The Manchester 2035 Podcast

hi everyone and welcome to this special

Manchester 2035 podcast on flexible

personal and digitally enabled learning

I'm here today with a fabulous panel

I've got April Craig and Katie and we're

going to take a look into the Sprint

groups to see what they've been

discussing and what Big Ideas are coming

out um I'm first going to ask my

fabulous guests to introduce themselves

so I'll start with April I like the

fabulous bit Jewels that's a good start

so I'm April McMahon I'm vice president

for teaching learning and students

brilliant Craig and I'm Craig best I'm

the director of student and academic

Services um and I'm Katie I'm the

faculty of humanties officer at the St

Union thank you so much all for being

here so I'm going to dive straight in

and ask you you what is a Sprint group

and what was the focus of your Sprint

group we've all been learning this

terminology I'm I'm I'm a linquist so

I'm really lucky here I'm used to oh

that's a new word so I get quite excited

um but it was really a way of taking all

of the insights that we got through

those workshops that we were engaged in

before Christmas which were sort of

epically good fun actually the ones on

um on teaching and learning and students

and we we needed to find a way of

getting all of those insights and

figuring out which ones went together

and over quite a short period of time

during February uh we've had a group

which has genuinely been sprinting along

and trying to figure out how we get the

common themes out of those and how we

then say this is the North Star that

we're pointing at this is what we really

want by Manchester 2035 in that area

brilliant and staying on new terminology

people will also be hearing about the

leaps so what what is the kind of leap

you were working on could you say more

about that so so so the idea of the leap

is uh there's part of this is that's

about fixing the foundations and I'm

sure we'll talk a little bit more about

that as we go because we need to be in a

position where we've got the systems

right and things just work and that

isn't always quite true entirely at the

moment but then having got those

foundations where do we want to jump to

what's the what's the big thing by 20 35

shall I tell you what yeah give me a

headline give me a headline we'll dive

deeper into all of this but a headline

would be great we really want all

Manchester students by 2035 to be

properly equipped to thrive to belong to

succeed and to lead so that's right

through their student Journey from when

they come to us actually from when they

hear about us in the first place

everything should be about supporting

our students um and helping our

colleagues to support students to thrive

to belong to succeed and to lead that

sour leap and where are the big

challenges over the next decade that

we're hoping to address with this leap I

don't know April if you want to start

and then I'll I'll hear from the panel I

can I I can start uh cost of living

isn't going away um we are incredibly

fortunate among UK and indeed world

universities that we have a great

tailored package of student financial

support

but it's never enough and if we really

want to do the social justice thing

properly which is a key commitment for

the University and bring in Talent from

wherever it comes from and whatever

backgrounds people might have they

should be equipped to thrive here then

we've got to look at the money we've got

to look at how we support students to

make the best of their time at

Manchester and to go beyond their

academic work because employers are are

really Keen to to find students who have

loved their subject but who've also

found their people you know in terms of

the other things that they've done in a

co-curricular way and that's also about

making sure that we do student support

in the best possible way that we can so

let me start by pitching in that one as

the challenge great Craig from your

perspective are there any other big

challenges in the teaching and learning

space that that we really need to focus

on as we drive this new strategy yes so

I think there's a couple there but I do

I do think when we my general view is

when you talk about challenges there are

opportunities and I think the biggest

challenge we have is the unknown you

know that we can be one thing we can be

certain of is uncertainty and I think

that's really important as we approach

this is how do we equip our Learners how

do we equip our colleagues how do we

equip the institution to manage that

level of uncertainty and I think a lot

of it is about helping our students in

particular develop and our staff develop

those competencies and skills to address

the Ever Changing world and I think

that's really important how do our

students work as a community how do they

work with the regional or Global

communities to address some of those

real challenges that we see um I think

with opportunities technology can be

seen as a challenge but I do think it's

absolutely essential that we embrace it

as an opportunity and I think that will

fundamentally change how we're current

and and seen as an institution it's not

just regionally established but is also

globally established and Katie what are

we hearing from from students so what's

kind of front of mind for them and you

know how can we use the Manchester 2035

strategy to address some of their

concerns as well I think I think what

April said about cost of living is

absolutely right and I think you know

looking at what's going on kind of in

the National National policy and you

know the tuition fee is going up I think

that's a massive concern for students

and I think it's a concern when we're

looking at you know access success

progression and how that's going to

support students to succeed and students

from lower income backgrounds as well

because I think that is something that

really really concerns me is you know is

this going to put students off from

applying to University you know like in

that kind of initial stage when they're

at college and then also kind of how are

we supporting them when they're here

because you know writing an essay might

seem simple to someone who's gone to a

certain type of school that the natural

