Developing your Teaching Workshops

• Session details: 10am-12noon (on campus)
• Who is it for? This session is relevant to all colleagues
• Facilitators: Harriet Cannon

This session provides colleagues with an introduction to the concept of neurodivergence. We’ll talk about what the terms ‘neurodiversity’ and ‘neurodivergence’ mean and then look at the commonality of difference shared across different neurodivergences.

The session is rooted in neurodiversity-affirming approaches, giving practical strategies to counter the disabling impact of the HE environment on neurodivergent students, and applicable to any staff member involved in student education practice, regardless of their role.

This session covers the following topics:

• Definitions: neurodiversity and neurodivergence.
• "Commonality of difference" – Spiky profiles, Monotropism and executive function, - Information processing, Communication and the Double Empathy Problem, Sensory processing, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) and perseveration.
• Common challenges created by the HE environment.
• Strategies to support and work with neurodivergent students
• Top tips for working with neurodivergent students.

• Session details: 1-3pm (on campus)
• Who is it for? All colleagues involved in teaching
• Facilitators: Dr Clare Tweedy and Dr Alexandra Holmes

This interactive workshop is designed for those who are curious about, planning to adopt, or already experimenting with the flipped classroom model.

Through activities and structured discussions, participants will explore both the possibilities and pitfalls of flipped learning. Drawing on real examples from our own practice, we’ll explore shared challenges such as student engagement, expectations, and accessibility – as well as discussing practical strategies for making flipped learning work in your own practice.

What is flipped learning? Flipped learning is a pedagogical approach that reimagines the traditional classroom model. Instead of content being taught in the classroom, students engage with relevant learning materials and theory independently before class. This frees up classroom time for active learning through discussion, collaboration, problem-solving and application of knowledge. The approach promotes student ownership of their education, encourages deeper learning and makes more effective use of face-to-face time. However, the reality of implementing flipped learning often differs from the theory.

• Session details: 10-11am (online)
• Who is it for? All colleagues involved in student education practice, regardless of role. This could be at programme or module level, but also at class level by teaching assistants, technicians and professional services staff.
• Facilitators: Maria King,

Do you want to reflect on and evaluate your practice and identify areas for improvement or where changes need to be made? Do you want to collect and use feedback from students and colleagues more effectively?

This online session will support attendees to identify evidence available to them to evaluate their student education practice, and how to collect it effectively.

The session will also cover how to use that evidence to critically evaluate your student education practice with the aim of making improvements or changes. This reflective approach to your practice can improve the experience for your students, help you to address NSS results or other quantitative module and programme data, as well as being an approach that underpins applications for professional recognition and recruitment and promotion processes.

• Session details: 1.30-3pm (on campus)
• Who is it for? Colleagues with teaching responsibility.
• Facilitators: Rachel Myers, Eleanor Cope, Emily Webb, Maria King, Isabel Archer

This workshop, co-delivered by colleagues from OD&PL and the Library, will introduce participants to a new toolkit designed to support academic colleagues in diversifying and enriching their reading lists.

The workshop will explore:

• The importance and impact of diverse reading lists for students and staff.
• The challenges and opportunities of engaging in diversification and decolonisation work, offering colleagues a chance to reflect on current and future practice.
• How the Library can work with colleagues to support diversification, and practical tools to begin or continue this work.

It will also be an opportunity for participants to provide feedback on the new toolkit before it's formal launch later this year. For this session, we ask all participants to bring a laptop, tablet or phone to participate in some of the activities.

• Session details: 2-3pm (online)
• Who is it for? This workshop will be relevant for anyone involved in teaching
• Facilitators: Emily Haikney

In this session we will explore how academic integrity forms a key part of our teaching and assessment practices.

We will discuss the approach at Leeds to developing students’ understanding of academic integrity. We’ll also consider how teaching staff can support students to demonstrate good study practices, reducing the risk of plagiarism or misconduct.

We will look at some of the resources we can use in our conversations with students, including online tutorials, discussion prompts and ideas for activities. We’ll also discuss how academic integrity issues arise during assessment, and how they should be addressed.

