Dr Cristina Navarro Reguero and Dr Matthew Hopkinson designed CHEMmunicate, a fun team game where students draw chemical structures by asking yes/no questions—boosting communication skills and reinforcing organic chemistry knowledge.
Loiana Leal, Lecturer in Modern Languages, worked with the LTDS Digital Exams Team to introduce digital exams using Inspera in a Portuguese module—co-creating authentic assessments with students to improve marking, feedback, and the overall experience.
Discover how Katie Wray, Senior Lecturer in Engineering, collaborated with colleagues from LTDS and FMS TEL to pioneer an innovative reflective portfolio approach that was used with first-year undergraduate engineering students.
Jo Clark (NUBS) describes working with MBA students to deliver a consultancy project, using the social value model, adding authenticity and contemporary relevance to academic theory, testing students’ skills as business consultants, and delivering value to a client organisation.
John Hedley, Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering, explains how his module’s NUMBAS exam assesses students’ effort during the module, by giving them the opportunity to see, practise and ask for advice on all exam questions prior to taking the exam, and in the process developing a deep understanding of the module’s learning outcomes.
Dr John Hedley, Senior Lecturer in the School of Engineering, designed a marking criteria for a team of markers on a large population engineering module, enabling fast and consistent marking, alongside effective descriptive student feedback that is automatically generated.
In this case study Dr Vicky Fawcett, Research Associate in Astrophysics, describes how Newcastle, Durham and Northumbria Universities collaborated to design a hugely successful astronomy exhibition at the Great North Museum, with the aim of getting more children from low socioeconomic backgrounds, as well as their families and the wider local community, interested in STEM subjects.
PGR colleagues Jerome Ruddick and Elly Polignano designed a wellbeing workshop to tackle mental health issues within academia for PGRs both within Newcastle’s History, Classics and Archaeology department, and beyond, in other northern universities.
In this case study Jerome discusses how a hands-on, creative pottery making activity became a highly successful part of the workshop, creating a calming environment providing mental and physical respite, allowing PGR students to disassociate from their own thoughts, engage with their peers, and practice self-evaluation by engaging with wellbeing questions on a deep level.
Dr Chris Graham, Director of Digital Learning in Maths, Stats and Physics, explains how he uses the Q&A functionality in Vevox as a channel for student questions during lectures, how he has refined his approach to responding to questions during the lecture, and how students have reacted positively to the option to ask questions anonymously.
Dr John Holton, Senior Lecturer in Ancient History, describes designing a poster assignment for his stage 2 module that builds and tests diverse skill-sets, promotes student engagement by enabling students to self-select and then personally research their choice of topic, resulting in students showing an increased assessment confidence and unusually high engagement with the task.