progression was for them to go to

university but for some students that

actually is a real push and I mean I got

to University and I was like how do I

write an academic essay no idea so I

think that's going to be something that

we really need to think about in the

future just because we're going to have

a whole different makeup of Sho students

so that would be my and I think there's

a really interesting point there CU is

education 10 years time about coming

here and writing an essay you know

technology we all understand or just

about use chat GPT or co-pilot you know

that coming to University and acquiring

knowledge in the way that in which we

typically think writing essays and

presenting it back probably is a thing

of the past and it's not being scared of

that but it's about how we then get our

Learners and our community using that

knowledge as an applied way in the real

world or authentically which I think is

the really exciting bit and I think

there is a fine line between supporting

our students to be able to do those core

skills but also thinking very

differently about how we have knowledge

exchange how we learn as an institution

brilliant thank you so let let's move on

to kind of inside the Sprint so the

first thing I'm really interested in is

you had I think there were 22 workshops

across all themes there were over 5,000

comments submitted how did you

practically use all of that to inform

your Sprint discussions well the Sprint

has worked through the teaching and

learning strategy group um we're about a

quarter of it um on this panel today and

we've had people coming into those

Sprint meetings who are from particular

parts of the community as well just to

make sure that we've got full access to

the different View points that we had in

the workshops gosh there was a lot of

stuff that came through the workshops um

we had padlets open we had people

pitching in um in the room we got a

really high level of Engagement through

the workshops on our theme so we're

really pleased about that and what we

did with with that was to try to isolate

what are the really key important issues

for people who are feeding in um and as

well as the workshops of course Katie

and her colleagues from the Student

Union did a lot of firsthand work with

student groups to to feed in student

Viewpoint as well so we were hearing

from all different parts of our

community so if I take an example

because it might bring it to life a

little bit one of the things that came

through in every single meeting was

belonging and it was such a big theme

and often we're told oh don't get into

belonging because it's hard to measure

it's difficult to quantify but actually

if it's a thing that people feel really

really strongly that they want out of

their University experience it's true

for staff as well as students they want

to have an institution a university that

they feel part of that they feel

welcomes them sees them is listening to

them and actually is acting on that and

so one of the earliest decisions we made

was that belonging had to be front and

center in what we were going to seek to

deliver and that's why it's one of those

key words you know that's in part of our

leap so maybe that just gives you an

illustration of the way that we tried to

work yeah 100% like we've obviously had

a lot of conversations with students

about flexible and personalized learning

and kind of thinking about how we can

use that and and what it means to them

as well because I think we we talk about

it a lot but really what does that mean

to a student so we had our so for for my

particular because I work in the faculty

of humanities so we had a faculty Forum

where we spoke about personalizer and we

asked students like what what does this

mean to you like what what does

personalized mean and they gave us some

really good feedback and you know it was

it was things like to do with academic

advising you know feeling like they have

that person they can go and talk to it

was about like them be feeling like the

lectures were interactive and like they

were getting that kind of not onetoone

support but a lot more personalized

support than it would be if you're sat

in an electure theater of 200 so that

was really really useful to get that

feedback and we've used that and that's

been fed in and you know it's it's

really useful kind of thinking about

course unit choice as well and how what

is good choice to students what is

useful to them um and I think that's

kind of been fed into to a lot of

different programs actually that are

going on at the moment and then on the

belonging bit I think we've we've spoken

a lot about like inclusivity in the

curriculum and you know like decaling

the curriculum we've been working on

that a lot of the students union and

kind of working with the university on

that and that's really a core part of

this as well it's that we have a very

diverse student body how are we making

sure that their views are being

reflected through the curriculum but

also in like the small interactions that

they have every single day like how do

they feel like they really belong to

Manchester and not just to England or to

the UK but to Manchester and that's

something we've been working on a lot in

the Sprint in terms of kind of you know

how how the Sprint group reacted to to

different ideas was there quite a lot of

consensus so yes obviously about

belonging but were there maybe other

ideas where you know the the group was

kind of split or maybe things where we

thought well we should aim here but

actually you know there's all these

things we have to fix first before we

can even think about doing that yeah on

the ground there are some things that

just need fixing there are some things

that need revolutionizing from processes

to the way in which we engage across a

brilliant University they need fixing

they might not seem so attractive but

they are transformation transformational

and they are foundational and that's

partly what's going to be reflected I

would like to see is you know let's

carry on with that ambition we'll have

ai personalized AI we we will attach new

activities that's brilliant but let's

get the foundations right in the first

couple of years and let's build upon

that and I think that's what's really

