In October 2020, the School of Engineering launched their new Flexible Stage 1. This cross-disciplinary programme was designed to give stage 1 students a broad introduction to engineering, allowing them to explore the many different specialisms and career paths available to them (Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Marine Engineering) before committing to a specific discipline at stage 2.

Development of this programme required a complete curriculum redesign as well as a shift towards collaborative module design and team teaching. Programme leaders also sought to embrace modern digital technologies and “blend” module delivery, demonstrating digital innovation and building upon the University’s strategic commitment to provide an “educational experience supported and enhanced by technology”.

This would position the school as a leader in Engineering education; ambitious, modern, forward-looking and capable of producing highly sought-after graduates that can engage creatively and critically in the digital workplace.

Telling the story

LTDS learning designers were able to help academic colleagues develop, explore and embed the use of technology enhanced learning within their teaching and assessment practice. As well as running vision and learning design workshops, we were also able to support colleagues in the best use of TEL tools, adding to the technological and pedagogical knowledge of the school’s programme team.

The LDOF Team's academic ambition in 2019 was to design and develop a portfolio of part-time, blended learning, postgraduate programmes: A Coaching and Mentoring MSc, a Strategic Leadership MSc and an Executive MBA, with the latter two aligned to the Degree Apprenticeship Framework. In realising their ambitions of a truly blended learning student experience, the teaching teams from across all three programmes worked in partnership with each other and LTDS.

This collaborative approach, involving many cross-programme curriculum design and development conversations, and facilitated workshops, brought together a unique combination of technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge. What followed from this was a much richer understanding of how to develop an enhanced and engaging blended learning experience. How to make the best use of educational technologies, and how to bring their cross-programme philosophy and pedagogy to life.

Project Team

• Dr Joanne James (Director)
• Dr Nicola Patterson (DPD Strategic Leadership MSc)
• Dr Jenny Davison (DPD Executive MBA)
• Dr Amy Stabler (DPD Coaching & Mentoring MSc)
• Dr Sandra Corlett (Senior Lecturer in Leader Dev & Org Futures)
• Dr Lucy Hatt (Senior Lecturer in Leadership Development and Entrepreneurship)
• Michelle Barr, Learning Enhancement & Technology Projects Advisor (LTDS)

Telling the story

In this short video the team share their programme development journey and showcase what they have achieved in a collaboration that brought academic content, pedagogical and technological knowledge together to create a portfolio of blended, and fully online Executive Education programmes.

Conferences

Invited Speakers

Michelle Barr, SFHEA & Dr Nicola Patterson: Global Online Ed 2021 "Using Elements of Gamification to Engage Learners in Executive Education" 20th May 2021.

Accepted Abstracts

Michelle Barr, SFHEA & Gemma Mitchelson: Three Rivers Conference 2021-Knowledge Exchange For Learning & Teaching In HE "Not just technology for technology’s sake: Working collaboratively to explore, develop and embed technology-enhanced learning" 25th June 2021

Michelle Barr, SFHEA & Dr Lucy Hatt: The nineteenth Academic Practice and Technology (APT2021) conference "Engaging work-based business learners in online spaces through the development of digital residency" 02 July 2021

In September 2020, the School of Biomedical, Nutritional and Sport Sciences launched their new Lab Health and Safety Module. This online package was designed to give Stage 1 students an induction into key areas of lab health and safety, but also as a revision resource for Stages 2 and 3. Future content development will look at additional resources specific to the later stages of study.

Development of this module required a complete redesign of lab health and safety resources, moving from paper-based module handbooks to interactive, online blended materials. We had to establish an infrastructure to support both staff and students with this change. We also used key design principles and frameworks to facilitate user engagement with interactive resources.

A collaborative team was formed between the Faculty of Medical Sciences Technology Enhanced Learning team (FMS-TEL) and the school of Biomedical, Nutrition and Sport Sciences (BNS) to amalgamate technological, pedagogical and content knowledge.

Project team

• Gemma Mitchelson (FMS Project Lead)
• Tracy Connell (FMS Content Developer)
• Ashley Reynolds (FMS E-Learning Technologist)
• Alison Gregory (BNS Technical Team Leader and School safety officer)

Telling the story

The IoC was launched by the government in 2018. The consortium received a match-funded grant of £20million to develop innovative programmes and projects to digitally upskill the nation and help bridge the digital skills gap. By 2021 the consortium led by Bath University comprised over 200 employers, 20 outreach partners and 35 higher education institutions. 

Newcastle University’s instance led by Professor Aad van Moorsel and Project Manager Melanie Dunnett is a two-million-pound match-funded project to create new Postgraduate Degree Apprenticeship Programmes and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) that focuses on widening participation in Computing and helps to digitally upskill the North-East workforce.

LTDS Support

For this project, the LET-P advisor Cagri Yildirim, was hired to ensure that the Design and Development of the Programmes met both the University’s Technology Enhanced Learning goals, the MSc and Apprenticeship requirements, and the IoC’s business goals. This included harnessing design thinking to bring different disciplines and stakeholders together, co-host industry workshops, co-lead the design and development of the Blended MSc Degree Apprenticeship in Software Engineering, and help academics and practitioners to realise the pedagogical, theoretical, and practical implications of their teaching approaches.

Telling the story

Design Thinking helped to democratise the voices of academics and professional staff, ensure the inclusion of external stakeholders' voices, enhance, and inform University Programme Approval processes, and create postgraduate programmes supported by the University, and the North-East region.

Further Information

• Contact us at IoCNE@newcastle.ac.uk
• View our industrial conversations on Twitter @IoCNE
• Learn about our programmes
  • Degree Apprenticeships
    • MSc DA Cyber Security
    • MSc DA Data Analytics
    • MSc DA Software Engineering
  • Continuing Professional Development (CPDs)
  • Health Informatics
  • Lifelong Learning at Newcastle University
• Is a Degree Apprenticeship right for you?
  • Apprenticeships.gov.uk