Psychology E-Bulletin - October 2011

  • Publication Date: 19-10-2011

Welcome to the Higher Education Academy Psychology e-bulletin update. This bulletin will keep you informed with the latest news, events, resources and funding opportunities, on a monthly basis. If you have any comments or information you would like to include in future editions of the bulletin, please email Julie Hulme

News

Welcome to Discipline Lead for Psychology

Dr Julie Hulme has been appointed as Discipline Lead for Psychology. Julie joined the Higher Education Academy on 1 September 2011, having previously worked as a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Staffordshire University.

Psychology Network Subject Centre update

Annie Trapp and her colleagues at the Psychology Network will be continuing some activities until the end of October. Their hard work in supporting the Psychology community has been invaluable, and very much appreciated by all who engaged with them. Thank you Psychology Network!

Reports from some completing miniprojects will be available on their website later this week:

HEA call for Academic Associates

The HEA is building a community of Academic Associates to deliver and develop support for learning and teaching in higher education. Expressions of interest are sought from academics with current experience, who can work as part of a team, and who share the HEA’s ambition to improve learning and teaching and the student learning experience.

Express an interest in becoming an Academic Associate

For an informal chat about how you might get involved with the HEA to work with the Psychology community, contact Julie Hulme.

Teaching Development Grants – call for bids now open

The second phase of teaching development grants is now open. Grants are available for employability and internationalisation projects. This is aimed at higher education institution departments, with a total of £300,000 being made available up to a maximum of £30,000 per project. The closing date for departmental bids is 23 October 2011. Please direct queries to tdgenquiries@heacademy.ac.uk or for an informal discussion, please contact Heather Jackson or Ruth Ashworth via our switchboard on 01904 717500.

Find out more about Teaching Development Grants

Get Involved - Hosting an Event

Do you have an idea for a learning and teaching event? The Higher Education Academy is pleased to invite subscribing UK higher education institutions, and Further Education Colleges delivering higher education, to be part of a workshop and seminar series. Funding has been provided to enable us to offer a grant of £500 to institutions to host and deliver a workshop or seminar on teaching and learning in a discipline context.

The workshop and seminars series has the following aims:

  • To enable institutions to disseminate findings from research or evaluation studies, or evidence-informed policy and/or practice.
  • To facilitate the sharing of policy, practice and evidence, within disciplines across institutions.
  • To promote critical discussion in relation to enhancing the quality of the student learning experience.

Workshops and seminars will be held throughout the 2011-12 academic year. Institutions are asked to specify their preferred dates on the proposal form. Each workshop or seminar should last a minimum of three hours with opportunities for networking and/or discussion.

Host institutions should be able to offer at least 20 free-of-charge places allocated on a first come, first served basis. At least half the places should be made available to delegates across the UK wishing to attend from outside the host institution.

The workshops and seminars will be hosted by and held in the institutions that have had a proposal accepted in response to the call. Institutions interested in hosting a workshop or seminar during the series must ensure that their workshop or seminar is fully accessible to any delegates who may wish to attend. This includes the provision of an accessible venue and accessible presentations, which are made available to delegates electronically (preferably in advance).

Host institutions will be solely responsible for managing bookings and communicating with delegates. The host will also be responsible for advertising the workshop or seminar. The HEA will assist, using a number of established mechanisms to advertise the workshop or seminar, such as the ‘Events’ section of the website, JISCmail lists and Academy Updates to the sector.

To be considered to take part in this series, please complete a proposal form found on the HEA Workshop and Seminar Series page and send it as an email attachment to: seminarseries@heacademy.ac.uk.

Institutions will be contacted by the HEA to confirm whether or not a place in the series has been allocated to them.

The following criteria will be used to select proposals for the series:

  • The workshop or seminar content is relevant to developing teaching and learning priorities within Psychology and to HEA aims.
  • The programme for the workshop or seminar is well planned and structured.

If you would like to discuss an idea for a workshop or seminar, please contact Julie Hulme.

HEA UK Travel Fund

The HEA’s new UK travel fund will enable staff and students in UK higher education to exchange and disseminate good practice in learning, teaching and assessment and engage with their peers. The funding may be used to help the applicant(s) attend conferences, network meetings and special interest groups that are being run in the UK. Please note that funding may not be used for events that are being held outside the UK. The application should demonstrate that:

  • the event is related to at least one of the HEA’s current seven priority themes: assessment, education for sustainable development, employability, internationalisation, flexible learning, retention and success, reward and recognition of teaching;
  • the activity would have a positive impact in the sector e.g. including the nature of the engagement proposed by the applicant, scope and purpose of the event;
  • the event would give opportunities for professional development or capacity building for the applicant(s);
  • the application should offer value for money.

This is an open call running throughout the academic year 2011-12. Please consult the application document for more information.

Find out more about the HEA Travel Fund, including how to apply.

 

Resources

HEA Psychology web changes

The new HEA Psychology webpages are under construction, and will soon contain many of the Psychology Network resources as well as new materials and information: . If there are specific resources you use regularly and would like to see included, or if you have resources that you have produced and would like to share with the community, please contact Julie Hulme.

 

Psychology Student Employability Guide

The Psychology Student Employability Guide (PDF, 3.93 MB) produced by Caprice Lantz at Psychology Network has been updated and the new edition is available.

Psychology Network Resources

All of the Psychology Network resources are currently available through an archived version of the Psychology Network website, so you can still access your favourite resources and find information on projects and events. You can also link to the Psychology network pages through HEA Psychology.

Learning and teaching resources from the HEA, across a range of themes, are available from the new online Resources Centre and from EvidenceNet

Events

EuroPLAT 2012

EuroPLAT 2012 - European Psychology Learning and Teaching Conference is being held from 28-30 June, 2012 in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Organised by the European Academic Network for Psychology Learning and Teaching (Europlat) Abstract submission deadline: 5 January 2012

 

Student engagement in a changing economic climate

The Division for Teachers and Researchers in Psychology (a division of the British Psychological Society) are holding their Inaugural Annual Conference: Student engagement in a changing economic climate on 19 April 2012 at Grand Connaught Rooms, London

Keynote – Diane Halpern
Submissions OPEN – Deadline for submissions of oral papers, workshops & symposia – 7 October
Deadline for posters – 30 November

Association for the Teaching of Psychology Annual Conference

The Association for the Teaching of Psychology are looking for speakers for their conference at Aston University in July 2012. If you have ideas that you think would interest pre-tertiary Psychology teachers, or have done some relevant research in Psychology or on the topic of learning and teaching, please contact Dorothy Coombs, Vice Chair

Networking

Julie Hulme is working with several other organisations to ensure that the needs of the Psychology community are identified and supported by HEA. These include

Information on the activities of these organisations can be found through their websites, by clicking on the logos above. Updates on collaborative work will be included in future bulletins.