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).
Delivering Teaching Materials with Adobe Spark (now Adobe CCE)
Mabel Sanchez Barrioluengo (AMBS) shares her experience of using Adobe Spark to deliver teaching materials.
Using a Spark (now Adobe CCE) to guide preparation for a class
Alison Jeffers (SALC) used a Spark page to help first year Drama students gauge the scope and scale of work required to prepare for a class.
Using VoiceThread to provide accessible weekly introductions to key course content
Juup Stelma and Nahielly Palacios (SEED) show us how PowerPoints in Voicethread with short videos provide ‘snappy’ and accessible weekly introductions to key course content.
Using Padlet for math tutorials to make classes interactive
Ekaterina Kazak (SoSS) describes using Padlet for her math tutorials to make the derivation classes interactive.
Using peer assessment to improve essay writing skills & understanding of assessment criteria
Dan Rigby (SoSS) discusses how he improved students’ essay writing skills and understanding of assessment criteria, with the use of peer marking, adaptive release, and breakout rooms.
Using Adobe Spark (now Adobe CCE) for interactive online lectures
Ilma Nur Chowdhury (AMBS) shows us how she pulls together lecture videos, examples (videos and images), exercises, questions and quizzes in a seamless and interactive manner.
Using live polling with Mentimeter to increase student engagement and link theory to everyday experiences
Nadim Mirshak (SoSS) discusses how he uses Mentimeter to encourage student interaction in both online and on-campus settings.
Assessed group presentations with VoiceThread
Wendy Wild (AMBS) explains how she used VoiceThread for group assessment, and explores the many benefits and positive feedback received as a result.
Criminal Law Study Buddy Scheme
Caroline Henaghan (SoSS) discusses how the ‘Study Buddy’ Scheme was introduced in Law to provide an opportunity for students to share knowledge and learn independently and from each other online and, more broadly, to contribute to student wellbeing while fostering a sense of community.
Fostering student connection: ‘Business Lunch’ and the Tandem scheme
This case study from Michael Hoezl (SALC) shows how Religions and Theology facilitate PGT students peer to peer connection and support over the summer when MA students work on their dissertation.
Using interactive and engaging online live activities
Alexandra Hennessey (SEED) shares how she uses interactive and engaging online live activities to teach neuroscience terminology.
Revising Translation Assessment for Online Examinations
James Scorer (SALC) discusses how the COVID pandemic has forced many courses to review their assessment strategy. In this example, in the field of Spanish language, the revised format of the final online exam resulted in an improvement from the previous format.
Making course unit readings meaningful and purposeful for students
Susan Dawson (SEED) used pre-session reading tasks for each week’s shared reading and set up a wiki for students to share and discuss their ideas and responses to the reading. She set post-session reflective tasks that enabled students to respond to the session content.
Creating social and group connection through a lifeline exercise
Jane Ferguson (AMBS) demonstrates how lifeline activities can be an effective instrument to make students come together as a group, more tightly.
Increasing student engagement with Padlet
Sophie Woodward (SoSS) talks about how Padlet helped to encourage a large group to engage with a core research methods module.
Summative Assessment: Research Posters through Padlet
In this case study, Alison Zimmer (AMBS) explains how she utilised Padlet for a summative assessment.
Intercultural Zoomery in a time of Covid-19
In this case study, Richard Fay, Susan Dawson, Zhoumin Huang (SEED) & Karenne Sylvester describe their solution for bringing their intercultural simulation exercise online.
Resource Development: moving a traditional face to face activity online
In this case study, Sarah MacQuarrie (SEED) explains how she adapted a traditional paper-based activity for online delivery.
Delivering Peer Review Online
In this case study, Miriam Firth & Bobbie Dutton (SEED) explain how they adapted their previously face to face peer assessment task for blended delivery.
Creating a narrative: using Adobe Spark (now CCE Express) to present material
In this video, Ron Chan (SoSS) shows us how to use Adobe Spark to present lecture materials.