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Over two hundred academic and professional services colleagues came together for the CELT Conference: Enhancing Our Education in Pontio on 11 September 2023.

The conference started with three parallel workshops delivered by Digital Services, Sam Jackson-Royle (Director of International Operations and Admissions), and Pro- Vice-Chancellor (Education and Student Experience) Professor Nicky Callow and Professor Caroline Bowman (Reward and Recognition Manager).

This then flowed into a ‘walkshop’ delivered by Dr. Aled Singleton from Swansea University. The walkshop explored the University’s learning and non-learning spaces and how, as staff, we can enable greater connection and belonging to the campus and University through our interactions with students and our spaces. This workshop proved so popular that we added a repeat session at the end of the day.

The Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor Oliver Turnbull, then cast a look back on ten years of work by CELT.

The centrepiece of the conference were the presentations by academic and professional services colleagues from the University on the three themes of:

• Research-informed teaching
• inclusive practices
• evaluating teaching impact

Nida Ambreen and Rob Samuel from Undeb Bangor offered valuable insights on students’ perspectives and considerations for teaching and learning enhancement.

The conference culminated in an illuminating keynote presentation by Associate Professor Sue Beckingham from Sheffield Hallam University on ‘How Artificial Intelligence is shaping learning and teaching in Higher Education’. The Digital Services workshop complemented the keynote very well, as Blackboard colleagues demonstrated the new AI assistant tool for instructors (lecturers), helping create images, quizzes and marking rubrics based on course content. Eryl Jones of Canolfan Bedwyr won the workshop’s Blackboard Learn Ultra quiz – congratulations Eryl!

Professor Nicky Callow said, “I would like to thank everyone who attended, participated and contributed towards making the conference such a great success. I look forward to seeing the support offered to colleagues enhanced further in 2023/2024, including the reintroduction of our continuous professional development workshops for staff – more information to follow soon.

“As we begin a new academic year, this conference served to remind us all of the expertise, commitment and energy we have at Bangor to further enhance the quality of our education and student experience.”