Te Komiti Ako|
Learning and Teaching Committee
NGĀ ĀMIKI/MINUTES
Rā Date:
Friday, 31 March 2023
Wā Time:
10.00 am
Wāhi Venue:
Council Chamber Level 6 Matariki and via Zoom
Tangata i tae mai
Professor C Moran (Chair), S 9(2)(a) OIA
Present:
Tangata i tae mai
S 9(2)(a) OIA
In Attendance:
Whakapāha
S 9(2)(a) OIA
Apologies:
Welcome: The Chair said that as this was S 9(2)(a)
final meeting, she would like to acknowledge
S brilliant contributions to the c
ommittee and wish S well in his new role at the
S 9(2)(a) OIA
. She also noted that S 9(2)(a) OIA e was leaving UC today and
wishe
d to record her appreciation for all S mahi to the LT
C. S 9(2)(a) was moving to
pursue
her research passion in the S 9(2)(a) OIA
.
1.
Minutes of the previous meeting
Moved by the Chair:
That the minutes of the LTC meeting held on 24 February were a true and accurate record.
Carried
2.
Matters Arising
At the previous meeting, a member had asked the TQM group to consider ways that staff can be
incentivised to engage with the Teaching Quality framework. The group had responded that they
think the new promotions framework is sufficient incentive but that as with any new endeavour,
there would be a watching brief on how it settles in.
3.
Chair’s Report
Congratulations to S 9(2)(a)
from the S 9(2)(a) OIA
who has achieved her
S 9(2)(a)
Fellowship.
4.
Faculty Learning and Teaching Plans
The Chair reminded members that the UC Learning and Teaching Framework was approved at
the end of 2022, so now each faculty had been asked to think about how it might connect faculty
work with the institutional strategy and the Framework. The previous meeting had received
information from Business and Education.
- S 9(2) reported tha S had sent out two calls to colleagues in Arts to contribute. Several
them
es were emerging from departmental feedback, and S was hopeful that an initial
strate
gy would be drafte
d by mid-year.
- S
said that the Science LTC was meeting later in the day and that priority areas would be
circulated to School LTCs for their input alongside views of the Faculty leadership team.
- S noted that the topic had been raised at the Engineering LTC, but it was still at an early
stage of discussion.
This woul
d continue as a regular agenda item over the coming months with short updates from
each faculty.
5.
UC Teaching Medal and Teaching Awards 2023
Council had requested information on the awarding process for each of the University medals and
a description of the process was included in the agenda papers. The papers also included some
minor updates to the teaching awards process for 2023. It was intended that the teaching medal
and awards would open at the end of April with a closing date of the end of July.
S 9(2) suggested that the term ‘outstanding’ was best replaced by ‘teaching transformation’
how
eve r he felt that over the last few years there had been a few changes to requirements so
suggested that a period of relative stability without changes would be beneficial. S
confirmed
that he anticipated that nominations would mainly arise from the Faculty LTCs but the call for
nominations would be open to all.
6.
Universal Lecture Capture – Implementing a UC Policy
The Chair reminded members about the discussions which had taken place in 2020 around
universal lecture capture but had been paused due to the disruptions of covid. Now that teaching
was returning to a steadier state, it was time to revisit the policy and ensure that the lessons learnt
during teaching in lockdowns were incorporated. At the time that the Academic Board endorsed
the proposal to develop a policy, it also endorsed further work around IP, copyright and technical
improvements to recording lectures. There were also clear statements about what would not be
recorded including workshops, tutorials and labs.
The University of Auckland policy was circulated. The Chair thanked S 9(2) for recommending
it as it clearly outlined expectations, legal and practical issues S 9(2) sugge
sted that as the
discussion moves forward, privacy experts should be consulted. He cite d the case of an MBA
guest lecturer whose interactions with students had also been recorded – but they had not
explicitly given their permission for their recording to be shared. S 9(2) commented that in a
passive discussion with no students identified, this was unlikely to ca
use difficulties. S 9(2)
added that Echo recordings contained a message saying that the contents
could only be used f
or
learning. S 9(2) said that she was trying to engage students more, for example by learning and
using their na
mes, so this might inadvertently be used to identify them. There were also concerns
expressed that staff might begin to label all of their content as ‘workshops’ to try and avoid lecture
capture, but if this meant that they were also increasing the engagement with students and
learning in their teaching, this was probably the most important element. The Chair noted that
good lecture recordings take time, and that this is not always reflected in the current workload
model.
Members agreed that the technical support for lecture capture would need to be addressed – some
students could not access sufficient bandwidth to stream videos. It was currently time consuming
to edit videos if material needed to be removed, and there was now very little delay in videos
being made available in which to do any editing. Lecture recordings did not always pick up
student interaction in the room – but S 9(2) suggested that students would need to accept that for
the convenience of having their lecturer recorded and that the ideal learning experience would be
to attend lectures in person where poss ible. Members were happy to report that generally
attendance at lectures had improved in 2023 – the Chair said that timetabling information
confirmed that attendance has been higher in 2023 than pre-covid in 2019. She said that some
data was available to share but this was not consistent across all spaces. S 9(2) said that
attendance had been S 9(2)(b)(ii) OIA
. S had
been promoting a number of initiatives to improve engagement include an attendance cake
challenge, building a sense of a student cohort and more regular meetings. S was also
encouraging more meetings with student reps to explain the importance of course evaluation
and
feeding back what was implemented from previous student comments. S hoped to build up more
of a partnership with second, third- and fourth-year students to understand what wa s wor
king
well for them. Lecture recording is here to say so staff are making the best of it, building on their
recent experiences.
The Chair said that she was intending to extend her team’s symposia wit h staff during the year –
they had started with work on ChatGPT, and she hoped that the next quarter there would be
sessions around engagement coordinated byS 9(2)(a)
. There was shared discussion around
why some students were not attending in person a
s they lacked sufficient study skills to keep up
with the work and were reluctant to attend in person and so got further behind. She said that she
would like Academic Skills Centre and study skills to be an item for discussion at a future
meeting.
Members agreed that work should begin on a comprehensive policy immediately, informed by
the University of Auckland policy. This could be followed by work on specific issues such as
finding a technical solution to a ‘pause’ button for lecturers to hit during recordings and making
clear that there is a distinction between livestreaming and lecture capture.
7.
General Business – S 9(2)(g)(i) OIA
S 9(2)
The report in Section B was received.
The meeting closed at 11.10 am.
Professor C Moran (Chair)…………………………….. Date……………………….
