Four people at the LEED conference 2023 enjoying a break and chatting

Manchester Met Learning and Teaching Conference 2024

'Showcasing our Manchester Met Pedagogies'

Conference overview

The Centre for Learning Enhancement and Educational Development (LEED) is delighted to announce its annual learning and teaching conference, which will take place on Wednesday 12 June 2024, from 9:00am to 4:30pm in the Geoffrey Manton Building.

This year’s theme sits at the heart of the education strategy and our drive to build an innovative, creative, supportive and inclusive educational community. Key to this are our Manchester Met pedagogies, which the conference will showcase and celebrate.  

The conference will bring together staff from across our faculties, departments, wide-ranging discipline areas, and professional services – all of whom contribute to the fantastic learning experience that students receive.

We welcome diverse voices and will celebrate the diversity of our community. We warmly welcome:

  • collaborative contributions from staff and students
  • insights from our various university partners
  • the experiences of staff in learning and teaching support roles

First-time conference presenters and doctoral students engaged in teaching or pedagogical research are also encouraged to contribute.

Places will likely fill up quickly so please register soon to secure your place.

If you require any support or adjustments to fully engage with the conference, let us know when booking.

Register to attend

Conference sub-themes

We have outlined six sub-themes for the conference and ask contributors to align their proposals to one or two of the six sub-themes. Through the conference, we aim to explore how our Manchester Met Pedagogies synergise with, support and progress the sub-themes below: 

Active Learning

Innovative, active and work-integrated learning.

Authentic and flexible assessment

Showcasing authentic, innovative, and flexible forms of assessment.

DIGITAL EDUCATION STRATEGY (DELTA)

Implementing the digital education (DELTA) strategy and building digital literacies.

GENERATIVE AI

Responding to the opportunities and challenges of generative AI.

Fostering inclusive learning environments and addressing differential outcomes

With a particular focus on students from minority ethnic backgrounds and/or with vocational entry qualifications.

plant leaf

Enhancing student belonging and progression

Showcasing new and effective ways of enhancing student belonging and progression.

Keynote speaker

We are delighted to announce Tansy Jessop as our keynote speaker at this year’s Learning and Teaching Conference. 

Abstract: Fostering student agency and engagement in assessment and feedback: why take a programme approach?

In Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment (TESTA) data, students routinely describe being overwhelmed by summative assessment which may feel done to them. In rushing to complete assessments, they often fail to see their wider purpose and relevance, or to find space and time to shape or take pride in their work.

Students say that they struggle to see connections between assessment tasks across the programme, and to trust feedback enough to act on it.

Drawing on theories of alienation and engagement, this talk will explore how we might design assessment and feedback across programmes to enable students to exercise their agency, play to their strengths, become more curious, deepen their understanding, and surprisingly, have more fun.   

short blonde haired person smiling standing in a field

Tansy Jessop is Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education and Students at the University of Bristol, where she has steered curriculum enhancement across the institution to re-imagine the design of programmes and assessment. Across the sector, she has led the Transforming the Experience of Students through Assessment (TESTA) research and change project for 15 years. Her recent book uses evidence from TESTA to show the value of taking a programme approach, and offers fresh theoretical perspectives of students’ experience using theories of alienation and engagement.

Before joining Bristol, Tansy was Head of Learning and Teaching at the University of Winchester and Professor of Research Informed Teaching at Solent University.

She has previously worked as a research consultant in India, the Middle East, and South Africa on social justice and leadership development in education. She began her career as a school teacher in South Africa. Her PhD analysed the narratives of rural primary teachers in KwaZulu-Natal in the early post-apartheid period.

On weekends, Tansy enjoys walking the dog, reading detective novels, and messing about in the kitchen cooking.

Session formats and proposal submission

The conference will have four principal session formats. Call for contributions has now closed and successful conference contributors have been contacted. 

When preparing your final conference materials, please refer to the sections below. 

