Colleagues are invited to attend the Learning and Teaching Network session taking place on Wednesday 13 March 2019, from 13.15-14.30 in the UELT Seminar Room, Canterbury.

Dr Patricia Lewis, Reader in Management, Kent Business School will present this session on ‘Online resources for enhanced interaction’.

The session aims to explore and discuss the process of creating and adapting learning and teaching resources for online, distance learning. We will look at the case study of the KBS undergraduate module ‘Introduction to Management’, which is taught both on campus in Canterbury and online as part of the Higher and Degree Apprenticeship provision.

The development of resources designed to enhance online interaction must focus on providing opportunities and purposeful activities to stimulate student exchanges. This resulted in creating a set of materials that also benefited the face-to-face module, as they offered new opportunities to re-think approaches to content delivery.

The session will be interactive and participants will have the opportunity to ask questions and discuss their experience and examples.

If you have not already confirmed your attendance and wish to attend, please complete the  booking form  on our Teaching webpages.

On Monday 11 March, Q-Step at Kent is very pleased to welcome Hind Elhinnawy from the University of Kent to give a pubTALK entitled, ‘Secular Muslim Women’s Activism in the Age of ISIS’.

The talk will take place at The Old Buttermarket, Canterbury, at 19.00 for 19.30.  All are welcome – come and share a drink and join in the discussion!

Experiencing abuse, harassment, and sometimes death threats from ‘radical Islamists’, and accused of collaborating with Western imperialism by importing alien ideas and practices, secular Muslim women activists challenge discriminatory laws within Islamic texts, reject and condemn the jihadist political message, and assert that human rights laws have precedence over religious and cultural considerations.

In this presentation, Hind Elhinnawy will focus on two organisations run by two secular Muslim women activists; “Inspire” a counter-extremism and women’s rights organisation; and “Mother’s Brigade” a French organisation that provides support for traumatised mothers of foreign fighters working to save children from recruitment in extremist and jihadist groups. In doing so, she hopes to unravel many of the tensions, conflicts and ambiguities that mark the nature of activism of Muslim women in the West opposing what they define as “violent Islamist Extremism”.

As Brexit negotiations continue towards the UK leaving the EU on 29 March, we have arranged legal briefings which will be delivered by Kevin Smyth from Kesar & Co Solicitors.

It is hoped that the position of the UK leaving the EU, legislative changes and the impact on EEA citizens and their family members will be clearer by the time of the briefings so that they can be explained and discussed.

Each briefing will include an opportunity for informal discussions with colleagues, HR and Kevin Smyth.

Staff are asked to express an interest in one session only using the Doodle event. As spaces are limited to 50 attendees per session (30 spaces at Medway), staff are advised to submit their interest as soon as possible to secure a place.

Sessions will be held as follows:

• Monday 18 March 2019 – 10.00 to 11.30, Canterbury Campus
• Tuesday 19 March 2019 – 10.00 to 11:30 and 13.30 to 15.00, Canterbury Campus
• Friday 22 March 2019 – 10.00 to 11.30 and 13.30 to 15.00, Canterbury Campus
• Monday 25 March 2019 – 10.00 to 11.30 and 13.30 to 15.00, Canterbury Campus
• Tuesday 26 March 2019 -10.00 to 11.30, Medway Campus

A Brexit Staff Newsletter (February 2019) has also been produced which provides useful legislative and news updates, along with contacts and resources for further information.

Further Brexit information and resources can be found on our Kent and Brexit webpages.

From Monday 11 March 2019,  Postal Services will be operating a new timetable for deliveries and collections at the Canterbury campus.

A copy of the timetable for your building can be found on the Estates Department’s website or by clicking here.

If you have outgoing business post which needs to leave the campus after the scheduled delivery/collection time for your building, Postal Services will still accept it if it is brought to the Post Room between 09.00 and 15.00, Monday to Friday (with the exception of Bank Holidays).

In addition to this, the Postal Counter Service, open to all staff and students, will be changing its opening hours to 13.00 to 14.00, Monday to Friday. General advice and information on sending personal post and packages can be found on the Postal Services web page.

