In June the College launched a staff development programme entitled “UCL Connected Learning Essentials”.  It is a course designed to assist staff with planning and delivering high quality on-line content.

Taylor Bennie (Faculty Learning Technology Lead) and the FMS ISD team have now created a version of the course specifically for Faculty of Medical Sciences personnel.  This includes our honorary staff and external lecturers.

This course differs from the main UCL course in that:

1. It provides specific guidance for teaching staff with a small teaching footprint (e.g. 1-2 hrs pa).
2. The course directs staff to a range of support materials and 1-2-1 technical support.
3. It can be started at any time, unlike the main UCL course which only starts on specific dates.

This course is designed for participants to work through in their own time. Depending on your role, the following approach is recommended:

• Programme and Module Leads – should work through all sections
• Lecturers with substantial teaching commitments – Sections 4 -8
• Lecturers who deliver 1-2 hr teaching per year – Section 8

The course can be accessed by both external and internal personnel.  Please login to UCL Extend or Create an Account (external staff) then access the Faculty of Medical Sciences Connected Learning Essentials course.

The Access Code to Join the course is FMSCLE

This programme from UCL Digital Education is available from June 2020 to support colleagues for the move to distanced teaching. It is based online through UCL eXtend and so is available to everyone involved in teaching with or without UCL logins.

The programme covers 7 areas over 2 weeks with a suggested learning time of about 7 total hours, the topics are:

1. Taking a Connected Learning approach
2. Securing student engagement
3. Ensuring a consistent learning environment for students
4. Assessment
5. Designing for students’ active learning
6. Curating and making resources
7. Knowing students are engaging and learning

The recommendation is to join at the start of each two week block, with the next starting on Monday 29th June. We recommend that you take the course at the same time as other teachers on your course(s) so you can discuss it as you work through it and it will help you formulate group ideas about how to approach your teaching in 2020. However learning is self-directed so you don’t have to cover everything and can focus on the areas most applicable to you.

We highly recommend all module leads attend the programme and anyone with a large teaching load will find it useful.

You can find out more about the programme and sign up here:

• UCL Connected Learning Essentials