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Cardiff Learning and Teaching Academy

Cardiff Learning and Teaching Academy brings together experts in learning and teaching to support staff in delivering an engaging and inclusive experience for all students.

The Academy offers continuous professional development opportunities for staff at all stages of their careers in HE, ranging from the AdvanceHE accredited fellowship programmes, to stand-alone events and bespoke workshops, as well as online materials and resources.

Our specialist teams work in partnership with School-based staff to enhance the student experience by providing support, advice and sector-knowledge. At an institutional level, the Academic Partnership Scheme enables staff to lead on or contribute to our delivery of the Education and Students Sub-strategy.

Education strategy and innovation

We run the University's flagship ‘On-campus Internships’ student placement schemes, CUROP and CUSEIP, providing c.200 opportunities to students each summer to work alongside our learning and teaching staff on research and projects.

For more information, contact LTASummerplacements@cardiff.ac.uk

We work with colleagues to develop ideas and encourage cutting edge practice, building networks of enhancement focused educators. We also offer funding through the Education Innovation Fund to invest in projects and ideas to incubate innovation.

Our innovation funding invests in learning and teaching projects, providing staff with the time and resources to reflect on their practice, to trial new initiatives and to develop cross-University partnerships to develop learning and teaching excellence at Cardiff. Examples of the outputs of these projects can be found on the Learning Hub.

Project support is provided within the Academy to deliver the Education and Students Sub-strategy.

Programme and module review and development

We can work collaboratively with staff to identify their curriculum development needs and aspirations (as an individual or programme team), discussing tailored options and best practice with them, sharing relevant examples and directing you to appropriate CPD events and resources.

Advice: We provide specialist advice and guidance on all aspects of curricula.

Workshops: We offer a variety of online resources and CPD events, and some bespoke workshops at a programme or School level, across a range of curricula-related topics and themes. These include, for instance, assessment and feedback, active learning and inclusivity.

Continuing Professional Development: We offer wraparound support and CPD as part of the programme development and re-validation process, aligned with best practice in pedagogy and the guiding themes within Cardiff’s principles of programme design. Through dialogue and partnership working, we can help staff to take a holistic approach to programme development from initial concept through to approval, supporting them with the fundamentals of curriculum design using evidence-based approaches including ABC and Universal Design for Learning.

For enquiries, please email the Curriculum Development team at LTAcademy@cardiff.ac.uk

For the purpose of re-validation we can work with staff to review a range of data sources, including student feedback, and carry out an appreciative inquiry into their learning and teaching provision to help them identify their strengths and diagnose areas where there is scope to further enhance the student learning experience through curriculum re-design. We can work in partnership with staff to plan and execute your curriculum enhancement activities.

As part of our curriculum development support, we can work with staff to design or develop their assessment activities in the context of Cardiff University policy and practice. We can also work with them to develop excellent quality feedback that promotes student learning, including developing best practice in the use of digital feedback tools/methods.

Digital education

We provide leadership on digital education strategy, innovation, and governance, guided by the Digital Education Roadmap 2021-2023 and the Blended Learning Framework.

We work in partnership with schools and departments to appropriately embed digital education practice into teaching, learning and assessment. Our school partners help to address school priorities and coordinate digital education activities and projects, ensuring blended and online provision is appropriately designed, resourced and supported.

Our Digital Education Support Hub provides flexible and responsive day-to-day training and support for digital education tools, platforms, and best practice for colleagues across the University.

We lead transformative digital education projects and initiatives that currently include: a review of our digital learning environment; the development of accredited microcredential courses; the development of learning materials, recording studios; and the rollout of new tools and platforms to support digital education.

CPD for learning and teaching

We deliver a fully-accredited suite of Education Fellowships Programmes which aim to empower and support educators of all kinds within Cardiff University. Programmes are free to Cardiff University staff and are open to all those in roles which involve teaching and learning support at each stage of their careers, leading to the sector-recognised awards of AdvanceHE Associate Fellow, Fellow or Senior Fellow.

We recognise the important role played by Graduate Tutors and demonstrators and support them to develop high-quality teaching practices.

We provide expert advice and support to staff who teach and support learning and teaching to work towards internal and external recognition including promotion, National Teaching Fellowships, Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence and Advance HE Recognition.

We provide a comprehensive, year-round programme of continuing professional development (CPD) to support learning activity and assessment design. The events are open to all staff, including those supporting online and blended learning.

Our events programme complements our Advance HE accredited Education Fellowships Programme and our online and asynchronous resources and all workshops are mapped to the UK Professional Standards Framework (UK PSF).

Year-long CPD programme

We now have a year-long learning and teaching CPD programme to help staff plan their professional development for the year – view our new 2023/24 learning and teaching CPD brochure.

Student engagement

We manage all institutional and national surveys for Cardiff University. The team can provide support with administration & promotion of surveys, approving survey requests, and accessing student feedback data.

We lead the Student Champions Scheme, a group of 26 students who work with us as partners on key strategic projects and priorities.

Contact the Student Champions Team cardiffstudentchampions@cardiff.ac.uk

We provide support and advice around student engagement, and student voice, planning and implementation to academic staff, professional services staff, academic leaders, and external stakeholders.

Contact the Student Engagement Team studentengagement@cardiff.ac.uk

We work collaboratively with Cardiff University Students’ Union to continually enhance student partnership including through the Students’ Union Partnership Projects, an annual series of student-led enhancement projects.

Welsh medium provision

We are home to a branch of the Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol and the Academi Gymraeg Prifysgol Caerdydd, supporting the development and growth of Welsh medium education provision at Cardiff and the delivery of our Welsh Language Strategy.

Contact us

If you have a question or would like to hear more about our work, please email:

Cardiff Learning and Teaching Academy