Learning Enhancement and Academic Development (LEAD) Centre

The LEAD Centre is part of QMU's strategic commitment to provide distinctive, accessible and high quality education.

The LEAD Centre is focused on enhancing learning, teaching and assessment and the Student Experience across Queen Margaret University. The LEAD Centre provides relevant, research-informed resources and continuing professional development to enhance the culture of teaching and learning in line with QMU’s Strategic Plan (2020-2025) and to support implementation of the QMU Student Experience Strategy. Led by Prof Catriona Bell, the centre provides strategic leadership of teaching, learning and assessment (TLA) across the University.

Our students are core stakeholders, and we champion a students as partners approach to co-creation of the curriculum and student experience. We also collaborate with colleagues across QMU, Scotland, the rest of the UK and internationally to share and celebrate good practice in learning enhancement, academic development, and leadership of learning and teaching.

The LEAD Centre consists of two core teams:

1. Learning Enhancement (student facing support)

2. Academic Development (staff facing support)

Staff Support & Resources
Fellowships
Courses
For Students
News & Events

Staff Support & Resources

The LEAD Centre offers a range of academic development events and CPD workshops throughout the year for colleagues at QMU and collaborative partners. These can be viewed through our LEAD Centre calendar. The Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) team also offer a suite of workshops which can be viewed through the Technology Enhanced Learning Calendar.

We also welcome conversations regarding learning, teaching and assessment with programme teams and individual colleagues, so please feel free to contact the LEAD team.

LEAD SharePoint sites

To support staff, the LEAD Centre have co-created four SharePoint sites with guidance, toolkits and examples of practice on Decolonising, Generative AI, Sustainability and Inclusive Teaching, Learning and Assessment. We value collaboration between all QMU staff and students.

If you would like to contribute to the development of this site, or share resources, events, publications, or for more information, please contact Vikki Hill.

Decolonising QMU

Generative AI at QMU

Sustainability in Learning, Teaching and Assessment

Inclusive Learning, Teaching and Assessment

Programme Assessment Design

We are offering a series of five workshops for programme teams designed to enhance inclusive and authentic assessment. These workshops will develop assessment literacy for both staff and students, and will promote consistent and robust assessment practices. The workshops will give programme teams an opportunity to reflect on and plan their assessment design, marking processes and feedback.

For further enquiries or details, please contact Helen Donaghue.

Fellowship

The LEAD Centre supports QMU colleagues working towards Fellowship with Advance HE.

"Fellowship demonstrates a personal and institutional commitment to professionalism in learning and teaching in higher education. Across four categories, from Associate to Principal, Fellowship provides individuals with recognition of their practice, impact and leadership of teaching and learning."

Advance HE

We have an accredited QMU experiential route for Associate Fellow, Fellow and Senior Fellow applications by QMU staff. There is no fee associated with your application. It is reviewed internally by a trained panel of colleagues and moderated by an external reviewer. We support Principal Fellowship applications on an individual basis, and these involve direct applications to Advance HE.

We embed a cohort approach to Fellowship support at QMU in order to build a learning community and share practice across disciplines. One of recent successful Senior Fellows said:

"The sessions supporting the application process were invaluable when writing up. Completing the application has been a very helpful and affirming experience."

Senior Fellows

Cohorts start twice per year in April and October so please contact the LEAD team to request further information or express an interest in joining the next available cohort.

Courses

Teaching, Learning and Assessment in Tertiary Education (TLA in TE) - short PG 20 credit course

The TLA in TE course is a free postgraduate course for QMU staff, primarily those who are new to teaching at tertiary level but also suitable for more experienced staff who wish to expand their teaching repertoire and engage in professional development. The course aims to support participants to provide inclusive, active, collaborative teaching informed by scholarship and reflection, and will also give participants the opportunity to meet and form a collaborative learning community with colleagues from across the university. This course has been mapped to Advance HE’s Professional Standards Framework and on successful completion, participants will receive Associate Fellow recognition. The 20 credits from this course can contribute towards a PG certificate in Academic Practice (60 credits) which will be available after 2024/5.

There will be two iterations of this course each academic year, one starting in September and the other in January. Each iteration will run for 11 weeks on Wednesday afternoons, and each cohort will be limited to 20 places. There are no formal entry requirements, but in the semester that you enroll on the course, you need to have scheduled teaching because the course involves a teaching observation. You also need to have Wednesday afternoons free for synchronous and asynchronous course activities.

To apply or for more information about the short course

Please contact Helen Donaghue for enquiries or further details.

Mandatory teaching induction workshops

The LEAD Centre offers a teaching induction programme comprising three online workshops and attendance at these workshops is a requirement for any new colleague who will be teaching QMU students (including Graduate School colleagues).

Introduction to Learning, Teaching and Assessment (LTA) at QMU
Learning outcomes and constructive alignment: the fundamentals of Programme/Module design
Engaging students during small group teaching

The three workshops comprise 30 mins of asynchronous preparation tasks, followed by a 90 min synchronous online workshop, and they are offered multiple times throughout the year.

Dates and Bookings: please see our AdCaL online system.

Certificate of Attendance: Workshop attendance will be recorded by the LEAD Centre. Colleagues can request a certificate of completion once all three workshops have been completed by contacting academic@qmu.ac.uk.

Effective Learning Service (ELS)

The Effective Learning Service (ELS) offers guidance and support to all students who wish to develop their academic writing and study skills to help you become as self-reliant as possible.

More about the Effective Learning Service at QMU