• Session details: 6 January, 10-11am (online)
• Who is it for? This workshop is suitable for any staff member involved in student
  education practice in a classroom setting, regardless of their role.
• Facilitators: Cilla Sanders

Feeling lonely at the front of the classroom? Disappointed or disheartened that your students are not engaging?

Join this practical session on Fostering Equitable Participation in the Classroom: Exploring the Use of Liberating Structures.

Together we will:

• Explore the benefits of student participation
• Consider barriers that hinder participation
• Highlight some methods and strategies for facilitating student participation
• Try out a structured method for fostering group discussion

This is an interactive event, so you will need: A desktop PC, laptop, tablet, or smartphone with microphone, webcam, and speakers or headphones A quiet space where you feel comfortable speaking during group discussions.

• Session details: 21 January 2026, 1pm-3pm (on campus)
• Who is it for? This workshop is suitable for staff involved in module and/or assessment design
• Facilitator(s): David Ofili

Critical evaluation is often treated as something that happens after a module ends or within formal review processes. This session reframes it as an ongoing, integral part of everyday module development.

Using the iterative design of the Access to Leeds Computer Science module as an example, the session explores how pedagogic principles, assumptions about students, teaching and assessment evidence, and professional judgement can inform design decisions over time. The focus is on making evaluative thinking explicit and transferable across disciplines, rather than replicating a specific model.

This session is relevant to colleagues involved in module or assessment design, those interested in evidence-informed teaching enhancement, those pursuing professional recognition and Access to Leeds tutors.

Participants will:

• Explore what critical evaluation looks like in day-to-day module development
• Be introduced to a practical, transferable evaluation framework
• Reflect on existing evaluative practices they may already use but not label as critical evaluation

• Session details: 3 February 2026, 2pm-4pm (on campus)
• Who is it for? This workshop is suitable for staff involved in student education practice in a classroom setting, regardless of role
• Facilitator(s): Fiona Chapel, Catherine Bates

This interactive 2-hour workshop introduces Photovoice as a creative, participatory teaching and research method and critical thinking tool. Participants will experience the method in practice, using photos and dialogue to reflect on lived experiences and perspectives.

The session will also explore how Photovoice can be used with students and communities, drawing on the facilitators’ experience of using it as a community-building, reflective, critical thinking and research tool. Examples from pre-entry, community and university teaching and research will illustrate its value within inclusive, creative and social justice-oriented approaches to teaching and partnership work.

• Session details: 5 March 2026, 2pm-3.30pm (on campus)
• Who is it for? Any staff member involved in teaching and assessment
• Facilitator(s): Kasia Drozdziak

Students receive feedback in various forms at University, including seminar comments, class-wide responses on platforms such as Padlet or Minerva and written feedback on assessments.

Many students seek support to interpret and apply feedback, particularly when it is unclear or difficult to implement.

This session explores how feedback is experienced, what makes it effective, and what reduces its usefulness, using examples and insights from current students.

• Session details: 16 April 2026, 10am-12noon (on campus)
• Who is it for? Academics and others colleagues with teaching responsibility on taught
  modules
• Facilitator(s): Rebecca Thorley

This interactive workshop is for colleagues outside healthcare disciplines who want to explore how reflection-based, professionally focused formative and summative assessments can be embedded from year one to develop students’ professional literacy.

The session introduces professional literacy within the University’s Capabilities Framework and considers how embedding it in the curriculum supports career readiness, work-ready skills, and informed post-university decision-making. Through activities and discussion, participants will explore how subject knowledge can be integrated into real-world learning and assessment.

The workshop will also share practice from a PGCAP Action Research project, including the development of a final-year workbook to help students surface and articulate their learning for an assessed mock interview, demonstrating how disciplinary knowledge informs professional practice.

• Session details: 29 April 2026, 2pm-3.30pm (on campus)
• Who is it for? Any staff member involved in teaching and assessment
• Facilitator(s): Rachel Myers, Suzanne Beck

This workshop is aimed at shifting the focus from individual reasonable adjustments for disabled students to proactively designing inclusive learning environments for the benefit of all students.

