Purpose: Demonstrate understanding of and engagement with teaching, learning and assessment processes. ‘Engagement’ may include using understanding to inform the development, adaptation or application of technology.

a) Requirement: An understanding of teaching, learning and/or assessment processes

Statements here might relate to areas such as teaching experience, learning design, curriculum development, work-based assessment, the creation and execution of a programme of training and so on.

Evidence might include being on the register of the Higher Education Academy, a PGCE award, having completed a SEDA-approved course or undertaken relevant sections of the FERL Practitioners Programme or Certified E-Learning Professional courses. Commentaries from peers on your approach would also provide suitable evidence. Other possibilities include teaching experience, reflective statements that analyse experience in terms of learning theory, pedagogic approaches, sociological theories, or a comparable, recognised perspective. In relation to learning design, a report, specification or reflective statement might be provided that clearly elaborates the principles that informed the design process. In any collection of evidence there should be some consideration of how technology is changing approaches to teaching and learning and/or the roles of learners, teachers and support staff.

Whilst working at UEL I delivered training and seminars for the Student Associates Scheme (SAS) for groups of up to 35 students per session, which helped me gain the following skills and experience:

• designing and planning learning activities for induction and evaluation, for both individual and group sessions
• teaching and supporting student learning, which included answering questions, encouraging personal reflection and providing guidance on how to get into teaching
• assessing and giving feedback to learners, including obtaining performance feedback from schools which were used to discuss with the students how they could improve areas of weaknesses. I also carried out observations via school visits to complement school performance feedback.
• developing effective environments through group activities within the induction/evaluation sessions and maintaining a social media portal (Facebook group) to facilitate participation before, during and after the SAS.

At UEL I utilised the experience and skills gained to demonstrate that I am committed to professionalism in teaching and learning in Higher Education to successfully gain the FHEA qualification.

My current role at SOAS provides me with the flexibility to regularly keep up to date with the latest developments in a number of areas by attending:

Conferences - annual Future of Technology in Education, The Higher and Further Education, Future EdTech and Learning Technologies Forum, as well as vendor specific demonstrations/conferences from Panopto, Blackboard Collaborate, Adobe Connect

Training - both internal and external training such as Xerte and CMS.

Workshops - I attended a 3 day Professional Development in Higher Education in Higher Education (PDHEP) workshop at SOAS. The purpose of the workshop was to provide attendees the knowledge, skills and training to help them be more effective and creative in their pedagogical delivery and academic support of learners. The workshop helped me fill in the theoretical void which included:

• classroom management and dynamics
• basic teaching techniques
• learning styles
• assessment of teaching
• assessment of written work
• giving feedback to students
• how to structure teaching sessions

I believe I have a strong understanding of E-Learning management, design, delivery in the context of teaching and learning as demonstrated by my guides, training sessions, speaking events and social presence. For example, I currently am involved in delivering training to new and existing staff (academics and professional staff) and students, both to groups and one to one. I am able to suggest appropriate use of technology to support the teaching and learning.

The content of the training usually involves how to create and manage a Moodle course, Turnitin, Panopto (lecture capture) as well as how to use HTML widgets within the course(s).

When I deliver my training sessions I try to utilise a mix of different learning styles to maximise engagement and understanding. This includes but not limited to:

• Live demonstrations on how to use and create tools.
• The use of graphs and images to provide a step by step guide on how to use the tool as well as highlighting research findings.
• Explanations and background to why you would use a certain tool such as Turnitin and its benefits.
• Group discussions to ascertain the understanding for each attendee.
• Practical tasks used to break up the training session into small segments followed on from my demonstration and explanation.

From regular feedback I have received from participants they have felt that active involvement in the sessions are more effective for their learning rather than reading online materials. With this in mind I decided to break the training sessions into segments to allow for sufficient demonstration and practice time.

This also provides me with an effective way to ensure that I everyone keeps with the pace of the session and those struggling can receive help before I move onto the next section. This method also allows me identify those attendees that may require more support at the end of the training session.

For future support, I would like to offer video recordings on the BLE support pages to complement the support guides and training sessions, which will provide a choice of video or text guide depending on the person’s preferences.

I recently attended a five day Erasmus+ programme called Train the Inspiring Trainer which provided a useful insight in exploring ways to create an ideal environment for my learners as well as how to engage with different personalities.