exciting but it does mean consistency it

does mean there is a world where we

might need to look at that dreaded word

called standardization but let's do it

in a way in which it makes sense not

everything needs to be standardized but

for us to be able to move forward we do

need a level of consistency around what

does optionality mean how do we use

Universal Design for Learning for

inclusivity so I think that was probably

the biggest question on some of us

wanted to make sure we get the house in

order for us to build and then there was

that challenge of where do we go

brilliant so this is I guess the bit

we're most excited for so what are the

kind of transformational ideas that are

coming out of your Sprint and that will

then kind of go back to the community um

so people can discuss and learn more if

I gave you two one would be student

advising and the other would be um how

we deliver our teaching and learning

where students are located if you like

so advising I mean at the moment as

Katie said academic advising is a great

way of supporting students and making

sure that they have firsthand personal

contact with academic members of Staff

when it works it doesn't always work and

one of the biggest issues that we hear

from students is one person will have

had a Fant fantastic experience has felt

really seen and looked after someone

else will say I don't know who my

academic advisor is and when we've got

that level of difficulty yes we can fix

the foundations but what if we looked at

it a little bit more radically which

bits of that advising really need to be

done by academics because as a

university we're really we're we're

great at saying here are the new shiny

ideas not so good at stopping stuff

maybe

and one of the the key issues for us as

we move forward is how do we make space

for all this new shiny

fabulousness um and some of that might

be by cutting back on some of the things

that don't work so well in the world

that we're in now so perhaps in the

future we want to look at advising for

students and figure out which bits need

to be by academics who does the rest do

we need to really have a new cohort of

Staff whose job that is to be really

fantastic professional advisors and if

we go down that route how do we then

make other opportunities for students to

have uh really meaningful interactions

with academics so there's a piece

around uh student advising which is

going to be a bit controversial for us

to sort out the details on but we've got

to be honest and open about the fact

that we can't keep doing things exactly

as we're doing them at the moment when

some of those don't work for all of our

students and the same is true for the

second example which would be how we

deliver where we deliver and uh nobody

is saying that Manchester is going to

stop being a fabulous place for oncampus

teaching and learning it's absolutely

brilliant if you've got a student who

can come here um but what about all of

the population of the world and even the

UK who can't take advantage of a

Manchester education because they can't

just put down their lives jobs stop

everything that's happening at home and

come here for three years five years one

year what do we do for those folks and

we've been doing a huge amount of

foundation setting through the flexible

learning program for the last several

years but how does that look at

Manchester

2035 as suppose Katie from your

perspective you know how do you think

this will will kind of land for students

this idea of more partnership learning

being embedded in communities like

different ways of learning yeah I think

it's you know that kind of being able to

know that you've you've done something

that applies to maybe something you want

to do in the future or just being able

to apply like what you've learned

because that's something that I found I

I always knew I wanted to do a placement

year as a student um and then end up

doing this but you know I think if I'd

had more

you enjoyed your time with us I

have I really have and I think like but

it is about you know getting out into

the community like being able to do

something I mean I'm really interested

in public sociology which is to do with

you know speaking to and bringing people

into letting the community like lead the

research that you're doing and I think

that that is really what we want to do

here and I think that's a really good

experience for students and you know

even then going on into their career to

whatever they want to do next whether

it's setting up a coffeee shop whether

it's just working at their local

supermarket whatever they want to do

next they've got these competencies that

they can they can take and um and that

will support them in the future um and I

think there's another thing about you

know it was what April was saying about

this flexible delivery and you know how

long should a student be able to take to

complete a degree should it be three

years or should it be 10 you know a lot

of places you know in kind of Europe

Central Europe you can complete a degree

in whatever time you want and I think

that that is something that we should be

looking at especially in the age of this

cost of living crisis that we're in

where people can't afford to sometimes

study for three years at once they might

need to take a year out to work and earn

a bit of money so so yeah I think you

know there are a lot of Big Ideas that

can be um really really good for

students and I think what's interesting

is the ideas here today they're hot off

the press you you had your final Sprint

group meeting yesterday so this is a a

really a first look into um the Big

Ideas coming out from the 31st of March

we are going to be in Nancy Rothwell

building with a popup exhibition where

people can discover all the Big Ideas

coming out of the various Sprint groups

and also see how they kind of work

together and how they're cross cutting

we're also going to have a really great

digital platform that people can use to

feed in so they can't make it in person

though ideally we want them to do both

there will be a digital feedback

mechanism as well so we're really Keen

that as many people as possible come

along whether that's staff students or a

wider community members