Team Approach to Active Learning Development in Sport and Exercise Science & Medicine

The Sport and Exercise Science and Medicine MSc programme has both on-campus and online versions however, these were treated as two different identities and the student cohorts did not interact with one another. Hybrid and hyflex learning approaches since the pandemic, have created a space for considering different approaches to learning and teaching (Adi Badiozaman et al., 2023, Baker et al., 2024, Thomson, 2022), along with the Learning and Teaching Strategy “requirement for Universities to adapt to new forms of, and routes through learning". Expanding student numbers on this programme and the need to keep evolving the content to include developments in the subject area, brought the idea of bringing the two cohorts together on one Moodle course. There was also the hoped benefit of increased student engagement in discussions for active learning and the opportunity for future alumni connections for career and research purposes, therefore additionally linking into Pillar 1 Learning and Teaching Strategy, "evolving our approach to learning and teaching: towards student-centred, active learning". The full-time on-campus programme predominantly attracts students straight from undergraduate, including international students, and the on online part-time tends to attract globally based mature students, working in practice and looking to develop their careers. This programme has the additional challenge of teaching and learning being provided by a significant amount of guest speakers from outside the University and some courses outsourced to external providers. The project is a collaboration with different teams; the academic teaching team, MVLS Digital Education and PGT administration, to ensure a smooth delivery of this new initiative (Thomson, 2022). Weekly online team meetings and monthly in person planning meetings have been one of the key factors for successful delivery. During these meetings, time is set aside to on-board staff with the vision of the development, share practice, discuss ideas, raise any issues and report on progress. Therefore “taking a team approach to course design and delivery, involving more diverse staff inputs” and “diverse range of voices”. (Learning & Teaching strategy). This presentation will explain how the courses have been going, for example, lively discussions on Teams, students sharing a significant amount of different global practices in the area, that has bought a richness to the student experience. Within the diverse teaching team there have been some challenges to get everyone to embrace the vision of the re-development and move to greater collaboration across the cohorts, added with tight timescales to deliver six 20 credit re-developed courses for semester one. This talk will include perspectives from the programme director, who is leading the re-development, including the background and progress. Then MVLS Digital Education will share details of their role in the learning and student experience. Then a student will share about their experience of being part of the wider cohort of students. Following that, one of the course leaders will outline their experience of running one of their courses in this manner and being involved in this development. Finally, some lessons learned and future developments from this experience will be shared.