Humanities Teaching and Learning Blog
This blog is to share good practice (things that worked for you), thoughts (ideas, inspiration, plans), learning (conference experiences, trying out new skills), and opportunities to connect (with other educators at Manchester and in other universities/contexts, students, wider communities).
Developing and Sharing Innovative and Responsive Assessment
In this example Katherine Smith (SoSS) explains how she developed open debate as the method of assessment and feedback for her social anthropology module to respond to and celebrate diversity in the student cohort.
My Passport to Success! – Empowering Students in Higher Education through Critical Self Reflection
Reimala Sivalingam and Jennifer Rose (AMBS) describe how they used an Academic Advising workbook to enable students to thrive by fully supporting their academic, well-being and employability needs.
Using Virtual Reality to Explore the Valley of the Kings
Nicky Nielsen (SALC) shows us how he used Virtual Reality to take his students on a tour of the tomb of Ramesses VI in Egypt.
Driving student engagement with financial news
Chris Godley (AMBS) explains how he used the ForceRank app in weekly sessions to drive student engagement with financial news and current affairs.
Active language learning with VoiceThread
Sandra Torres (SALC) describes how she used VoiceThread (VT) to engage students in active language learning during asynchronous teaching. VT was used to present content, develop communicative skills using interactive tasks and to provide formative feedback.
Virtual Field Trips using Google Earth/Maps
Abi Stone (SEED) describes her use of Google Earth and Google Maps to create virtual field trips.
Interactivity via Whiteboards
In this brief review Ross Jones (SEED) explains how he successfully uses Whiteboard features in live online lectures to encourage student participation and engagement in class.
Authentic immersive reading with social annotations
Ana Niño (SALC) describes how she enhances immersive reading and reading comprehension with Hypothes.is – the social annotation tool.
Using Padlet to drive student engagement and contributions during online seminars
Matt Varco (SEED) uses Padlet together with Zoom breakout rooms to maintain momentum during online sessions. Here he breaks down the steps he takes before, during and after the sessions and explains how he uses Padlet ability to embed multimedia to make sessions more engaging, replicating online the immediacy of in-person discussions.
Workflows for better Zooming and lecture recording
Alex Gunz (AMBS) rereports on how he uses Open Broadcast Software (OBS) to build and deliver presentations asynchronously that integrate multiple applications in a fluid and articulate manner.
Student Perspectives on the Move to Online
Humanities students share their unfiltered perspectives on the move to online learning.
Capturing and reflecting on individual learning journeys through a photographic competition
SEED academics Loretta Anthony-Okeke, Heather Cockayne, Susan Dawson and Zhuo Min Huang describe a student experience event in which MA students in MIE were asked to reflect on their learning journey throughout the year and choose a photo they had taken to represent those reflections accompanied by a written commentary.
Using Padlet to provide a clear course structure and guide students through an online module
Heather Cockayne (SEED) describes using Padlet for online collaborative tasks and building a repository of student work.
Group activities in breakout rooms and interactive online teaching
Following great student feedback, Razieh Zandieh shares the synchronous and asynchronous activities which helped to enhance social interaction amongst students, and shape groups for group assignments.
Using an Online Interactive Textbook for Content Delivery
In this case study, Ralf Becker (SoSS) describes his use of an online textbook-type resource (incorporating Mobius) which was used in a large Mathematics for Economists unit.
Providing student support via live instant chat
Jen Haworth (SALC) reports on the introduction and use of a live chat tool (LibraryH3lp) to provide instant support to students during the exam period.
Groupwork to produce a collaborative radio programme/podcast
Melanie Giles (SALC) discusses how she set up small online groups to deliver assessed ‘podcast’ style pieces of cutting-edge research while developing student collaborative and employability experiences.
Co-designing the curriculum with students and employers
Ali Owrak (AMBS) presents his journey and experience of delivering a co-designed curriculum with both employers and students’ active engagement, reviewing role of student and employer collaboration in teaching.
Delivering interactive lectures for large student cohorts using Adobe Spark (now Adobe Express)
Nicole Martin and Rosalind Shorrocks (SoSS) show us how they used Adobe Spark to create asynchronous but interactive lectures for a large compulsory level 1 Politics unit.
Recording short pre-lecture video clips to introduce lectures and key themes
Ian Mell (SEED) explains how he produced weekly screencasts and video to introduce students to topics being debated in lectures.