This publication features some of LALT's staff development and student engagement initiatives, shares best practice and celebrates teaching, learning and evaluation news from across the institution.
Changes in LALT
LALT welcomed Dan Wakefield (Digital Pedagogies Team Leader) and Emily Heathcote (Digital Pedagogies Advisor) into the Development and Recognition Team.
The Digital Pedagogies team bring expertise in curriculum design, assessment and technology enhanced learning which aligns closely with LALT’s new CPD framework which has been designed to facilitate the delivery of the TLSE plan. This relocation of staff creates a single centralised department for academic development, CPD and pedagogy enhancement for the University.
University Teaching & Learning Showcase 2025: Securing Student Success
The University’s second annual Teaching & Learning Showcase event will take place on Wednesday, 17 September 2025 (9am - 4pm) at Brayford Campus. The event will explore how we’re adapting to sector-wide challenges and enhancing teaching and learning at Lincoln.
We invite colleagues from both academic and Professional Services areas to attend. The event offers a valuable opportunity to explore how the wider HE context of higher education shapes our work and how teaching and learning at Lincoln is evolving in response.
Register to attend: Teaching and Learning Showcase 2025 | Register Interest Form | MS Forms
Call for posters – have you got innovative practice to share? We’re inviting staff to submit proposals for the poster exhibition - a fantastic opportunity to showcase your work and connect with colleagues across the University.
Submit your poster proposal by 14 July: Teaching and Learning Showcase 2025 | Poster Submission Form | MS Forms
More details on the event can be found on Staff News: Staff news | Learning & Teaching Showcase 2025 | Web (internal)
Survey Updates
Survey Updates
National Student Survey (NSS) 2025
The NSS 2025 results are published on Wednesday 9 July, and will be available on the Office for Students (OfS) website. Planning and Business Intelligence NSS dashboards will be updated in due course to provide a more detailed analysis of the data for the University.
Vice Chancellor Professor Neal Juster said:
While there are key indicators of strength in this year’s NSS results, I know there are areas that could be much improved. I encourage us all to work through this challenge together in the months ahead, using the University’s refreshed strategy as our starting point for improvement and success."
For key highlights of the NSS 2025 results, please click here.
Please do take the opportunity to review the available data for your area.
Student Experience Survey (SES) 2025
The Student Experience Survey (SES) gives all students the opportunity to share feedback on their university experience so far, helping to shape the future of their programme and wider university life.
The SES 2025 data is now available on the Planning and Business Intelligence dashboards. This data should be used to support CPM action planning, enabling staff to reflect on student feedback at all levels and implement changes that enhance the overall student experience.
PBI dashboards | Survey data | Internal website
A walkthrough video has been created to support you in navigating the SES dashboards and analyse your data effectively.
Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey 2025
The Postgraduate Taught Experience Survey (PTES) 2025 officially closed on 13th June 2025, and early high-level results are shown below. Despite a drop in the overall institutional response rate to 30.1%, the preliminary findings indicate several positive trends in student feedback.
Notably, the responses to the ‘Overall Satisfaction’ question have improved across both Home and International student groups:
- International students (468 responses): 92.9% satisfaction (compared to 91.0% in 2024).
- Home students (376 responses): 83.2% satisfaction (compared to 77.1% in 2024).
These figures reflect positively on the continued efforts of colleagues across the institution to enhance the experience of our postgraduate taught students.
The PTES data is now available on the Planning and Business Intelligence dashboards, enabling colleagues to explore the data in greater depth, including breakdowns by subject area, cohort, and home/international etc. Sector benchmarking data will follow in the new academic year. Please do take the opportunity to review the PTES data once they are available.
Access and Participation: What Is It and Why It Matters
The Access and Participation Plan (APP) is the University’s formal commitment to ensuring that all students – regardless of background, ethnicity, disability, or income – can access higher education, succeed during their studies, and progress into employment or further study.
While access and participation is ongoing work for all HEIs in England, this September marks the start of a new cycle under our 2025-2029 plan. This new phase brings an increased regulatory focus on evidencing the impact of our interventions – demonstrating that what we do genuinely improves outcomes for our students. Now, more than ever, academic and professional service staff awareness and engagement with our APP commitments is essential to embedding this work across all aspects of the student journey at Lincoln.
Why it matters:
- It’s about fairness – tackling the barriers and disparities that some students face across access, success and progression.
- It’s about accountability – the University is required by the Office for Students to not only deliver against our APP commitments, but to rigorously evaluate and evidence our impact.
- It’s about shared responsibility – academic and professional staff alike play a vital role in shaping an inclusive, supportive student experience.
