February

Transition to university from a student perspective

The transitions to university: navigating assessment practices and curriculum knowledge project is investigating students’ transition from school to university.

In particular, we are focused on understanding students’ transition experiences and the relationships between achievement in Level 3 of the National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) and success in the first year at university. In this workshop, we share data from two surveys of students who entered university for the first time in 2017, focusing on their expectations prior to starting university and their perspectives after their first trimester at university. After a short presentation we work together to consider the implications of these findings for our incoming first-year classes.

19 February

VicTeach sustainability hub meet up

A chance for people with an interest in sustainable teaching topics or practices to chat informally and suggest VicTeach events connected to sustainability for 2018. All academic and teaching staff welcome.

22 February

VicTeach 2018 Kick-off

Come and learn more about VicTeach, suggest events for 2018, and find out how to apply for our small grants for your teaching-related project.

28 February

VicTeach civic engagement/internship hub meet up

A chance for people with an interest in internships or work-integrated learning to chat informally and suggest VicTeach events connected to internships for 2018. All academic and teaching staff welcome.

21 May

Profiles of Sustainability

Interested in integrating sustainability into your teaching practice? Come and hear about creative approaches for sustainability education, engagement, and empowerment. This session will profile people from across the University who are integrating sustainability (defined broadly) into their teaching practices or content, plus a student perspective, followed by a discussion of practical approaches for implementing sustainability in your teaching context.

19 June

First Year Experience workshop

VicTeach First Year Experience Hub: Last year a comprehensive survey was undertaken to gain a better understanding of how our students experience their first year at Victoria University of Wellington. We've now had a chance to respond to those insights. What did we do? Was it enough? Did it make a difference? What else might we do? Come and hear how some of our first-year courses have responded to the data collected from last year’s classes in an attempt to help students successfully transition from high school.

18 July

The ‘other’ first-year experience: transitioning into postgraduate studies

This session will explore how we can best prepare students for postgraduate success. Deborah Laurs, Kirsten Reid, and Xiaodan Gao from student learning will report on their 2017 (VicTeach funded) stocktake of existing ‘PG research skills’ workshops and seminars offered at Victoria University of Wellington, together with staff and student respondents’ views about these offerings. Following on from this, participants will be invited to reflect on what skills they expect of students at each level (Honours, Master’s, PhD) and how their programmes are (or could be better) equipping students for success.

15 August

Teaching with technology

Whether it’s implementation, methodology, pedagogy, technology, reinforcement of learning, or evaluation—using technology to enhance the learning experience for students can be a complicated process. Where do you start? Is there help out there? How do you know what impact your changes are having?

Join our next VicTeach session to hear from centre for academic development/learning designers, Digital Solutions/image services, and the Library as they guide you through this process and their experiences. Find out what tools and options are out there and available to start using now. The workshop will also provide the opportunity for you to start mapping out and discussing your ideas.

30 August

Inclusive teaching

Our university has a commitment to inclusivity, equity, and diversity, and such a commitment should be reflected in how we engage, teach, assess, and support students. The VicTeach inclusivity day aims to offer people a chance to discuss what inclusivity means in our contexts and to share good practices. In this VicTeach event, academic staff from different faculties and student representatives from different equity groups will share their experiences.

19 November

VicTeach Workshop: Civic Engagement in a Global Civic University

“[Much] of higher education has come to operate on a sort of default program of instrumental individualism. This is the familiar notion that the academy exists to research and disseminate knowledge and skills as tools for economic development and the upward mobility of individuals. This ‘default program’ of instrumental individualism leaves the larger questions of social, political, and moral purpose out of explicit consideration” (William M. Sullivan, in Thomas Ehrlich ed. Civic Responsibility and Higher Education).

In a presentation to Academic Board in February 2016, the University Provost, Professor Wendy Larner, foreshadowed the development and implementation of a curriculum based set of initiatives labelled ‘Victoria Values’. Wendy Larner’s paper poses the following question (or challenge):

Victoria University of Wellington has a proud record of student civic engagement in both co-curricular and curricular activity. Indeed, the opening clause of our graduate profile is the statement that ‘Our students will graduate from a university in which the opportunities for local and global engagement are a dominant feature of the student experience’. We know that enhancing our offerings in this space would be attractive to both domestic and international students, and would help us deliver on the ambition to ‘provide a holistic learning, teaching, and student experience that is second to none’. How might we scale up and leverage Victoria University of Wellington’s record in our efforts to develop a curriculum that has a distinctive academic emphasis as outlined in Primary Strategy One?

This workshop will provide a vehicle to advance the conversation, and possibly to foreshadow what ‘Victoria Values’ will mean for Victoria University of Wellington.

5–7 December

VicTeach Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) Writing Retreat

Waihoanga River Lodge and Retreat, Otaki.

This retreat is open to all professional and academic staff and tutors who are passionate about teaching and the student experience and are keen to explore options to develop research into their activities. This kind of research into teaching and learning is often referred to as the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL). Your time at the retreat might involve bouncing around initial ideas and learning how to create a research context for an initiative, or creating new collaborations, or might be dedicated writing time on on-going SOTL projects.

The venue and structure will always have a quiet space dedicated to writing and research as well as parallel spaces for development of collaborations, discussion, and mentorship. If you already have an existing SOTL project in mind, consider getting ethics approval prior to the retreat and make sure you aware of the time frames, as the ethics committees are not authorised to grant retrospective approvals. (See the applying for ethics approval webpage.) Stephen Marshall is available to discuss the ethics approval process prior to the retreat for those attending the retreat. Feel free to email him at stephen.marshall@vuw.ac.nz once you have registered for the retreat.

We expect to be able to accommodate everyone, but spaces are limited and will be distributed on a first come, first serve basis. We therefore encourage you to register early. This retreat is free, costs have been covered by a VicTeach grant.