Scholars sought for LITE Writing Retreat

SCHOLARS with a passion for improving student education are being sought for a collaborative writing group.

The Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence (LITE) is keen to attract colleagues who are enthusiastic and committed to producing high quality scholarship to take part in this one and a half day writing retreat in January.

This will build on a pre retreat planning day on Tuesday 11 September 2018, which all successful applicants will be expected to attend.

Topics for writing will be determined by each group and will be supported through a series of structured activities, including a planning day and a 1.5-day structured writing workshop across Wednesday 9 and Thursday 10 January 2019.

The deadline for submitting a proposal is Wednesday, August 22.

The key objective of each group is to produce a high-quality defined output, namely an article published in a journal before the end of 2019.

The writing retreat will:

Encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration in learning and teaching research and discourse;

Facilitate high-quality production outputs; and

Increase capacity and competence in learning and teaching scholarship through supported writing and mentorship.

Kelvin Tapley, Interim Director of LITE, said:

"This is an exciting opportunity to work in a collaborative writing group that will bring together participants from across campus, and externally – with varying degrees of scholarly writing experience – to co-author articles on learning and teaching in areas of shared interest.

We hope this retreat will create valuable time and space for colleagues to produce high-quality scholarship that will ultimately support further enhancements in student education.

Places are limited to 20-25 participants who will work in small teams. Each team will focus on a shared area of interest (see list below) and produce a publication based on this discussion. The areas selected for this discourse, are:Student resilience and wellbeing / development

Assessment and feedback

Curriculum change

Co-creation

Digital creativity

Interdisciplinarity

Work placement and employability

Student transitions

Learning spaces

To express your interest in participating in the LITE Writing Retreat, please submit a one-page summary outlining your experiences in student education in relation to:

Your relevant experience of student education development activities

Your experience of publishing related to learning and teaching topics (it is worth noting that LITE is recruiting colleagues with varying degrees of experience)

Your area(s) of interest - linked to those listed above - and your reason for selecting them, plus your experience in your selected field(s)

Your organisational and group-work skills

Initial enquiries may be made to Aysha Divan on a.divan@leeds.ac.uk

Your one-page summary should be attached to an email sent to Rekha Parmar at r.e.parmar@leeds.ac.uk by Wednesday 22 August 2018.

Successful applicants notified on August 29 and will be expected to fully support the outcomes and processes of your group, including full attendance at the planning day in September and the writing retreat in January.

This event will run in conjunction with the #SEC2019.

This pilot writing retreat is a research project, led by LITE, along with Organisational Development & Professional Learning (OD&PL). Successful applicants will be expected to engage with the evaluation of this pilot project.

It is expected that all ideas and work produced in relation to these events - both prior and during - will be shared in a collaborative way with fellow group members.