Teaching & Learning Community of Practice

About us

The Teaching & Learning Community of Practice (T&L CoP) provides a space to continue and expand many of the discussions you are already having at teaching & learning events and amongst your own teams within the wider collegiate University. We hope that the community will provide a space for sharing ideas and experiences, and that it will serve as a network for colleagues to tackle shared challenges in a collegial and informal way across Cambridge.

We organise a range of opt-in opportunities to meet and engage in discussions relating to teaching and learning across the year. There will be a theme for each term, an associated webinar, a 'podcast club' (similar to a book club), and a mixture of other in-person and online activities and discussions to join, both synchronous and asynchronous. The extent to which you engage with the T&L CoP is determined by you and your interests and availability.

The T&L CoP is guided by its members and respond to colleagues' interests and needs.

Join us

Sign up to join the Cambridge Teaching & Learning Community of Practice

Upon registration for the T&L CoP, you will receive a welcome email. Registering means that you will automatically receive the termly newsletter containing all the information and joining links for the community's activities. Should you wish to participate in asynchronous discussions and have access to shared files within the community, you will also have the option to join our MS Teams site through a link in the welcome email.

What's on this term

Podcast Club: What learning looks like in an age of AI-driven 'efficiency'

  • Thursday 21 May
  • 1-2pm
  • Online

Just like a book club - listen to the podcast and join us for a facilitated discussion.

This term we'll be revisiting the podcast series Dead Ideas in Teaching & Learning, hosted by Dr Amanda Irvin from Columbia University. In this episode, guest speaker Dr Lucy Appert shares her insights on what learning truly means in an age of AI-driven 'efficiency'.

Lucy unpacks how we can use Universal Design for Learning as a framework to support the development of education, and challenges one of education most persistent 'dead ideas' - that we cannot change.

Webinar: Reducing presentation anxiety with neuroscience and VR: Implications for assessment

  • Thursday 4 June
  • 4-5pm
  • Online

We are pleased to be welcoming Dr Chris Macdonald, a behavioural scientist, Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College and Director of both the Immersive Technology Lab and the Better Protein Institute, for this term's webinar.

Chris will be sharing and discussing a virtual reality-based platform designed to reduce public speaking anxiety through immersive, scaffolded practice. Developed at Cambridge, the platform enables students to rehearse in realistic and progressively challenging environments with AI-driven feedback. The session will consider how immersive technologies can support student confidence and preparedness and bridge the gap between practice and performance.

Readings for the term

We've curated a list of readings for this term for you to explore at your leisure. There will be an opportunity to discuss your thoughts on these texts asynchronously via the Community of Practice Team across the term.