The workshops provide a safe space for all of you to share new ideas, support colleagues and engage in a constructive discussion about education in Engineering, but also a constructive way for you to gain an insight into hybrid learning (on-campus and remote) and contribute towards the Curriculum Renewal.

So far, we have organised CREW sessions on the following topics:

1. What is the best use of our contact time with students? (29th of April 2020)
   • How effective is our contact time with students? How do staff and students benefit by enabling students to become more active in their learning? If so, how do we go about enabling this with mixed mode delivery of our courses?
2. Scalable assessment (6th of May 2020)
   • How do we provide authentic assessment and authentic feedback? What are the challenges we face in setting assessments for mixed-mode delivery and 48-hour take-home exams? In an ideal world, what would we do to cope with growing student numbers and limited academy time?
3. Student resilience and grade seeking (13th of May)
   • Some of our students are mainly motivated by grades, rather than upon the learning that follows by making mistakes and reflecting upon them. How do we help them become lifelong learners and reflective practitioners?
4. Which are more valuable, soft skills or hard knowledge? (20th of May)
   • In the age of Internet where knowledge is freely available online, what is our role? Should we curate a knowledge that is already available, or develop engineers with broad hard and soft skills?
5. What does hybrid delivery mean? (17th of June)
   • How can we provide a shared experience to all students with a population of students on- and off-campus with different internet access? What approaches will enable on- and off-campus students to work together and develop, along with teaching staff, a sense of community and ensure student retention? How can we provide robust high-quality teaching that is flexible to the changing situation, and how should this be reflected in the School’s ND² and CD² approach?
6. How do I refresh or design my course to be ND² or CD²? (1st of July)
   • What implications in terms of structure, pace, etc. do delivery to new entrants (ND²) and continuing students (CD²) involve? How could self-assessment be incorporated into the delivery of ND² or CD² courses? How do we avoid course design becoming an arms race, with some colleagues delivering “studio-quality” courses, whereas other colleagues may struggle to put together the basics? Does “studio-quality” even make a useful difference to the learning outcome?
7. What does ND² and CD² delivery involve? (24th of June)
   • We will be developing the School’s digital learning and teaching approach whilst also improving campus-based education. What are the challenges and opportunities for ND² and CD² delivery? What are the similarities and differences in approach for new entrants (ND²) and continuing students (CD²)?

CREW’s ultimate intention is to develop a culture of teaching conversations in the School; for this reason, the workshops will also be the first step in the development and promotion of the School’s new approach to academic CPD (including RAs, PhD students, etc.), which could be used as part of Edinburgh Teaching Award and Advance HE applications. But this does not mean that the workshops are for academic staff only; quite the contrary, if you are involved in any aspect of our educational activities, in any form (e.g. professional and technical support roles), then we would like you to be involved in CREW - we are all in this together!