The Learning and Teaching Framework (LTF) provides a strategically informed and structured approach to the design and delivery of curricula, learning, teaching, assessment and core academic support mechanisms at Teesside University.
Its primary purpose is to ensure that all students, wherever they are located and whatever course they are studying, can benefit from an outstanding learning experience, develop common graduate attributes, and build readiness for future success.
The LTF is designed to meet the University's strategic goals (Teesside 2027: Ambition Delivered Today), to:
The Learning and Teaching Framework (LTF) is framed by ten foundational principles.
Disciplines, fields of study and areas of practice lie at the heart of Future Facing Learning at Teesside. We welcome the contributions that each brings to our knowledge and understandings of teaching, learning and assessment - and value the lessons we can learn from one another. It is important to remember that good interdisciplinarity rests on strong disciplines.
All learners at Teesside University should have the opportunity to engage in career-building initiatives, experience local and global connections in the methods, modes and content of what they study, and benefit from technology-enhanced teaching and digital-enhancing learning. Our VLE content should support this by carefully echoing the student offer and the classroom experience, promoting opportunities, and learning innovation, and scaffolding the learning journey pathway.
Our courses are evidence-based by design. They not only contain the latest in disciplinary and practice-based insights but are built on leading evidence-based pedagogical and curricular insights and developments. Metrics (and associated gaps) are important evidence points that inform and drive our enhancement activities. However, they should not be seen as the sole reason for change. We should be scholarly and enhancement-led, while remaining metric-minded.
Teesside University's course-first approach prioritises curriculum, pedagogical and assessment design that creates a coherent, connected, incremental and mutually re-enforcing learning experience for our students. This requires strong understanding within course teams of the whole curriculum, what each level of study needs to contribute, and how each module connects as part of a holistic design.
To support this holistic understanding, we should never assume that students or other staff are aware of the often-tacit assumptions and understandings that underpin individual decision making and practices. With this in mind, we should ensure that our reasons for choosing a teaching, learning and assessment activity or focus are clearly communicated. This is crucial for a holistic course-first design approach.
We believe that a great student learning experience cannot exist without an equivalent staff experience. We should model the behaviours and practices we are encouraging and facilitating in our student cohorts as much as we can.
Our approach to communication with our students is holistic and ongoing, with key information shared and discussed with students at appropriate times across the years of study to avoid overload and ensure that information is available at point of need.
We believe that for students to thrive they must feel supported, included, and have a sense that they belong and fit into the learning environments and communities we create. To support this, compassionate pedagogies build on our established commitment to inclusivity, incorporating insights from clinical psychology regarding the importance of physical and emotional wellbeing for success in study, work, and society.
We see our students as active collaborators with the agency to contribute to our teaching, learning and assessment approaches. This includes but also goes beyond formal opportunities to represent courses on our governance structures or engage in ambassador and PASS activities, to encompass work on discrete pedagogical projects, opportunities to drive and direct learning in modules and engagement in assessment planning and choice.
Ambition Delivered Today, commits Teesside to becoming the University of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (Industry 4.0), delivering innovative and impactful provision through Education 4.0. Emergent thinking now identifies Industry 5.0 as a complementary but logical progression from Industry 4.0, moving from a model of shareholder priority to one of stakeholder priority and using emerging or deep technologies to provide sustainable prosperity and an agile and empowered workforce (see European Commission, 2021). With this in mind, the LTF (2025) incorporates new priority elements that complement work already underway, including the use of compassionate pedagogies, the responsible and ethical use of AI and a reminder of the human qualities and skills that AI cannot replace. This lays the foundations for Education 5.0 at Teesside, designed to ready our students for Industry (and Society) 5.0.
These foundational principles should be considered at the point of course design to ensure they are core to the curriculum development process, as well as the wider learning experience.
The Learning and Teaching Framework (LTF) has two main sections:
The first explores each of Teesside's strategic Future Facing Learning themes - describing the approaches and activities that together create our distinctive high quality educational offer, and ensure students can become:
The second section identifies practices, activities, and values, each of which is a key enabler for Student Success:
New courses approved for development through the 2025-26 SASC Business Case process will be expected to align to the framework at the point of validation.
Each LTF Future Facing Learning theme has an accompanying Theme Guide. Each Theme Guide uses the three lenses of academic skills, life skills and work skills to explore what the theme means in practice for those engaged in building, teaching and assessing curriculum.
Objective 1
High quality, future ready graduates are developed through our commitment to industry relevance and entrepreneurship.
Download Future Facing theme guide
Objective 2
Our students are digitally empowered with the latest skills and tools to deliver global impact.
Download AI-Fuelled and Digitally Empowered theme guide
Objective 3
Our students encounter the grand challenges of our time through research and professional practice.
Download Research Active theme guide
Objective 4
Our students are globally connected and engage meaningfully with social and ethical issues from local, national and international perspectives.
Download Globally Connected and Socially & Ethically Engaged graduates theme guide
The Future Facing Learning section of the LTF and aligned theme guides detail foundational level expectations for curriculum design. Each will be explored and regularly reviewed through the Teesside University's CME process to ensure standards are continually met, that our learners experience stretch-and-challenge as well as academic support, and we offer relevant consistency across the student experience.
Each LTF Enabling Student Success theme also has an accompanying theme guide. Each theme guide uses the three lenses of on-module, on-course and co-curricular to explore what the theme means in practice for course teams. Importantly, this section does not make detailed reference to central University student support structures and services, which act as scaffolding and enablers for, but are not an integrated element of the LTF.
Objective 5
High quality, future ready graduates are developed through our commitment to industry relevance and entrepreneurship.
Download Learning Engagement and Effective Transitions theme guide
Objective 6
Our students are digitally empowered with the latest skills and tools to deliver global impact.
Download Learning Communities and Networks theme guide
Objective 7
Our students encounter the grand challenges of our time through research and professional practice.
Download Inclusivity and Wellbeing theme guide
Objective 8
Our students are globally connected and engage meaningfully with social and ethical issues from local, national and international perspectives.
Download Student Partnership and Voice theme guide
The Student Success section of the LTF and aligned theme guides detail foundational level expectations for curriculum design. As above, each theme will be explored and regularly reviewed through the Teesside University's CME process to ensure standards are continually met, that our learners experience stretch-and-challenge as well as academic support, and we offer relevant consistency across the student experience.
NB: This Learning and Teaching Framework was developed in consultation with Liz Cleaver Consultancy (external), and Teesside University staff and students.