There\u2019s a lot more I could mention here, but it would stretch the word count on this blog. If you\u2019d like to find out more about what Flexible Learning has enabled so far, take a look at the infographic on the left.<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve also produced an overview of the programme scope and wider aims on the right. (You can click on the image to enlarge each of the infographics)<\/p>\n
We organised open meetings, attended local events, and held more than 30 staff and student workshops to<\/a> understand everything we need to consider to make this move a success. The staff workshops were designed and delivered by our network group theme leads. 12 academic and PS colleagues from across the University helped us to design and lead these sessions, based on their areas of expertise, and I cannot thank them enough for their dedication and input. For our student workshops, we had help from our Flexible Learning graduate intern and six Student Partners, who ensured that their peers could make their voices heard.<\/p>\n Together, we\u2019ve tackled some of the key strategic themes for the Flexible Learning strategy: Accessibility; Assessment; Training and skills; Technology; Space on campus and Innovation.<\/p>\n It was marvellous to see staff and students coming together for the final workshop sessions to co-create shared outputs and recommendations for the Flexible Learning strategy and we got great feedback from attendees who said that working together demonstrated that staff and students want the same thing: a great learning experience for everyone at our University. So once again, thank you to everyone who attended.<\/p>\n The work isn\u2019t over for our team though! Over next weeks, we\u2019ll be collating and analysing around 4000 comments, views and ideas that we gathered during the sessions and via our online feedback form<\/a>. We will take a first draft of the strategy to Senate in July 2022, and we\u2019ll be sharing the engagement outputs and offering further opportunities for staff and students to feed in over the next months \u2013 look out for announcements on StaffNet and Student News.<\/p>\n One thing that has already come out of the engagement sessions quite strongly is that staff and students want more spaces to trial new technology, collaborate on projects and create media; such as videos and high-quality audio, for teaching, assessments, and course work.<\/p>\n I\u2019m thrilled to let you know we\u2019ve secured a space that will allow us to offer this \u2013 the new Flexible Learning Innovation Space will host podcasting and video suites, a tech playground where staff and students can familiarise themselves with new or emerging technologies and plenty of space for collaboration.<\/p>\n I\u2019ll let you know more about this very soon and we\u2019ll be inviting staff and students to get involved in the creation of the new Flexible Learning Innovation Space.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important to me that Flexible Learning at Manchester supports our on campus blended learning, as well as identifying new and different pathways to a Manchester education. A key question we\u2019ll be looking at is: what is the appetite for more degree apprenticeships, CPD, micro-credits and a stackable model to lifelong learning?<\/p>\n We\u2019ll be going on another roadshow to share our progress and ask for your input, so look out for myself and Professor Steve Pettifer, University Academic Lead for Digital Learning at local meetings in your Faculty, Department or Division.<\/p>\n If you would like us to visit your local area to give an update, or would like to get in touch about anything else, please send an email to FlexibleLearning@manchester.ac.uk<\/a> or contact me directly anytime.<\/p>\n I really look forward to hearing from you! I need your help to make sure the strategy includes what is important to you.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav _builder_version=”3.17.6″ prev_text=”Previous” next_text=”Next” in_same_term=”off” locked=”on” \/][et_pb_comments _builder_version=”3.17.6″ custom_button=”on” button_text_color=”#ffffff” locked=”on” \/][et_pb_text admin_label=”Related posts” _builder_version=”3.17.6″ locked=”on”]<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=”1_3″][et_pb_sidebar admin_label=”Subscribe” _builder_version=”3.17.6″ area=”et_pb_widget_area_3″ locked=”on” \/][et_pb_sidebar _builder_version=”3.17.6″ area=”sidebar-1″ show_border=”off” locked=”on” \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The past year has been a real whirlwind for us all. With your help we shifted our direction of travel for teaching and learning at The University of Manchester towards a future blended and flexible model with the \u2018First steps to flexible learning\u2019 paper. From there we were able to grow our team by appointing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":521,"featured_media":3414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"[et_pb_section bb_built=\"1\" fullwidth=\"off\" specialty=\"on\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\"][et_pb_column type=\"2_3\" specialty_columns=\"4\"][et_pb_row_inner admin_label=\"Row\"][et_pb_column_inner type=\"4_4\" saved_specialty_column_type=\"2_3\"][et_pb_post_title _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" featured_placement=\"above\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_text _builder_version=\"3.17.6\"]\r\n\r\n When I\u2019m out and about meeting staff I hear much debate about the why, what, when and how of change in our University. I wanted to share my thoughts on this often contentious topic \u2013 and hear your views too.<\/p> Early in 2020 we will launch our University\u2019s new vision and strategic plan \u2013 Our future. In order to fulfil Our future we need to ensure that we are in a financially sustainable position so that we have the funds to invest in the new staff, facilities and infrastructure which will be needed to bring our plans to life.<\/p> Our Financial Statements<\/a> for 2018\/19, which have been published following approval by the Board of Governors, confirm that more than 95% of our \u00a31.1bn income is spent on our core goals - on our staff and our students - to deliver research, education and social responsibility; with the remainder invested in the long term sustainability of our University. You can find a summary<\/a> of the Financial Statements on StaffNet.