Collaborative Blackboard module wins international award
By: Communications
Staff from BIO and ITCS have collaborated to develop an innovative and impactful Blackboard module resource to support student transition and retention.
In May 2024, the team behind the ‘Preparing for Your Biology Studies’ module were announced as this year's winner for the European First Year Experience (EFYE) Network's Team Award.
On collecting the award at the EFYE conference in Copenhagen, team member Dr Becky Lewis said: "We are so excited and honoured to have won this award that reflects years of collaboration between staff and students at UEA."
Commencing two weeks before students’ campus arrival, continuing into Welcome Week, with occasional content released through the year, it focuses on supporting learning, studying and transition into Higher Education. Project leads worked with current students from diverse groups to help identify content areas and co-design some resources.
More than 300 students engaged with the module ahead of term commencing in September 2022, with students returning weekly for new content released. The module is available for students for the entirety of their degree and 58 student engagements have been made during Semester 1 of 2023, more than one year after being released to students.
A similar engagement level was seen for the 2023 BIO cohort. This resource has been offered and subsequently used by other UEA schools to help support student transition in their own Schools.
Dr Kelly Edmunds, one of the team members behind the module, said: "We are delighted to see this award which recognises the culmination of years of work by the project team to develop a resource that would support our students prior to and during their time at UEA. The evolution of this module has seen developments across platforms with much of the content being created by students, for students, with us reaching a point in 2023, where we were able to offer the module as a template to other Schools at UEA."
Team member Dr Carl Harrington, said: “Supporting students ahead of moving to university and beyond is key.
"This resource was created based on feedback from BIO students and our own experiences which indicated this type of module would be valuable to students. It’s great to see excellent student engagement with the module, continuing even after a year of being available. The team have been delighted to offer the resource to other UEA Schools for their 2023 new intake.”
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