At Lincoln, our APP focuses on closing attainment gaps, embedding inclusive teaching and assessment practices, and supporting both targeted and whole-cohort interventions to ensure equity and success for all.
All Schools will develop their own local Student Success Plans, supported by Deputy Directors of Teaching & Learning and College APP Leads. While these plans will embed core inclusive practices – such as ensuring reasonable adjustments are implemented effectively – they are intended to be dynamic and responsive, shaped over time through collaboration, evaluation, and the sharing of best practice across the University.
You can read the University’s Access & Participation Plan 2025-2029 here. For anyone wanting more information on APP please get in touch with Jane Greaves
Personal Tutoring – What’s Changing in 2025
From September 2025, Personal Tutoring at Lincoln will become Personal Academic Tutoring (PAT), marking the beginning of a refreshed approach. This will see a move away from previous framework models to adopting a new set of guiding principles, underpinned by a policy that reflects shared commitments between the university, tutors, and students. This new policy will support consistent, meaningful engagement and delivery of personal tutoring across all areas.
The refresh is shaped by feedback from Senior and Personal Tutors through focus groups and surveys, alongside student input via Students’ Union representation. This collaborative approach ensures the changes are designed to positively impact student retention, empower learners to take ownership of their academic journey, and connect them with timely, relevant support.
A new suite of professional development resources is being developed to support PATs in their role. Central to this will be the launch of a dedicated online hub — the PAT Cupboard — providing easy access to session materials, guidance on extensions, policy links, and more.
Ongoing work will also include a review of workload expectations and updating role descriptors for both PATs and Senior Tutors. These changes aim to raise the profile of Personal Academic Tutoring across the university, reinforce its value, and support staff in delivering high-quality, student-centred guidance. By enhancing professional development and clarifying expectations, we hope to encourage tutors to engage confidently and consistently in their roles, while helping students better understand and access the support available to them.
This project will run through to September 2026, ensuring there is time to embed the changes, evaluate their impact, and continue shaping a sustainable and effective model of academic support.
For more information about PAT, please contact Alison Raby (College Senior Tutor for CoASSH) who is Project Lead for PAT.
Academic Development Update
LALT CPD Framework
The LALT Development and Recognition team are preparing for the next phased release of the new teaching and learning CPD Framework. Building on the initial pilot release (CPD Opportunities – Lincoln Academy of Learning & Teaching) which included targeted CPD resources for those new to teaching, and content aimed at supporting Programme Leaders, the next phased release, due to September 2025 will include:
- An expanded portfolio of CPD for those new to teaching,
- An expanded portfolio of CPD for Programme Leaders,
- CPD resources for Module Co-ordinators,
- A pathway of CPD tailored for those leading learning and teaching,
- CPD packages explorable through a variety of themes.
These CPD resources provide online, bite-sized opportunities to support staff, providing CPD on a wide range of topics aligned with the Teaching, Learning and Student Experience delivery plan. The framework will be officially launched as part of the LALT Teaching and Learning Showcase event at the start of September and will be available via the LALT website.
Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (PgCertHE)
July marks the end of module teaching for two of the current cohorts of learners on the PgCertHE programme. One cohort of learners have just reached the end of Module 1 ‘Effective teaching and learning in Higher Education’ which provides opportunities to explore theories of teaching and learning and apply this knowledge to a portfolio assessment which embeds inclusive and reflective practice. Another cohort of learners have reached the end of Module 2 ‘Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education’, where learners apply their knowledge of inclusive assessment and feedback practice as well as exploring the mechanisms for quality assurance and quality enhancement in HE, which brings this cohort to the end of programme.
In September, we look forward to joining learners from our Graduate Teaching Fellow (GTF) cohort in celebrating graduation from the PgCertHE programme at the September graduation ceremony. Additionally, September will mark the start of a new cohort joining programme and we are all looking forward to continuing the successes of the PgCertHE programme.
If you are interested in gaining a HE teaching qualification, and would like to find out more about our programme please see the website or contact pgcerthe@lincoln.ac.uk.
Educator Development
The Selborne Educator Development team are away at various navy bases this week as Cohort 3 of our first module draws to a close and the learners turn their attention towards submitting assessment. The Team were hosted at Britannia Royal Naval College Dartmouth, and enjoyed seeing the training and Education that new officers undergo. As well as seeing classroom practice, simulations of a ship's bridge and a guided tour of the full site, the team were invited to observe a full training exercise on the River Dart which was a privilege and very exciting!
We are looking forward to a well earned summer break before taking on our biggest intake across 2 modules in September!
