Academics of CITY College deliver insightful presentations at the Annual Learning & Teaching Conference of the University of York

Excellent representation of CITY College with great presentations by Dr Ana Cruz, Dr Giovanni Oscar Serafini, Mr. Chris Liassides and Ms. Maria-Araxi Sachpazian at the Annual Learning & Teaching Conference of the University of York

Four academic staff members from CITY College, University of York Europe Campus, namely, Dr Ana Cruz, Dr Giovanni Oscar Serafini and Mr. Chris Liassides, Assistant Professors at our Business Administration and Economics Department and Ms. Maria-Araxi Sachpazian, Lecturer at our English Studies Department, participated in the 2022 Annual Learning and Teaching Conference with insightful presentations. The event took place on Friday 18 March 2022 and was hosted by the Learning and Teaching Forum of the university.

Our academics represented CITY College Europe Campus at the conference, showcased their work and shared their knowledge, good practices and innovative ideas in learning and teaching with many participants and colleagues across the University of York.

Dr Ana Cruz held a particularly interesting presentation on ‘Video projects: Enhancing student's digital skills to enhance employability’. Dr Cruz discussed how video projects can equip students with a broader set of skills and competences and enhance their employability profile. During the pandemic and after the lockdowns video interviews, online meetings and remote working increased dramatically. In her paper Dr Cruz highlighted the need for students to be more digitally literate and even more confident with the use of technology and online presentation skills and digital communications. She also provided useful practical lessons to both educators and students.

In his turn Dr Giovanni Oscar Serafini, Assistant Professor in Human Resource Management delivered successfully an interactive online workshop on ‘COVID-19 pandemic and the accelerated introduction of technology into teaching’. During his lively presentation he highlighted how the COVID-19 pandemic exerted a rapid push of educators and students to online learning in an unplanned process, leading to a highly stressful and challenging period. During the workshop, participants discussed what was learnt from this unprecedented experience, how to measure if teaching was successful or unsuccessful, and the interaction between offline learning and e-learning in the post-pandemic future.

Mr. Chris Liassides also participated in the conference with a presentation on ‘The Advantages and Disadvantages of Personalised Audio Feedback (PAF) at the Europe Campus in the Era of Sound-Bites and GDPR: A Two Case Analysis’, aiming to provide useful tips for making the recorded feedback messages more understandable, less boring, and more ‘fun’. Mr. Liassides led an interactive discussion with participants on the challenges faced in PAF and engaged with them to propose solutions relevant to their particular subject areas. The session raised the issue of personalised audio feedback (PAF), a practice that has been piloted recently at CITY College Europe Campus.

Finally, Ms. Maria-Araxi Sachpazian from our English Studies Department led a workshop titled ‘Towards a more sustainable tertiary level teaching and learning’. This workshop attempted to examine how tertiary level students engage with the in-class presentations. Ms Sachpazian examined the factors that hinder students from focusing so participants led to analyse the role of lecturing and whether lectures (compared to collaborative learning) can engage learners and create flow. Participants were then asked to discuss how lecturers deal with student disengagement and why they tend to assume responsibility which causes them to experience guilt. Finally, the group looked into the future of Higher Education and exchanged ideas on whether universities are to be transformed to digital entities.

All presentations of CITY College academics at the conference were well-attended, contributed valuable input and received very positive feedback from participants.