Join us on Monday 18 July 2022 for the annual Sydney Teaching Symposium. This popular event highlights approaches to teaching and assessment developed by colleagues across the University which are practical, transferable, and student-centred. This year, as we start shifting gears to a post-COVID reality, we will be discussing how we support students in perhaps unfamiliar ways of learning, how assessment and feedback can be reimagined, how to teach well again face-to-face, what it’s like to build relationships with students, how team teaching benefits us all and, importantly, how we can design and deliver inclusive and equitable learning experiences for all students.
Key details
Date: Monday 18 July 2022 from 9:00 am AEST
Venue: Face-to-face in the Eastern Avenue and Carslaw complex, with a live broadcast option for those who are unable to make it to campus
Cost: Free but registration is essential. This event will be catered – please indicate any dietary requirements upon registration.
Availability: University of Sydney staff and students, as well as staff from other higher education institutions.
Register for the symposium
Symposium themes
Teaching and supporting the COVID generation: After two years learning mostly over Zoom, students may be feeling isolated and unfamiliar with university learning practices. How are we supporting students to transition to new ways of learning, for both students new to university and those who have been here but predominantly online?
Reimagining assessment and feedback practices: The last two years has seen an impressive rethinking of our assessment towards authentic, digital-first practices. How will assessment and feedback look in 2022 and beyond?
Effective face-to-face teaching: Students have been seeking to return to campus to learn and reconnect with their teachers and peers. There is also a growing recognition of a grassroots need for flexibility in teaching mode. How are we making on-campus teaching in 2022 work effectively in different parts of the University?
Relationship-rich education: Connection, community, and relationship have never been more important. How are we building relationship-rich student-student and student-teacher experiences?
Team-based teaching: Teaching as part of a team has many benefits – additional perspectives, reflection, and collegial support. How are teaching teams working well in different contexts and how can we continue to support each other as educators?
Designing and teaching for equity and inclusion: Almost 1 in 10 students at the University are from an equity cohort (low SES, rural/remote, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander). How are we designing teaching so that we ‘teach to the edges’ as opposed to the middle, for the benefit of all learners?
Draft symposium program
All times are in Sydney time (Australian Eastern Standard Time).
| Time | Track A | Track B |
|---|---|---|
| 9:00 am | Welcome Vice Chancellor Mark Scott Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1040; Mainstage Zoom | |
| 9:10 am | A Vision for Education at Sydney Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education) Joanne Wright Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1040; Mainstage Zoom | |
| 9:25 am | Break and transition | |
| 9:35 am | [1A1] Five simple approaches towards building strong student-teacher relationships in large cohorts Hamish Fernando Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1110; Track 1A Zoom While preparing to coordinate my first ever unit, BMET2901/9901 (Anatomy and Physiology for Engineers) in the middle of the 2021 lockdown, I was faced with the challenge of connecting effectively with... [more] | [1B1] It’s the little things: supporting student learning in the post-COVID environment Bronwyn Simpson Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1130; Track 1B Zoom Teaching the COVID generation requires targeted and thoughtful methods of student support. The challenge (and opportunity) presented by COVID has led to innovative and flexible ways of delivering teac... [more] |
| 9:50 am | [1A2] Collaborating with students to develop curriculum and learning resources Joanne Hart, Robert Chen & Bella Kontorovich Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1110; Track 1A Zoom This presentation describes a pilot study where we collaborated with students to develop learning resources for the MD Program. Our students are stakeholders in our education relationship with deep in... [more] | [1B2] Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and ‘fireside chats’ for Courses: Building student’s knowledge and engagement (plus saving time) Victoria Rawlings Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1130; Track 1B Zoom Unit coordinators and tutors are often frustrated when their students do not read the syllabus/unit of study outline. Meanwhile, students who are unaware of key details and expectations for their cour... [more] |
| 10:05 am | [1A3] Learning from the pandemic: the need for connection and flexibility Alice Huang & Matthew Clemson Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1110; Track 1A Zoom Online learning has led us to find novel approaches to promote connection and provide flexibility for students, which we continue to adopt and improve on as we move back on campus. It is easy to feel ... [more] | [1B3] Establishing connections for student learning in first year occupational therapy Joanne Hinitt & Kria Coleman Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1130; Track 1B Zoom After the experiences of learning and teaching during COVID-19 restrictions, we wanted to better support first-year, first-semester undergraduate occupational therapy students as they transitioned to ... [more] |
| 10:20 am | Q&A with speakers Speakers from this track Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1110; Track 1A Zoom | Q&A with speakers Speakers from this track Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1130; Track 1B Zoom |
| 10:30 am | Break and transition | |
| 10:35 am | Student and staff roundtable: Being human at Sydney – connection and belonging in postnormal times Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1040; Mainstage Zoom | |
| 11:50 am | Light refreshments | |
