Continuing Professional Development
Departmental Support
The Educator Development team provide in-faculty support in a wide range of formats. This can include bespoke workshops, writing retreats, consultations and resource development! Each Faculty has a named liaison contact they can approach for advice and support:
- HASS - Dr. Eleanor Hodgson E.M.H.Hodgson@exeter.ac.uk
- HLS – Craig McEwan C.McEwan@exeter.ac.uk
- ESE – Kelly-Louise Preece k.preece@exeter.ac.uk
- Professional Services - Dr. Karen Kenny Karen.Kenny@exeter.ac.uk
We are in the process of developing a series on 'menus' of support we can offer. We currently have the following:
- Menu APT
- Menu assessment and feedback
- Menu reflective
- Menu doctoral supervision
- Menu AI
- Mneu Inclusive
- Menu Innovative
- Menu transformative
We have a range of Education Toolkits, housed on SharePoint, to support teaching and learning and your continuing professional development. These include:
You also access toolkit resources through:
Colleagues may also find our new AI Hub useful, the home on the Education Toolkit for all pages, links and resources related to generative AI.
Academic Personal Tutoring
Every taught student at the University of Exeter is assigned a tutor to provide support for their academic development and progress, and as the first port of call for pastoral guidance. Tutors are not expected to be a specialist advisor but they do have an important role in the themes of transition, progress and realising ambition.
Tutoring Resources
The Education Toolkit hosts all of your tutoring resources.
Training and Development for Tutors:
| Education Toolkit | The Education Toolkit hosts a growing bank of resources specific to supporting Academic Personal Tutors. |
| Bookable online workshops | A range of workshops tailored for tutors are available to book through the Learning and Development webpage. |
| Bespoke workshops | Bespoke training, for both new and experienced staff members can be requested - please email eduexe@exeter.ac.uk with details of your training requirements, ot to chat about what can be delivered. |
| Online asynchronous training | Short courses outlining good practices in Academic Personal Tutoring: 1.0 - Roles and Responsibilities of Academic and Personal Tutors Policy/procedure specific courses: |
| One-to-One support | One to one Teams meetings can be booked to address specific queries. Please contact eduexe@exeter.ac.uk |
Academic Pastoral Tutoring information for PGR Students is available on the Doctoral College website.
Annual Review of Teaching Scheme (ARTS)
1. What is the Annual Review of Teaching Scheme?
Annual Review of Teaching is the mandatory process designed for all staff at the University of Exeter who teach, supervise, assess and/or support learning, to review and reflect on your practice.
For full information on how to complete an Annual Review of Teaching, please refer to the Annual Review of Teaching - September 2019.
2. What does the scheme aim to do?
Its overall purpose is to enable you to develop your education practice, by engaging with peers to provide you with constructive and critically reflective feedback and by looking together at new ideas and possibilities together.
3. What does it involve?
The Annual Review of Teaching is mandatory and requires you to engage in a formal ‘Annual Review of Teaching’ activity, which you must undertake during the academic year.
4. What kinds of review of teaching can I engage in for this scheme?
There are two options available to you:
OPTION A) a peer observation of a taught session or supervision meeting;
OPTION B) a peer discussion or review of an identified area of practice: for example, developing a new learning resource or approach; giving feedback to students; use of the ELE virtual learning environment. Option B could be a group activity and has many possible areas of focus.
5. How is this recorded?
You should report on your chosen activity using the appropriate Record form for either Option A or Option B. The forms should be completed at the time of the review and submitted immediately to your PDR reviewer. You should discuss outcome of your activity as part of the PDR process. The deadline for completing this process each year is 1st August.
In addition, you will need to access the following forms:
6. How can I comment on any areas I'd like the University to know about?
The feedback sections on the forms invite you to highlight and share identified areas of good teaching-realted practice. They also provide you with a specific opportunity to alert your College?service to any education-related issues that you would like the University to be made aware of.
7. Can I get any professional recognition for engaging in this scheme?
Engagement with the Annual Review of Teaching Scheme can be used as evidence to support an ASPIRE/HEA fellowship application. Specifically, ARTS provides evidence of UK PSF dimension of practice A5: Engage in continuing professional development in subjects/disciplines and their pedagogy, incorporating research, scholarship and evaluation of professional practices.
