Year in Review 2023-24

This Year in Review gives an overview which we hope illustrates the breadth and diversity of our work. For 2023-24, we have chosen to focus on collaboration and exchange. We explore three elements of our work in more detail this year: our support for undertaking educational enquiry in partnership with students and staff; our contributions to fostering cross-institutional dialogue; our new and established teaching development programmes.

PDF version: Year in Review 2023-24

Contents

Highlights in Numbers

Developing teaching

  • 592 new undergraduate supervisors completed our introductory training
  • 99 colleagues accredited with Advance HE through our teaching development programmes
  • eight colleagues participated in our pilot Researcher Development Fellows Programme

Postgraduate education

  • two new themed activity months arranged for postgraduate research students
  • 5,087 places offered on our postgraduate research student workshops
  • 420 visitors to the Supervising Postgraduate Students resource

Events

  • 15 institutions hosted at the Evaluating Access & Participation Plans Forum
  • 64% increase in delegates attending the Cambridge Teaching Forum
  • 440 registrations across our suite of annual and one-off events

Projects & networks

  • 171 colleagues joined the new Teaching & Learning Community of Practice
  • 18 departments represented at the termly Researcher Development Forum
  • 61 members of the Cambridge Skills Educators' Network

Resources & support

  • 1,677 subscribers to the termly Teaching & Learning newsletter
  • 63,934 visits to our website across the 2023-24 academic year
  • seven universities contributed to the Community of Practice Toolkit project

Focus on: Educational enquiry - in partnership with students and staff

Introduction

In 2023-24, we worked with colleagues and students across a range of disciplines, roles and environments to explore experiences of teaching, learning and assessment at Cambridge. This work contributes to commitments to understand and address inequities in educational experiences and outcomes as set out in Cambridge's Access & Participation Plans.

Students as Partners Guidance

Working with students to co-create, co-teach, co-research and co-develop their educational experiences has become an increasingly common practice in higher education in the UK and internationally. In Cambridge, over the past five years over 120 students have contributed as co-researchers to our Access & Participation Plan Participatory Action Research Project, generating rich insights and helping to identify ways of developing more inclusive practices.

We developed new guidance to respond to growing interest from colleagues seeking to engage or partner with students in educational enhancement projects. The 'Students as Partners' guide offers practical support and resources for staff in setting up and implementing partnership projects, with case studies and examples of practice.

During 2023-24, we directly supported the University Counselling Service and Cambridge Zero among others in devising student partnership projects, so that they could learn more about students' experiences of their provision and about students' ideas for further improvements.

For more information, contact Dr Cassie Lowe (cvl29)

“We found the 'Students as Partners' guidance invaluable in supporting student projects on climate and sustainability education within undergraduate curricula this year. I definitely plan to use it to guide future collaborations, as it offers a helpful framing for both staff and students to feel supported.”

Curriculum Review in Engineering

We were invited by the Department of Engineering to co-lead exploratory research into their undergraduates' learning experiences, with a particular focus on a persistent gender awarding gap. Working in partnership with the Deputy Head of Teaching and Student Academic Reps, the research sought to understand the enablers and barriers to students' academic success in Part I.

Staff and students contributed their insights and experiences through focus groups, questionnaires and individual interviews. The findings have led to Department-wide reflections on how the curriculum, teaching, assessment and supervision processes can be enhanced; contributed to plans for reforming Engineering Part I; and fostered wider discussions on inclusive educational practices across the whole Tripos.

Aakash Gupta, final-year undergraduate at the Department, received the internationally-recognised 'Student Partnership Impact Award' from the Staff & Educational Development Association and JISC (Joint Information Systems Committee) in recognition of his work and impact as co-researcher on this project.

For more information, contact Dr Kamilah Jooganah (kj388)

Focus on: Fostering cross-institutional dialogue

Introduction

In 2023-24, we continued to strengthen engagement and to seek new collaborations with colleagues in other universities. Doing so enabled us to learn from and with others in the sector, fostering dialogue and reflecting, enabling exchange of knowledge and inspiring innovation.

Forum: Evaluating Access & Participation Plans

We led and hosted a sector-wide forum on 'Evaluating Access & Participation Plans' in October 2023. Colleagues working in access & outreach, widening participation, student progress & success and evaluation came together from universities including King's College London, LSE, Oxford, Reading, Southampton and UCL.

The one-day event provided opportunities to share lessons learned on developing and evaluating current (2020-25) APPs, applying these to existing and new initiatives for APPs in development. Delegates report that the forum has led to continued knowledge-exchange and the development of a number of research projects.

Our guest speakers - Prof. Liz Austen (Sheffield Hallam), Dr Paul Ian Campbell (Leicester) and Dr Sally Andrews (Staffordshire), joined by Cambridge student Jordan Byrne - offered critical insights on the 'wicked problems' associated with inequities in higher education, the need for critical and creative engagement with evaluation methodologies and developing inclusive approaches to evaluative enquiry which teaching staff can use to help improve educational practices.

For more information, contact Dr Amy Smail (as3394)

“What a great opportunity to collaborate with other institutions! The forum gave me a much-needed chance to actually reflect on how I approach evaluation at my institution, while giving me a lot to take away with ideas realistic to what can actually be done rather than what is just not possible.”

Project: Guidance for Developing Teaching & Learning Communities of Practice

This year, we led a successful bid for funding from Advance HE to develop a toolkit to support those looking to establish and sustain teaching & learning Communities of Practice. We also launched a Community of Practice itself focused on supporting those running such efforts.

This international project was a collaborative undertaking with colleagues from Leeds, Sydney, Goldsmiths, Bangor, Cardiff and Brighton.

The toolkit will be published in spring 2025.

For more information, contact Dr Cassie Lowe (cvl29)

Focus on: Developing teaching

Introduction

Our cohort-based teaching development programmes are a core part of our work, providing opportunities for Cambridge colleagues to learn with and from peers as well as our programme teams. In 2023-24, we reached a new milestone: all of our programmes are now accredited by Advance HE.

Researcher Development Fellows Programme

This pilot programme, supported by Enhancing Research Culture funding, provides a new route for postdocs to gain experience of teaching and enables CCTL to extend our Cambridge-wide provision for postgraduate students with some discipline-specific offerings. Eight postdoctoral researchers successfully completed the pilot programme and all seven who applied for Associate Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA) were successful.

Taking part in the programme equips participants to design and deliver workshops for PhD students within their departments, gaining paid classroom experience. Participants are introduced to a range of inclusive and innovative teaching practices and feedback strategies specific to the PhD journey and context. The programme combines tailored support with opportunities for self-reflection and peer learning.

For more information, contact Dr Sonja Tomašković (st560)

“The Researcher Development Fellows Programme has been a remarkable journey for my personal growth. The small-group setting... coupled with tailored advice and supervision, provided clarity and support throughout.”

Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching & Learning in Higher Education

The Postgraduate Certificate is our longest-running programme, open to Cambridge staff who teach / support the learning of Cambridge students. Our 130 'graduates' include Directors of Teaching, Senior Tutors and four Pilkington Prize Winners, as well as colleagues who have gone on to secure academic positions in other universities.

On completing the Postgraduate Certificate, this year's cohort will also - for the first time - become Fellows of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

For more information, contact Dr Meg Tait (mebt1)

“The way the programme enables participants to focus on specific questions they have devised, with the expectation that they approach these practice-based areas of inquiry in a scholarly way whilst benefitting from engagement in a peer-supported environment, is very powerful.”

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