Strategic Projects
The Learning and Teaching Academy facilitates institutional engagement and action across a wide spectrum
of enhancement initiatives, including the QAA Scotland Enhancement Themes and University strategic projects.
QAA Scotland Enhancement Themes
The present QAA Enhancement Theme is Resilient Learning Communities.
The new QAA Scotland Enhancement Theme focuses on Resilient Learning Communities. Over the next three years, our objective is to consider what our global learning communities will look like by 2025 and how we can prepare our staff and students to adapt and develop their approaches to learning to meet future challenges. Over the next three years, we will explore how responsive and resilient our existing community is to the diverse and developing needs of its members, identify key areas for enhancement, and consider how we will know we are moving towards a stronger, more resilient global community as we progress through the Theme and work towards our Strategy 2025 objectives.
The Theme also offers opportunities to advance the practical implementation of strategic priorities in new ways. For example, it will create special interest clusters to advance projects related to resilience, community and wellbeing across our Schools and campuses. In addition, the evaluation work the Theme will support will build a narrative of change of the Theme activity itself and, most importantly, insight into our progress towards the ambitions of Strategy 2025 and our Inspiring Learning Learning and Teaching Strategy.
Further information on the Theme can be found at the QAA Website.
Call for proposals
This academic year (2022-23) is the final year in the cycle for the current Enhancement Theme. We are making a final call for proposals for funded projects. As this is the final year, our focus is on the global nature of working at Heriot-Watt and encourage you to consider projects that include more than one campus. As in previous years we are looking for Active Change Projects which will make a difference to students’ learning experience or have an impact on the campus, institution or wider community. You can browse COMPLETED PROJECTS for inspiration.
If you want to know more, we will have two information sessions:
Information session 1: 17th October, 2022 0800 BST / 1100 Dubai / 1500 Malaysia *Click here to join the meeting
Information session 2: 19th October, 2022 0900 BST / 1200 Dubai / 1600 Malaysia *Click here to join the meeting
The call for proposals closes at 1200 BST / 1500 Dubai / 1900 Malaysia on Monday 31st October, 2022. Successful applicants will be informed within two weeks following the proposal deadline.
In the following video Dr. Anne Tierney explains the current Heriot-Watt Mini-Project Call for Proposals.
Inspiring Learning in Action
Our institutional conversations and collaborative work during the first period of LTA activity will focus on four thematic areas. Individually and collectively, these will advance our work to implement Inspiring Learning by opening space to share existing practice and explore opportunities for further innovation.
Strengthening learning communities
Supporting students to feel they belong in their University learning environment underpins many areas of pedagogic thinking, particularly in relation to retention and student success. Engaging with these themes is complex, requiring a recognition of the diversity and hybridity of student interests and identities. What connections matter, at what points and to whom?
Through this theme we focus on how staff and students meaningfully communicate, connect and work together to create authentic learning communities.
Assessment for learning: Reframing assessment and feedback conversations
Developing ‘learning to learn’ capabilities is at the heart of the vision of the Heriot-Watt graduate outlined in the Inspiring Learning Strategy.
This challenges us to consider how we approach assessment and feedback, specifically how to ensure this is an active and empowering learning conversation rather than simply the passive receipt of marks and comments. Through this theme we will explore the range of practices across Heriot-Watt, consider recent research and innovation in the eld, and champion the practical adoption of an assessment for learning approach that is consistent and coherent.
Creative Spaces, Inspiring Learning
The learning landscapes we work within are undergoing considerable change. The relationship between space, technology and pedagogy is continually being reframed. Digital and physical spaces are increasingly intertwining, opening new opportunities for teaching and student learning. Students learn in workplaces, in digital environments, in labs and maker-spaces, in ‘learning commons’, in lecture theatres and seminar rooms across global campuses.
It is important, then, that we consider how we develop and use the spaces available to staff and students in ways that inspire learning and create opportunities for meaningful interaction.
This theme provides the focus for our first Learning and Teaching Day, a University-wide event that will provide a springboard into further collaboration and institutional conversation.
Student wellbeing and the curriculum: New challenges, new practices
Student wellbeing and awareness of the mental health pressures many learners experience during their time at university is an area of increasing focus across the sector.
Addressing these concerns challenges us to think creatively about all aspects of the student experience, including how we shape and frame our curriculum.
As part of the strategic focus on the curriculum, we will open an institutional conversation about how to develop learning that has at its heart a commitment to well-being.