The interactive session is designed to provide participants with a foundational understanding of the need for inclusive pedagogies and consider practical approaches to implementing common adjustments as part of an inclusive approach to teaching and learning.

Learning outcomes:

• Understand the theoretical and legislative drivers for implementing inclusive pedagogies
• Consider reasonable adjustments as part of inclusive learning design
• Develop strategies to overcome barriers to implementation

• Session details: 6 May 2026, 1pm-3pm (In person and online)
• Who is it for? Any staff member involved in teaching and assessment
• Facilitator(s): Barbara Kempf and Sarah Budello

This workshop will demonstrate some of the tricks of the trade on making a hybrid session work. We will explore this together in a hybrid setting.

The session will cover:

1. Why do hybrid?

2. Equipment

• Desktop or laptop?
• Camera[s]
• Sound and Microphones
• How to get help

3. Facilitating learning

• Plan for online - using collaboration platforms and quizzes
• Facilitating breakout discussion and group feedback
• Making online participants feel included
• Using the chat - not just online
• There are limits - so keep it simple

4. Questions and discussion.

• Session details: 7 May 2026, 2pm-3.30pm (on campus)
• Who is it for? Any staff member involved in teaching and learning
• Facilitator(s): Gregory Tidswell, Rosalyn Cousins

This interactive workshop introduces staff to the principles of inclusive digital design in Minerva, reframing digital design as a core pedagogical element of learning design. It explores how clear structure, accessible presentation and purposeful interactive activities can enhance the student learning experience and support constructive alignment. Participants will explore a range of interactive and multimedia options in Minerva and consider how these can be used to create more engaging, student-centred learning journeys.

By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:

• Evaluate their module using an inclusive digital design lens
• Identify practical improvements to structure, clarity, and consistency in Minerva
• Select appropriate interactive and multimedia tools to support learning
• Apply design approaches that create more welcoming and engaging online learning spaces

• Session details: 18 May 2026, 11am-12.30pm (on campus)
• Who is it for? Any staff member involved in teaching and learning
• Facilitator(s): Jody Bradford, Thuy Thai

Many University of Leeds students use IELTS to demonstrate English proficiency, but its implications are often unclear to staff and stakeholders. This interactive workshop outlines key features of IELTS and its relevance in a UK higher education context.

The session will explore how IELTS shapes expectations, highlight the importance of students’ prior educational experiences, and consider the role of academic literacies and discipline-specific communication. The session provides practical insights to better understand linguistic backgrounds and enhance student experience at Leeds.

• Session details: 27 May 2026, 2pm-3.30pm (on campus)
• Who is it for? Any staff member involved in teaching and learning
• Facilitator(s): Niamh Mullen, Milena Marinkova

Student cohorts at the University of Leeds are increasingly diverse in educational, linguistic and social backgrounds. While this enriches learning, it can also increase cognitive demands. Learners’ language backgrounds influence how they access and communicate knowledge, affecting engagement, relationships and sense of belonging.

This session explores “cognitive load” from different perspectives within the academic linguistic environment and introduces practical strategies to support linguistically diverse students while maintaining intellectual challenge and success.

• Session details: 15 July 2026, 2-4pm (on campus)
• Who is it for? Any staff member involved in teaching and learning
• Facilitator(s): Laura Conroy, Elizabeth Johnstone, Lucy Mason

Facilitated by the Student Partnerships Team, this session explores practical ways to enhance learning and teaching practice by working with your students. It focuses on accessible approaches that can be applied in a range of teaching contexts.

You will have the opportunity to reflect on your current practice and consider how you might:

• draw on student voices and perspectives to inform and improve teaching
• build meaningful dialogue and collaboration in your classroom
• design small-scale activities that encourage shared ownership of learning

Suitable for colleagues engaging with themes such as student voice, collaboration and inclusive teaching (including PGCAP), this session is designed to meet you where you are and build on what you already do.

The session is informed by the University’s new Student–Staff Partnership Framework, which offers practical guidance to support your approach.