HEAR Scheme Update
All staff who teach and/or support learning at Lincoln can achieve formal recognition of their practice through the University’s internal Higher Education Academy Recognition (HEAR) scheme, which is accredited by Advance HE.
The next submission deadline is 22 September 2025.
Key dates and information can be found on the HEAR web pages. Applicants are advised to attend a support workshop and submit a draft for feedback before applying.
Before applying, staff seeking Senior Fellowship (D3) can now choose between receiving written feedback on their draft or participating in a formative feedback conversation via MS Teams. Please contact HEAR@lincoln.ac.uk to arrange this.
The HEAR team are seeking new reviewers for the academic year 2025-26 and welcomes expressions of interest. You will be trained to assess fellowship applications and will play a key role in ensuring recognition of excellent teaching/learning support practice at the University. For more information about the role and requirements, please contact HEAR@lincoln.ac.uk.
IMPact E-Journal
IMPact is the University of Lincoln’s peer-reviewed, open access and multi-disciplinary journal of Higher Education. Established in 2018, IMPact invites colleagues from across the university, including postgraduate and undergraduate students, to submit their work for publication in the form of research papers in the conventional sense, as well as shorter reviews, research notices, accounts of work in progress and other forms of output of interest to the journal and its readership, with the express intention of informing, challenging and influencing.
Call for IMPact Journal Papers
The journal invites colleagues from across the university, including postgraduate and undergraduate students, to share their work with the express intention of informing, challenging and influencing.
We encourage colleagues to submit to the journal through conventional manuscripts (5000 words in length accompanied by an abstract of up to 250 words). Submissions can also take the form of a scholarly research notices (conversational/think pieces), which are more suited to submissions which are shorter, smaller scale written pieces of work, notably small interim reports, or evaluations of small scale projects. This format also allows authors to submit some focused reflective pedagogical discussions/narratives.
All submissions are peer reviewed and are required to follow the standardised journal template as indicated on the website.
If you are interested in discussing further please contact the IMPact email impact@lincoln.ac.uk.
Reviewers Needed for Journal Papers
We are looking for expressions of interest from the academic community to join the IMPact reviewing team to support LALT with reviewing research for various projects. This includes the Undergraduate Research Opportunities Scheme (UROS) applications, and IMPact paper reviews and feedback.
This opportunity provides a flexible commitment level, and you can volunteer for as much or as little as your workload permits. Full guidance and support will be provided.
If you are interested in volunteering and would like to find out more, please contact impact@lincoln.ac.uk.
Case Studies
LALT is actively seeking new case study submissions from academic and professional service colleagues across the University. These case studies highlight innovative and effective teaching and learning practices that are making a real difference to student engagement, learning and success.
The case study repository is a growing resource, designed to inspire and inform. It's organised into key themes - access and participation, academic experience, student engagement, digital literacy and AI, international students, learning gain and employability - making it easy to explore examples relevant to the area you wish to focus on.
Whether you're trialling a new approach, refining an existing one, or collaborating across teams, we'd love to hear from you. Submitting a case study is quick and simple via the teaching and learning case study MS form.
By sharing what works, we can celebrate and strengthen our collective impact on student success while continuing to build a culture of shared practice and innovation.
One Community News
Libraries and Learning Skills
Learning and Teaching Librarians (LTLs)
As part of the changes to how Libraries and Learning Skills will support learning and teaching, the role of the Academic Subject Librarians has been redefined. From the next academic year (25-26) they will be called Learning and Teaching Librarians (LTLs) and will have a renewed focus on supporting student learning through:
- Increased information literacy teaching, embedded in the curriculum
- Offering more appointments for students
- An expanded suite of workshops and webinars
Schools will be informed of who their LTL is as soon as final plans are in place.
Reading List Support
Further information on changes to ‘reading list’ support will also be communicated in due course.
Sector News
Advance HE
(All colleagues are members of Advance HE through our institutional membership).
Webinar: Using the Framework for Inclusive Learning and Teaching - Join us on 23 July 2025 as we hear from panellists who have developed innovative and effective approaches to inclusive learning and teaching. We will also provide practical advice and guidance on using the Framework for Inclusive Learning and Teaching to support student success at your institution.
Programmes, conferences, and events for 2025-26 - take advantage of the suite of refreshed portfolio of programmes, conferences, and events for 2025–26, designed to support you and your institution in tackling today’s higher education challenges.
We would love to hear about events and successful teaching & learning practice from across the university.
If you are interested in having content included in the next edition, please contact Nguyen Grace on ngrace@lincoln.ac.uk.
Please disseminate this within your teams to those who may be interested.