This award is for a project, initiative or organisation which has used digital spaces and technologies in the past two years to promote staff-student partnership in the learning experience
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Winner:
Co-creation of a narrative digital artefact to support development of anti-racist curricula ~ Edinburgh Napier University
This project saw two student interns work with staff to develop a narrative digital artefact, effectively a series of storyboards that drew on real experiences to tell stories and raise awareness about cultural inclusion, colonialism and intersectionality within Scottish university life. The creative talents of the students in storytelling and digital skills have led to materials praised in pilot workshops on anti-racist curricula at the university and in national events as a “creative and intriguing format”.
This project was funded through QAA Scotland’s Enhancement Theme in 2022-23, as part of the Anti-Racist Curriculum Project.
Judges praised the impact and creativity of the project, though one judge predicted that we are only just beginning to see the impact of these resources.
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Runner-up:
Teams Reps ~ New College Lanarkshire Students’ Association
A simple and effective way of creatively using existing technology accessible to all students to enhance the engagement and effectiveness of the Student Representation system. This works as part of a coordinated approach with support services and academic departments to increase comms with, and amongst, reps. Utilising MS Teams, reps are included in a Teams page specifically for their own department, allowing direct interaction with their peers cross-campus. The pages are a multi-purpose platform for reps to use as a chatroom, noticeboard, and helpdesk. SA staff are included in these pages as moderators to monitor activity, answer enquiries, signpost Reps to support and to post surveys for opinions on various issues affecting students.
The platform is also used for hosting VC course review/feedback sessions with reps, making coordination of activity on this scale much more manageable and convenient to all participants. The system streamlines and increases accessibility for active dialogue for the student voice to be recorded and the College is looking at potential for further development going forward.
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Shortlisted:
Promoting Student-Staff Partnership through the Student Digital Scholar Role ~ Glasgow Caledonian University
This university-funded project ‘Co-creating Immersive Learning Experiences’ aims to enhance the student experience through collaborative work in immersive learning design. The team have used digital spaces to collaborate and create engaging on-campus, online and hyflex learning experiences for first year students using cutting-edge technology. This project established a paid Student Digital Scholar (SDS) role, who worked with module teams to create Diagnosis Zombie, a lesson in brain and behaviour using animated zombies and narrative integrated into a live broadcast, with accompanying seminars, to engage students. The initiative was well received, with an internal commendation for collaborative teaching in the GCU Teaching Impact Awards 2023.
Other initiatives have included using VR technology where students ‘Walk the Plank’ and the launch of a TikTok channel to share work and connect with the wider student and academic community, as well as exploration into the use of digital avatars in live teaching. The team hope to rollout the SDS initiative further, to continue this student-staff partnership to ensure students can play a key role in designing how technology use aligns with pedagogical principles and learning objectives.
