NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF ARTS AND CULTURES
SCHOOL TEACHING AND LEARNING COMMITTEE
Minutes of a meeting of the School Teaching and Learning Committee
held on 20 June 2012
Present: Chris Falzon – Chair (CF), Myra Giesen (MG), Sue Barnes (SmB), and Sylvia
Brown (SB) taking minutes, Nicola Howard (NH) ICCHS student rep.
1.0
Apologies: Gavin Robson, Brigitta Zics, Paul Attinello and Richard Talbot.
2.0
Minutes of last meeting (Doc A) (10.05.2012)
The minutes were accepted as a true record of the meeting.
3.0
Matters Arising
SB to contact all subject areas and update distribution lists accordingly.
What was the Faculty Teaching, Learning and Student Experience Committee
is now FLTSEC due to ‘learning’ being of a higher priority than ‘teaching’.
CF met with Simon Pallet to discuss the issue of non-attendance and to
find out how other schools in the University are dealing with it. Unfortunately
there is no direct action to be taken on ‘non-attendance’, it can however be
approached by dealing with issues of unsatisfactory progress.
Action: CF to distribute the language which MACS communicate to students
with poor attendance.
CF and SmB have heard no more about the pilot for module evaluation.
CF circulated the peer moderation sheet and also recorded it in the
new handbook template.
It was noted that there are no faculty restrictions on the amount of
contact time during induction week.
4.0
a) Summary report from FTLSEC (Doc B)
CF took everyone through the points outlined in Doc B.
Please follow the link below to Doc B which outlines all points that were
noted in the meeting:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/sacs/internal/teachinglearning/documents/2012-06-20-DocB-FTLSEC_May12.docx
b) Approval for the three ‘Assessment’ Policies (Doc C)
CF informed committee members that Doc C will be presented at FLTSEC
tomorrow. It was noted that the summary checklist (on the second page) has
been reduced to 13 points from the original 20 points after the faculty
considered comments made by SACS.
Please follow link below to Doc C which shows the policies on submission,
feedback and return of assessed work:
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/sacs/internal/teachinglearning/documents/2012-06-20-DocC-AssessmentPolicies.pdf
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c) CF on leave, volunteer(s) needed to chair next STLC and attend FLTSEC on
21st June at 2pm)
MG will check availability and attend if possible.
5.0
Summary of School PEC Committee structure for 2012-13 (Doc D)
Document D represents the overall structure of what was agreed at the
senior tutors’ meeting.
http://www.ncl.ac.uk/sacs/internal/teachinglearning/documents/2012-06-20-DocD-PECC_Process-ver0.6.docx
It needs some adjustments: DM is now part of Fine Art and NICAP will also
need to be incorporated into the structure.
It was noted that ‘PEC responsibility’ is not outlined in the senior tutors’
framework, but most subject do operate in this way.
With reference to point 3 it was noted that we need a date in the diary for
the full PEC committee to meet in October and June.
All agreed that we need a centralized spreadsheet (to record PEC details) for
subject areas.
6.0
Distribution of DRAFT Module Handbook layouts for UG and PG (Doc E&F)
It was agreed that the MACS handbook would be sent out to all subject areas
for consultation, and hopefully put in place with some minor
amendments. If subject areas choose not to follow the MACS example they
must ensure that they meet the minimum requirement set by the faculty.
Action: SB to send out an email reminding staff to save their module
handbooks to the shared drive and upload to Blackboard.
7.0
Subject areas reports and updates
ICCHS: MG has a list of topics to be included in the ICCHS Welcome Week
which would be useful at the school level. Although it may not be possible to
put this in place next academic year, it will be kept in mind with a view to
implicate the following year.
It was agreed that using RECAP to capture common induction sessions online
could be very effective for both staff and students.
ICCHS and MACS will explore the possibility of recording generic sessions –
such as plagiarism and Blackboard - this year.
8.0
AOB
Item for next agenda – INTO Attendance discussion.
9.0
Date and time of next meeting
TBA
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