These innovative and diverse projects demonstrate the benefits that can be reaped from relatively small amounts of Faculty Teaching Development funding. The energy and enthusiasm of the staff who came forward to showcase their projects were key factors in achieving their positive outcomes. These projects will no doubt inspire others to build on the ideas shared, develop their own projects and apply for future rounds of Teaching Development Funding.
Matteo used his funding to bring in external speakers for a workshop that stimulated discussion and raised awareness of more sophisticated uses of MCQs for learning. The outcome was that more staff in the Department of Economics now use MCQs in their teaching, and in more advanced ways.
Javier attended a Physiological Society workshop that introduced ways to enhance teaching of practical skills, with an emphasis on resources for large groups. He highlighted how a gamification approach can motivate students to keep practicing and refining these important skills.
Practical Innovations in Life Science Education - Full Summary
Kate demonstrated how a collaborative and open approaches to developing student research skills could instil good research practice from the ‘grass roots’ up, thus aiming, in the future, to counter the criticisms that some existing poor practices currently attract.
Jeff described the redesign of this unit that aimed to provide an up to date and enriched learning experience for these UG students. Carefully designed online learning activities engaged and challenged students to apply and critic the ideas offered by a wide variety of teaching materials including video conversations from experts in the department and from further afield.
Nina and Brad sought to raise awareness among students about the archive materials and their potential uses for project and dissertation work. Visits to the archive, a web portal http://www.bath.ac.uk/library/gen/archive-stories.bho and videos of academic staff introducing artefacts were created to draw students in.