International Collaboration: The NCUK Teachers’ Conference 2021

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Last month, NCUK’s Academic Support and Development team in collaboration with The Sino-British College, USST hosted NCUK’s inaugural Teachers’ Conference 2021.

The virtual conference commenced on Wednesday 15 September and concluded on Friday 17 September 2021. 290+ teachers from across 80+ Study Centres which includes China, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Hungary, Kenya and other countries participated in the half-day conference held over three days.

Teachers' Conference

The objective of this conference was to improve the quality of teaching and learning in our Study Centres. Among the topics covered in the NCUK Teachers’ Conference were ‘Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age’, ‘Blended Learning using Virtual Learning Environment & Classroom Management’, ‘Active Learning Approaches and Teaching Higher-Order Skills;, ‘Skills for Success’, ‘English for Academic Purposes (EAP)’ and ‘Current Themes in Business’.

These topics were all apt and relevant to teachers in their teaching and learning process more so as the pandemic had transformed the teaching and learning process globally.

As the organising team, it is fantastic to finally see the Teachers’ Conference take off at the start of the academic year. We are grateful for all the teachers who took the opportunity to attend and learn with the intent of improving their skills and elevate their teaching for the benefit of NCUK students. We hope that we will be able to see these improvements in the quality of teaching and learning in the longer term. This is a great start and we hope to be able to hold this conference annually as part of our CPD provision for our teachers.

Nazlin Karim, NCUK Associate Director – Academic Support and Development Asia

Speakers at the conference shared their knowledge and expertise with the attendees and came from numerous leading institutions which included Aston University, the University of Bradford, the University of Cumbria, the University of Leeds, and the University of Huddersfield among others. Attendees were engaged throughout the conference and asked useful questions to speakers allowing for further interactivity. Further sessions also took place during the conference schedule including sessions on ‘Student Support’, the ‘NCUK Student Induction’ and the ‘NCUK Teachers’ Hub’.

Emma

18 different colleagues from our universities and study centres as well as subject experts and developers who have worked on content with us and who have collaborated with us fantastically joined us over the last few days. It was amazing to see lots of offers of follow up support and sharing of emails to encourage further collaboration.

Emma Dawkins, NCUK Academic Director

Teachers who participated in the Teachers’ Conference have expressed their gratitude to event organisers for creating this conference due to numerous benefits and addressing key questions and queries that they had. Further feedback from attendees showed that academic staff found the NCUK Teachers’ Hub to be a valuable resource. One of the Teachers’ Conference participants, Ryan Hannan had said that he found the Teachers’ Hub to be a “Godsend”.

Nico

The first NCUK Teachers’ Conference was a resounding success thanks to our fantastic speakers and attendees. Our teachers will have hopefully gained valuable skills on how to support the delivery of our qualifications and improve their student experience. This was an important first step in developing the collaboration between our centres and I am already looking to next year’s conference to develop this further.

Nico Decourt, NCUK Associate Director – Academic Support and Development UK, Europe, Africa, MESA and Americas

Overall, the inaugural NCUK Teacher’s Conference was a great success and is now slated to become an annual event. The positive response and input from stakeholders across the NCUK Global Network will help us realise the objective of this conference which is to improve the quality of teaching and learning.

All sessions that took place during the conference have been recorded and are currently available to be viewed On Demand via Zoom. Videos and PowerPoint presentations will also be made available on the NCUK Teachers’ Hub soon.

If you have any questions regarding the NCUK Teachers’ Conference, please email together@ncuk.ac.uk.