Please contact Estates Customer Services on ext 16666, or by email if you have any questions regarding this.

Estates Customer Services

This is your last chance to register for a one-day event taking place on Friday 1 March in Keynes College focused on sustainability in the curriculum.

Hosted by William Rowlandson (SECL) and Catherine Morris (Sustainability team) the event is open to academic teaching staff and students. Interested staff from professional services department are also welcome to attend.

Following on from the University’s commitment to embed sustainability into all areas of operation, this one-day event will feature speakers from across the sector giving insight into how these issues have been addressed at different Universities. This will cover a wide range of approaches from creation of stand-alone sustainability modules, incorporating sustainability topics into existing teaching and utilising pedagogy to embed sustainability skills.

This will be followed by opportunities for students and staff to look at ways these approaches can be employed at Kent, and to begin the process of co-creation of curriculum content.

More information and links to registration can be found via the event blog.

The University has been commended for its positive progress on Technician Commitment.

The Technician Commitment is a sector-wide, collaborative initiative led by the Science Council and supported by the Gatsby Charitable Foundation’s Technicians Make It Happen campaign, to ensure visibility, recognition, career development and sustainability for technicians working in higher education and research.

Kent signed-up to the Technician Commitment in September 2017 and has formed a working group chaired by Mark Ellis, Assistant Director, University Operations Support. In October 2018, the working group submitted a self-assessment and two-year action plan to the Technician Commitment Steering Board.

The Steering Board has recently provided its feedback on the submission and commended Kent for ‘positive progress coupled with a clear and ambitious Action Plan’ which is comprehensive, well-structured and aligned to the aims of the Technician Commitment. The University will be presented with an Award of Submission at the next Technician Commitment Signatory event.

The Technician Commitment Working Group at Kent is in the process of developing resources for technical staff and there are a number of upcoming events:

• 6 March – Information session on technical Apprenticeship standards to tie in with National Apprenticeship week
• 22 May – Kent Technician Network, Technician’s Symposium at the Canterbury campus (details available soon).

Further information about the Technician Commitment is available on the Learning & Development webpages.

Colleagues are invited to attend the Learning and Teaching Network session taking place on Friday 8 March, from 13:15-14:30 in Rochester Boardroom R2-09 on the Medway campus.

Karthikeyan Muthumayandi, from the School of Sport & Exercise Sciences, will present this session on ‘Learning clinical special tests through gamified seminar’.

The primary objective of this feasibility research is to compare the delivery of gamified seminar to that of the traditional methods in teaching clinical skills. We used free web-2 technologies in developing a gamified seminar in the virtual network.

Eleven therapy students underwent learning through traditional seminar and gamified seminar in a random order. A semi-structured interview, pre and post student satisfaction level, knowledge and understanding scores were measured. Gamified seminar had better scores than traditional seminars in most variables but similar scores on the knowledge and understanding. Gamified seminar can be an adjunct to different seminar delivery methods.

If you have not already confirmed your attendance and wish to attend please complete the online booking form.

Kent RaG have teamed up with K-Bar, Woody’s, Origins, Mungo’s and Cargo to host a campus-wide charity pub quiz on Friday 8 March to commemorate International Women’s Day!

‘A Quiz Night Out’ is all about celebrating the achievements of women while raising money to help those living in poverty. Money raised will be given to CARE International, a charity fighting deprivation and injustice in the world’s most vulnerable places. CARE save lives, finds long-term solutions to poverty, and supports women and girls to overcome inequality and fulfil their potential.

The five campus bars will simultaneously be hosting the same pub quiz, on the same night, at the same time. Not only will teams have the chance to win locally in their chosen bar, but also become ‘Campus Quiz Champions’ – the overall winner from all five bars.

Quiz rounds will have a focus on famous females and feminine feats, alongside all the popular classics – geography, history, TV, sport etc. So, are you ready to get involved in this year’s biggest and most competitive quiz?

The quiz starts at 20.00. Entry is £2 entry per person (pay on the day). Maximum six people per team. All are welcome!

Find out more via this Facebook event link.