Taking Your Technology Enhanced Learning Practice Further

1. Talk to others about TEL

Discussing your practice with a variety of people with different experience and viewpoints is the best way to understand the possibilities and considerations of using technology in your teaching practice. Some options include:

• Your faculty TEL team, who are experienced in helping staff to understand good practice in TEL, and develop skills
• Colleagues from your department, who may have interesting practices that work in your discipline
• Your students, who will be able to tell you about the aspects of TEL they find most effective and useful
• Talking to people after reading case studies about their work
• Colleagues from across your faculty and the institution who are sharing their practice at organised events, such as conferences and workshops

2. Evaluate your current practice

Before making changes to your current practice, evaluation will help identify the areas that could benefit an alternative way of working. Consider why they may need to change and how that could best be achieved. To do this you could:

• Use an evaluation tool, such as SHU’s Teaching Approaches Menu to prompt ideas
• Ask students and colleagues about changes they think could work well, and check your ideas with them
• Work through your thoughts and challenges with your faculty TEL team
• Ask a colleague to observe some of your practice and provide TEL-related feedback
• Review your faculty’s Minimum Expectations report
• Check the Periodic Review report for your department (where available)
• Read through Assessment Essentials to find resources to help you consider how you might manage assessments and feedback online
• Use external resources such as JISC guides

3. Increase your digital capability

When you have identified areas that could benefit from change, you should learn about some of the tools that can be used to support it. This will help ensure that you select the right technology and approach for your aims. You might:

• Attend a relevant workshop or training session, whether faculty-based or centrally-provided such as through the Assessment Journey Programme
• Make use of online training resources, such as Lynda.com
• Read the TEL at SHU blog and your faculty TEL/LTA blog for ideas

4. Make a change to your current practice and evaluate its effect

When changing your practice, it is often a good idea to start in a small way and evaluate the effectiveness of the change, particularly when using a technology for the first time. If the change proves effective, then you can expand its use to the rest of your practice, otherwise you can identify what went wrong and try again. Some examples include:

• Trying out a new technology with a small activity in a session, testing improvements to engagement and interactivity
• Using technology to enable more creative assessment submissions
• Making use of the more advanced and interactive features of the tools you are already using

5. Share your practice

Sharing your practice with peers and colleagues is a good way to get additional insight, boost your profile, encourage others to model their practice on yours, and raise awareness of ways in which technology can enhance learning and teaching. Some possibilities include:

• Volunteering your practice as a case study for other staff
• Helping others in making changes to their own practice
• Using your experiences as part of an application for HEA fellowship
• Talking to your colleagues about what you have learned by making changes to your practice
• Presenting your new practice at a conference, event or meeting