<\/p> However, this is a testing time for UK universities, due to the many external factors that have an impact on us - current home tuition fees are falling in real terms, whilst our costs (not just pay but non-pay too) are increasing. There are further and even greater tuition fee funding risks outlined in General Election manifestos as well as a range of Brexit-related risks that could affect our operations. The Office for Students (OfS) demands that we demonstrate both value for money for our students and our financial sustainability (in the sense of being able to invest to deliver our ambitious strategy, rather than survival). There are, of course, also ongoing unresolved national issues around pay and the continuing challenges around funding pensions in the higher education sector.<\/p> Our Financial Statements show an improved operating surplus (3.7% of income compared to \u00a324.7m (2.3%) in 2017\/18), with a rise in income from tuition fees, education contracts and research. As I mentioned earlier, we re-invest the surplus we achieve each year in activity in line with our strategy. Recently our funds have been used to create some new academic and Professional Services posts; to invest in key infrastructure including IT; to invest in some new buildings like our student accommodation at Unsworth Park; to improve the student experience by funding more full-time Residential Life staff and to upgrade a range of buildings and research and teaching spaces and resources. Increasingly it is also invested in environmental sustainability and meeting our ambitious carbon targets. So even when we are making difficult decisions in some parts of the University we continue to invest our surplus.<\/p> Whilst we have reported an operating surplus, our Board of Governors expects us to deliver a much larger surplus than this (at least 5%) if we are to be sustainable in the long-term. Our strategic change programme (including IT Modernisation<\/a>, the Student Experience Programme<\/a>, and the Research Lifecycle Programme<\/a>), alongside our continuous improvement plans, will ensure that we create the financial headroom to invest in people and facilities. The strategic change programme will also enable us to embrace new technologies and new ways of doing things that better support all our staff and students to be the best that they can be.<\/p> Yes, this means that some individual roles will change. New roles (some that we haven\u2019t yet identified) will be created and some roles will no longer be required. I appreciate that this will cause some uncertainty and where that is the case we will do everything we can to support staff, but the alternative is that we never change anything. If we fail to take advantage of advances in technology and develop more joined-up ways of working we will ultimately find ourselves outdated in the eyes of future students, funders and other stakeholders. Staff want to work for a progressive and successful institution, of which they can be proud. This means we cannot stand still.<\/p> When I talk to staff and students I often hear their frustrations about how difficult it be can be to get some straightforward things done, grappling with paper-based, manual and repetitive processes, on outdated systems and infrastructure, all of which serves to increase staff workloads. Everyone wants to do a good job, but regularly feel that our world-class status is earned in spite of our internal systems and processes, not because of them.<\/p> To deliver our new vision and strategic plan we will need to embrace new opportunities and face challenges with courage and determination. That will sometimes mean we have to make tough decisions and no-one is claiming it will be easy or that mistakes will not be made along the way. But where we do have tough choices to make we will commit to implementing changes fairly and with compassion to support the wellbeing of all our colleagues.<\/p>\r\n\r\n[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_post_nav _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" prev_text=\"Previous\" next_text=\"Next\" in_same_term=\"off\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_comments _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" custom_button=\"on\" button_text_color=\"#ffffff\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_text admin_label=\"Related posts\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" locked=\"on\"]\r\n\r\n [related-posts-thumbnails]<\/p>\r\n\r\n[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column_inner][\/et_pb_row_inner][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column type=\"1_3\"][et_pb_sidebar admin_label=\"Subscribe\" _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" area=\"et_pb_widget_area_3\" locked=\"on\" \/][et_pb_sidebar _builder_version=\"3.17.6\" area=\"sidebar-1\" show_border=\"off\" locked=\"on\" \/][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_section]","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-learning-and-students","category-teaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/521"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3532"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3635,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3532\/revisions\/3635"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/138\/2021\/07\/Flexible-Learning-infographic-2-132x300.png\")
<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0![\"\"](\"https:\/\/blogs.manchester.ac.uk\/viewpoint\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/138\/2022\/03\/Flexible-Learning-infographic-updated-132x300.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\nDeveloping our Flexible Learning strategy with staff and students<\/h2>\n
\n
\n“Our biggest focus over the last months has been to develop our Flexible Learning strategy by talking to as many colleagues and students as possible.”<\/h6>\n
\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
\n“I am also incredibly grateful to the staff and students (we had over 650 participants) who attended our workshop sessions, taking time out of their busy schedules to help us make sure that a diverse range of views were represented.”<\/h6>\n
\n<\/blockquote>\n\n
\n“Your voices are the key to making our next steps a success.”<\/h6>\n
\n<\/blockquote>\nNext steps to developing the Flexible Learning strategy<\/h2>\n
What else are we working on?<\/h2>\n
\n
\n“I\u2019m really looking forward to the months ahead and hearing your views on our direction of travel as we draft the Flexible Learning strategy.”<\/h6>\n
\n<\/blockquote>\nRelated<\/h1>\n
Related posts:<\/h3>
April Mcmahon: The hype and reality of ChatGPT: Exploring its impact on teaching and learning<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Miriam Firth: Why do we need Flexible Assessment?<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a>
Chris Taylor: Grasping the opportunities of AI<\/h2><\/div><\/div><\/a><\/div>
Improving our financial performance will help to deliver our ambitious future plans, but we must also increase our capacity to create the funds and time to invest in our core goals. One of the ways we can do this is by changing what we do and how we do things.<\/p>Related<\/h1>\r\n