| 12:30 pm | [2A1] Notes from the apocalypse: Building relationships in a group-work based unit with 1100 students Michael Wheatland & Tara Murphy Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1110; Track 2A Zoom OLES1602 "The Apocalypse in Science and Culture" ran for the first time in Semester 2, 2021. This six-credit point OLE teaches science, and the social impacts of science, through the lens of... [more] | [2B1] Designing to the edges with UDL: A first-year writing case study Benjamin Miller & Sarah Humphreys Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1130; Track 2B Zoom How can designing a unit of study using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles change the way you think about course readings and learning activities? This presentation will briefly introduce ... [more] |
| 12:45 pm | [2A2] Smart Responses to Communicating: Developing a podcast assessment for first year students Moira Dunsmore & Heather Shepherd Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1110; Track 2A Zoom First year nursing students often start their degree with a fairly individualised concept of health and a narrow definition of the nursing role. This can make it challenging to engage students in &#... [more] | [2B2] Disrupting the Margins, Decentering the Middle: Creating Culturally Safe Teaching and Learning Spaces Amy McHugh-Cole & Matthew Tyne Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1130; Track 2B Zoom With 1 in 10 students at the University self-identifying as being from an 'equity cohort', the impetus for teachers is to create culturally safe, responsive learning spaces for all. These sp... [more] |
| 1:00 pm | [2A3] Engaging consumers and actors to deliver education and assessments in the classroom: a pharmacy case study Sarira El-Den & Claire O'Reilly Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1110; Track 2A Zoom In this session, pharmacy educators will describe their experiences in engaging stakeholders (consumers and professionals) and actors to co-design and deliver education and assessments. We will provid... [more] | [2B3] Create your own Padlet adventure Andy Smidt & Toni Stanford Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1130; Track 2B Zoom Padlet is a popular and versatile tool that can be used to share information, visualise complex diagrams, provide student feedback and provide anonymous feedback. In this session, novice Padletters wi... [more] |
| 1:15 pm | Q&A with speakers Speakers from this track Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1110; Track 2A Zoom | Q&A with speakers Speakers from this track Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1130; Track 2B Zoom |
| 1:25 pm | Break and transition | |
| 1:30 pm | [3A1] Two-sided teaching: Managing large tutor teams and large student cohorts simultaneously Madeleine Borthwick Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1110; Track 3A Zoom In the Bachelor of Design Computing degree, we have experienced significant teaching challenges in the last 6 years, with a rapidly growing student cohort and relatively small staff team. Coordinating... [more] | [3B1] Connecting through collections: Object-Based Learning at the Museum Jane Thogersen & Eve Guerry Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1130; Track 3B Zoom Throughout 2021-2022, disciplines across campus have been responding to the need for meaningful face-to-face learning by taking their class to the Chau Chak Wing Museum for a curated Object-Based Lear... [more] |
| 1:45 pm | [3A2] Zoonotic Viruses and Zoom: How the Pandemic Redefined Clinical Education Smitha Sukumar Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1110; Track 3A Zoom During the Covid-19 pandemic, dental teaching clinics were closed and students were locked out of clinical learning. Faced with lockdown, a group of clinical academics devised team a-based teaching ap... [more] | [3B2] Finding your way home: Redesigning how students and staff engage with information at scale Peter Bryant & Elaine Huber Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1130; Track 3B Zoom Prior to the pandemic, how engaged with students at scale was defined through a lens of modality; the affordances of space, of nodes of engagement, the capacities of a timetable, the levels of comfort... [more] |
| 2:00 pm | [3A3] Team-teaching to enrich team-based experiential learning when transitioning from face-to-face to online learning Eliza Wu Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1110; Track 3A Zoom This showcase draws on team teaching experiences in the Work-integrated Learning (WIL) and Capstone units delivered in the Business School during the pandemic. We discuss the best practices for enrich... [more] | [3B3] The BUSS1000 story: managing the anxious transition to university Jane Kerr & Carmen Vallis Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1130; Track 3B Zoom Lockdowns and large international cohorts (1000+) meant first year undergrad students in 2020/2021 could feel isolated and disconnected. We would like to share the BUSS1000 story and how we learnt and... [more] |
| 2:15 pm | Q&A with speakers Speakers from this track Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1110; Track 3A Zoom | Q&A with speakers Speakers from this track Location: Abercrombie Building H70 Lecture Theatre 1130; Track 3B Zoom |
Get further equipped for teaching
Around the symposium, a number of professional learning workshops will be run to further equip Sydney educators with the tools to redesign their curriculum, delivery, student support and engagement, and assessment approaches. They will be delivered by Educational Innovation with assistance from experienced teachers from across the institution.
- Modular Professional Learning Framework winter school
- Monday 11 July – M04 Curriculum design and constructive alignment
- Tuesday 12 July – M06 Supporting student cohorts and teaching teams
- Wednesday 13 July – M21 Supporting interdisciplinary learning
- Tuesday 19 July – M01 Principles of learning and teaching, and M03 Inclusivity and diversity
- Wednesday 20 July – M08 Engaging students in lectures and large classes, and M05 Assessment and feedback for learning
- Thursday 21 July – M13 Designing for blended and online learning, and M14 Online tools for interactive and collaborative learning
- Monday 25 July – M11 Microteaching
- Monday 1 August – M09 Engaging students in small classes
- Tuesday 2 August – M09 Engaging students in small classes
- Student Relationship Engagement System (SRES) workshops – build stronger relationships and engage your students personally, at scale
- Coming soon
Sydney educators can also book a 30 minute online consultation with an educational designer at any time.
More information
This symposium is being organised by the Educational Innovation team in the DVC (Education) Portfolio, and is led by Eszter Kalman, Alix Thoeming, Samantha Clarke, and Danny Liu. To contact us, please email [email protected].