  • Interactive presentations
    Time15 minutes, plus 5 minutes for questions and discussion.
    ContextPresentations should be based on scholarly, research, and/or practice-based work, which are applicable to a range of contexts and disciplines.
    Details to include

    Proposals should provide the following information:

    • Title.
    • Brief outline of the session.
    • Explanation of why someone should attend and what they will learn
    • Presenter name/s and MMU ID number of lead presenter

  • Live pedagogy experience
    Time25 or 50 minutes, including time for questions.
    ContextSessions should immerse participants in an active, innovative, creative and inclusive pedagogical experience, i.e. this should not be a presentation about pedagogy, but a live pedagogy experience where participants become the ‘learners’. The pedagogy experience may utilise technology but does not have to. The experience must be interactive and include participants in active learning. Attention must be paid in the proposal to tailoring this experience to a generalist audience and providing support for participants to develop the pedagogical approach(es) in their own teaching. Please get in touch with utacpd@mmu.ac.uk if you would like to discuss your proposal with the conference team before submission. 
    Details to include

    Proposals should provide the following information:

    • Title. 

    • Brief outline/structure of the live pedagogy experience, identifying how it will be active. 

    • Pedagogy approach to be showcased. 

    • Explanation of why someone should attend, what they will learn and how the experience will be transferable to delegates own teaching practices. 

    • Presenter name/s and MMU ID number of lead presenter. 

  • Lightning presentation
    Time7 minutes.
    Context

    7 minutes. ‘Rapid fire’ thoughts and ideas conveyed in a creative format, e.g. Pecha Kucha presentation, micro-presentation, video, active demonstration, performance, artistic installation, dance/song, poster, or digital poster, etc. Sessions must not exceed 7 minutes.

    Details to include

    Proposals should provide the following information:

    • Title.
    • Brief outline of the session.
    • Explanation of why someone should attend and what they will learn.
    • Presenter name/s and MMU ID number of lead presenter. 

  • Round table discussion
    Time50 minutes.
    Context

    Propose a round-table discussion based upon one of the six conference sub-themes. We suggest teams of up to six contributors. The roundtable should aim to stimulate discussion, debate and reflection amongst delegates who attend the roundtable. Submissions must be cross-faculty and include students. Think carefully about creating an engaging and inviting title and prompt questions/statements for the roundtable which will appeal to a generalist audience. You may wish to include some presentation elements to the roundtable. 

    Details to include

    Proposals should provide the following information:

    • Title.
    • Brief outline of the session.
    • Three thought-provoking prompt questions or statements linked to the discussion topic.
    • Explanation of why someone should attend and what they will learn.
    • Presenter name/s and MMU ID number of lead presenter. 

  • Reviewing Criteria

    All proposals will be double-blind reviewed using the below criteria. Unfortunately, we cannot guarantee that all proposals will be selected for the conference. Where necessary, the Conference Panel may request for a proposed contribution to be delivered in an alternative format.

    Conference Proposal Reviewing Criteria 

    3 

    2 

    1 

    0 

    1. Alignment: does the proposal align with the overall conference theme and one or two of the conference sub-themes? 

    1. Engaging learning experience: does the proposal seem likely to be of interest to the intended audience and to provide an engaging learning experience? 

    1. Transferability: does the proposal demonstrate how delegates will learn from, adapt and be able to use approaches in their own practice? 

    3 – criteria met 

    2 – some evidence of meeting criteria 

    1 – limited evidence of meeting criteria 

    0 – no evidence of meeting criteria 

Conference schedule

9:00 – 9:45am Arrival, registration, refreshments, breakfast
9:45 – 10:00am   Welcome
10:15 – 11:30am   Session 1 (interactive presentations/lightning presentations)
11:30 – 12:00pm Morning break and refreshments
12:00 – 1:00pm   Session 2 (live pedagogy experiences/roundtables)
1:00 – 2:00pm Lunch
2:00 – 2:45pm Keynote speaker
3:00 – 4:15pm Session 3 (with tea and coffee) (interactive presentations/lightning presentations)
4:15pm Drinks Reception 

This schedule is a draft and is subject to change.

Find us

Manchester Metropolitan University
Geoffrey Manton Building
Rosamond St
Manchester
M15 6EB
United Kingdom

Geoffrey Manton,
Rosamond St W,
Manchester,
M15 6EB

Geoffrey Manton,
Rosamond St W, 
Manchester,
M15 6EB

Contact us

If you have any further questions about the conference or conference submission process, please contact us via the email address below.

utacpd@mmu.ac.uk