Writing Spaces
Educator Development run a range of regular writing spaces to help colleagues carve out time in their busy schedules to write – whether that’s ASPIRE PRP applications, promotion applications, funding applications, publications, blog posts or any other kind of writing or scholarship activity. As well as dedicating time to writing, we find these spaces are a great way to encourage peer dialogue and develop interdisciplinary communities of practice across the University.
Our regular writing spaces are as follows:
- Aspire PRP Writing Spaces
- Thursday Writing Space, 9.30-11am
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Thursday writing space is a dedicated space, in your calendar, to give you time and structure to write. The appointment is from 9:30 till 11:00 every Thursday morning, but you are welcome to just drop in and drop out to fit with other commitments. Click here to join the meeting then you will be added to the event for all future weeks.
Colleagues from across all departments, faculties and campuses are welcome to attend this online event. We use a structured social format, which really helps us to get things done. We write articles, book chapters, funding applications, fellowship applications, blogs…anything you need to do.
Read about us here How to run an online writing retreat | THE Campus Learn, Share, Connect (timeshighereducation.com)
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- Professional Services Aspire PRP Writing Space: sign up by contacting aspire@exeter.ac.uk.
- NTFS/CATE Writing spaces: sign up by contacting eduexe@exeter.ac.uk.
We can also run ad hoc writing spaces on different themes, for example:
- Exam writing retreats
- AI assessment re-writing retreats
If you would like Educator Development to run a writing space for your department, please contact eduexe@exeter.ac.uk.
Postgraduate researchers (PGRs) also have access to the Shut Up and Write online writing community and Focus Space for ECRs.
Feedback from previous attendees:
"Supportive and inspiring group to get all sorts of writing done."
"Really helpful to have the dedicated time to concentrate on this – carved out of schedule."
"Really great to have 2 hours set on the Aspire application and I would love to attend other sessions in April or early to mid May before marking papers."
"I made a start on my application and got some words down, for both sections 2 and three. Really appreciated the immediate feedback."
"I managed to add more details to my application and think more about the case studies, it has been very helpful to have a dedicated time to writing and to receive feedback from assessors and mentors, thank you very much! Would be keen for another session next term."
The Educator Development team support training around innovative pedagogies. We bring these in to all our Continuing Professional Development, but can also offer bespoke sessions including:
LEGO® Serious Play®
LEGO® Serious Play® (LSP) is an interactive and engaging technique first conceived in the 1990s as a method of facilitating discussion and collaboration in corporate contexts. It has subsequently been adapted for a range of uses, including trauma support and mental therapy, tailored sessions for non-neurotypical students, early-years education, and, more recently, in higher education. It is one of many techniques used by the increasing number of educators interested in incorporating play into higher education teaching. The team are LSP trained faciltiators, and you can find our LSP resources on SharePoint, and request to use our LEGO® library in your teaching.
INNOPLAY
Several members of the team have been trained at the INNOPLAY Studio, exploring the use of play in learning, teaching and facilitation. You can gain an insight in to how we have incorporated Innoplay in to our work on the Learning by Play! toolkit page.
Space Travel
What spaces do we inhabit during our days – work space, home space, social space? We are investigating the spaces we encounter, and share here initial thoughts around some of them. We hope to build a typography of spaces, and map behaviours associated with those spaces, drawing on the knowledge and understanding of colleagues across the sector.
In the university context, particularly following the upheaval of norms caused by the pandemic, we can revisit the spaces in which we teach and learn through a series of new lenses. A group of colleagues here at Exeter have started to consider what those different conceptions of space could mean to our practice. Read more in our Space Travel blog post.
Through our partnership with THE Campus, we receive regular calls for content, as well as a rolling call for contributions on THE Campus key topics:
- Teaching and learning
- Equity, diversity and inclusion
- SDGs
- Early career research
- Internationalisation
- Research management
- Student success
- Leadership and strategy
- Digital transformation
THE Campus publish two key forms of content:
- resources offering advice and insight for fellow faculty, university leaders and support staff looking to improve their teaching and learning, equity-diversity-inclusion work, research management, internationalisation, work towards the SDGs and early career research, taking in all the more holistic elements of university life such as student support, well-being and community building.
- opinion pieces commenting on different topical issues or challenges relating to the successful delivery of higher education – these need to also propose some practical solutions to the issue they raise
With resources, the aim is to offer quick, practical and applicable advice for academics and other university staff – to go away with actionable take-aways and tips, If you are interested in contributing to THE Campus, please joining our mailing list or email k.preece@exeter.ac.uk with your pitch and download the Campus editorial guidelines.