The course provided me with an opportunity to:

• Identify what they key traits of a “good trainer” are.
• Raise my awareness of supportive and limiting beliefs and how they affect performance.
• Raise my ability to create supportive learning environment.
• Introduce mind expansion techniques to tap into creative force of the mind.
• Better understand feedback as motivational factor and explore practical tools for giving constructive feedback.
• Explore play and laugh into my sessions.
• Enhance my public speaking.
• Boost my motivation and passion for teaching.
• Practice techniques for improved trainer-learners communication.
• Enhance confidence in the participants
• Explore new creative ways of teaching to engage participants.
• To give and receive feedback from other participants.
• Engage in international dialogue and exchange of experiences and resources.

The course was a useful insight in exploring ways to create an ideal environment for my participants as well as how to engage with different personalities. I felt it was very useful to be able to reflect on the current training methods and think about ways that I can change parts of it to include more interactions between participants.

I felt it was an effective way to reflect and assess my current training provisions to think about ways in which this can be improved, such as including more interactions between participants in my sessions. Read my blog post for more details on the course and experience.

b) Requirement: An understanding of your target learners

Statements should how you have found out about learners’ needs and the context for their studies, and how you have developed inclusive, accessible and learner-centred approaches that reflect this.

Evidence might include a description of how assistive technologies have been used to support disabled students, how learner feedback has influenced the design of an portfolio, how the needs of work-based learners or overseas students have shaped the curriculum, or records of conversations with product analysts, marketing departments or course teams and the resulting plans for your design. Evidence of changed practice, rather than simply the recognition that this is an important area, is required.

In my current role, my target learners range from academics, teaching assistants, professional staff, technical staff, postgraduates, undergraduates to research students. As E-Learning Officer, it is imperative that I understand the learner’s needs and requirements so I can tailor my language, materials and examples to be relevant to the individual.

One of the ways in which I find out about my participants is through the use of ice breakers and mini discussions, which I find an effective method to understanding their roles, knowledge, needs and wants relating to the subject matter. From this I can often tailor my session based on the information obtained, for example if the participants are confident with uploading documents but have never uploaded multimedia files then I would focus more time and practice on uploading multimedia files.

Listening to the feedback from the participants has also helped shape some of my training session. An example of this is for the Turnitin training whereby I originally offered a session targeted to all members of staff which resulted in receiving feedback from attendees that they would have preferred specific session for their role instead of a generic one that covered everything. Taking this on board I now offer two training sessions on Turnitin, one targets academics who are involved in marking whilst the other targets administrative staff.

This has resulted in a more streamlined session with more positive feedback from participants.

I am aware that getting my language and explanations right will impact the learners' understanding of how they feel towards a tool, which in turn may affect how accepting they are of utilising it in their daily work. This is particularly important at SOAS as we have staff and students from various backgrounds; this often means communicating with people where English is not their first language, so it is vital from the ice breakers that I identify any language barriers that could affect a participant's understanding.

My learners are often new staff who require assistance in getting to grips with Moodle. For some it is the first time that they are using an e-learning platform, whilst others may have come across a different platform as for example Blackboard. As well as training new staff, I deliver training to existing staff, which includes showing both academics and professional staff how to use Turnitin either for marking or for administrative purposes.

I try to ensure each training session is tailored to meet each of their roles and needs. For example, an academic would require more support on how to create and design a course, whereas a student would only need to know how to obtain their grades/comments, download materials and navigate within Moodle.

When they book the session with me I usually ask what type of training they require, how much experience they have and once the session is over, what further assistance they would like to receive.

During group sessions I usually check that they have learnt, by asking them to complete mini tasks as we go along and those that require additional support are offered at each stage rather than at the end. Follow-up training sessions is a useful way to check whether what has been taught has been taken in and is being implemented. Training sessions considered successful if attendee put into practice what was taught, as well as booking onto future training sessions or encouraging others within the department to attend the sessions.

I think what I would do differently in future, to better meet the needs of learners, is to provide video guides to complement the existing text guides and training sessions. I would also like to arrange annual faculty meetings to understand which areas the faculty require additional help with, so that I can plan and offer tailored training.

To encourage students to utilise tools that are freely available to them both as online and mobile services, I set up a dedicated BLE support page for students, discussing tools that they can use to help them with their studies. This section is not as widely viewed as I would like and is an area that I will highlight to students in the new academic year.

As well as providing basic training, I provide additional training for staff who wish to learn how to utilise Moodle for more advanced features such as the interactive timeline and quizzes. One way to encourage staff to consider the use of interactive tools within their courses has been to showcase examples at the Learning Teaching Conference (LTC) where academics present the work they have done with Moodle and the feedback they have had from students. For example, at the May 2015 conference, the JS timeline was showcased by one academic, which led to a number of attendees contacting me afterwards for further information and training.

With the success of the pilot the Learning and Teaching Conference, it was decided the Learning and Teaching Development team will have a themed conference each term, with a future conference already due to cover accessibility.