Appointment of Fellows in Teaching & Academic Development 2011-13 12.05.11

Following a highly competitive selection process, three new Fellows in Teaching & Academic Development (2011-2013) have been appointed. They are:

Dr Suzanne Guerin (School of Psychology)
Mr Jonathan McNulty (School of Medicine and Medical Science)
Dr Michael Staunton (School of History)

During the course of the Fellowship, Suzanne, Jonathan and Michael will undertake a multi-disciplinary group project as well an individual project within their own disciplinary area.  All three have proposed individual projects which address aspects of the First Year experience.

Suzanne’s work will focus on engagement and assessment in large class settings with a particular emphasis on evaluating the use of in-class workshops to develop students’ critical thinking and essay writing.  She hopes that the outcomes of her work may help refine models of large group teaching which colleagues will find relevant and useful to their discipline.

Jonathan’s work will evaluate the first year experience and engagement across a number of health science programmes.  It will focus on examining how students are introduced to their professions in their core modules in their first year at university, and it will also examine students’ expectations of their first year and the professions.  Jonathan anticipates that this evaluation will generate new approaches to the structure and approach for engaging students in the exploration of professional issues and identity at the start of their programme.

Michael’s work will focus on the development of writing skills and its assessment as an explicit activity within first year modules.  Writing is a skill essential to the progress of students in many disciplines from History, across the Arts and Social Sciences to Law and Business, however unlike practice in many North American universities writing currently has a limited explicit role in the curriculum.  Michael’s project will examine national and international best practice and investigate how the teaching of writing may be effectively aligned with assessment strategies.

The individual projects of the three Teaching Fellows have strong synergies in terms of the focus on the first year experience and the attention to the development of particular learning skills which will equip students to be effective graduates.  Over the next few months, working from a common and shared commitment to enhancing the first year experience, the Fellows will develop a proposal for a strategic group project, further details of which will be published in September on the Fellowship page.