The ‘teaching gathering’ fund has been established to support groups to come together to discuss and deepen understanding about teaching in the university. These groups might be department-focused or topic-focused. We imagine that the fund will mainly support catering for meetings but if you have other requests, please get in touch to discuss them.

We ask that:

• You aim to hold a series of meetings, rather than a one off.
• You have a focus and structure for the meeting which is shared with potential participants.
• You make your meetings as accessible as possible: arranging meetings with plenty of notice and giving potential participants an opportunity to raise accessibility needs.
• At the end of the academic year, you tell us how it went, whether we ought to continue the fund, and what additional support would be useful. We will ask you to share the calls for participation and ask for some information about attendance and outcomes.

How to apply:

Awards are made of up to £400. Applications will be reviewed at the end of each month on a rolling basis until May 2024 and we aim to get in touch within a couple of working days to let you know the outcome. All awards must be spent by the end of July 2024. (This means meetings must be held by July 31st and not just meetings arranged for a later date.) Apply using this form  

A bit more about possible models

There are obviously loads of different ways you can choose to structure meetings. We encourage you to think about formats which support conversation and sharing of ideas/experience. It can be productive to think about how to structure a series of meetings which build discussions and understanding. If you wanted to adopt a ‘communities of practice’ or ‘action learning set’ approach, you might use an early meeting to identify actions to take in your own teaching and then review how these went in later meetings. If you are interested in exploring creating a Community of Practice, this guide by the Communities of Practice in Higher Education on behalf of ODHE Network (Bultoc, D., Clarke, S., Devis-Rozental, C., Hubbard S., Roper, L., & Sinha, T. 2021) might be useful. If you are organising department or programme-focused meetings, you might invite internal or external speakers to share a short presentation and provide questions to guide conversations. Your topics might be guided by common concerns or exciting developments. You may choose as a group to explore the implications of systematic approaches to teaching and learning, such as Kingston’s Inclusive Curriculum Framework in your area. There will be an opportunity to meet with other grant holders to share learning. If you create approaches to teaching gatherings which work well or encounter knotty problems, it might be helpful to discuss these with others leading teaching gatherings elsewhere. Attending or leading a ‘Humanities teaching gathering’ could support any of the 15 dimensions of the Advance HE Professional Standards Framework. It is likely to be particularly relevant to evidencing, V3 (use scholarship, or research, or professional learning, or other evidence-informed approaches- as a basis for effective practice) and A5 (enhance practice through own continuing professional development).

Attending and presenting at conferences which focus on teaching, learning, and scholarship can be a great way to get feedback on approaches you are taking in teaching, hear about others’ work, and create opportunities for collaboration beyond Manchester. 

The Faculty of Humanities is offering funding to support attendance at such events where there is no other financial support available. 

If you are interested but unsure where to start, you could explore: 

16th April Evidence-based education: the value of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning | Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence 

16th &17th May SEDA Spring Conference 2024

8th & 9th July Enhancing Student Learning Through Innovative Scholarship Conference – A Conference for all UK Teaching Focussed Staff in Higher Education (esltis.org)  

To apply for support please complete this form, which will be checked twice a month: https://forms.office.com/e/z759pP71Gb