It’s time to announce a few good things as we approach the start of the design and development work on the two new postgraduate programmes:
- MBA Innovation in Sustainable Food and Agriculture
- MSc Sustainable Food and Agriculture Policy.
Learning technologists
Two new Learning Technologists, Chantal Schipper and Aurelie Soulier, have now both started at the RAU. They will be supporting and guiding the academics working on the Catalyst programmes in designing and developing the online modules.
Catalyst project guidelines
The Learning Technology team have been working hard on developing the Catalyst Project intranet pages. Here you will find:
- information about the programmes in development
- details about the roles and responsibilities of the Catalyst team
- information about teaching in HE and at the RAU that relates to Catalyst
- professional development related to distance teaching and learning
- guidelines on module design, the ‘assessment first’ principle, accessibility, quality enhancement etc.
- information about the development process and our 12-week development timeline
- the forms and templates that the Catalyst team will use during development.
The Catalyst Project pages are on the RAU staff intranet (internal only)
More guidance will be written, so do keep an eye on our intranet site!
Office 365
The IT Services team is working hard on implementing Office 365 for RAU staff. It will initially be piloted within the ITS team and the Catalyst Project will be using “MS Teams” to collaborate with each other during the Catalyst project’s module design and development stages.
To find out more about Office 365 and how you can use it, have a look at Microsoft’s online training videos available here:
What is happening now?
Currently, module leaders are speaking with their specialist contributors to generate ideas for student activities and assessments. On 8 November, the Catalyst team working on the postgraduate programmes will come together for a “Start-Up day”. Supported by the Learning Technologists, the team will shape up their ideas into module designs and will write action plans to develop six modules every twelve weeks.
Meanwhile, the Learning Technology team is working on implementing tools to support eBooks, webinars, e-portfolios, data and reporting and identifying specialists for media production.
The Learning Technology team first started working on Catalyst in spring 2018. At the first workshop, some of the people involved spoke about what was ahead and how that first workshop in July had gone. To watch these short videos, click on the names below.
If you have any questions related to the Catalyst project or learning technology, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with the Learning Technology team.
