Category: All

Picture of Professor Nick Megoran, smiling in blue shirt.

Surprise! Using “playful learning” to take older ideas seriously

Posted on by Alexandra

Professor Nick Megoran School of Geography, Politics and Sociology Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences What did you do? I designed an unconventional lecture for my undergraduate teaching on geopolitical theory to explore how we can teach older and outdated ideas in a way that encourages students to take them seriously. This involves using creative, Read more about Surprise! Using “playful learning” to take older ideas seriously[…]

Photo of John Hedley

Viewing a module’s exam questions to enhance student engagement

Posted on by Michelle

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.

Photo of John Hedley

Creating consistent and automatic feedback for large student cohorts

Posted on by Michelle

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.

A photograph of Vicky Fawcett and a colleague, standing in front of a Space Investigators Poster

Space Investigators: a cross-university astronomy exhibition co-developed by students and staff

Posted on by Michelle

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.

Dr Alessio Iannetti

“Who wants to be millionaire” as a game to enhance students’ engagement and teamwork skills in life sciences curricula

Posted on by Claire Burnham

Does the competitive nature of a game help to improve student knowledge retention, while making a seminar session more fun and engaging? Dr Alessio Iannetti investigated this and shares the results in this case study.

Photograph of Jerome Ruddick

Pottery for Promoting Honest Wellbeing Discussions

Posted on by Michelle

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 David Grundy

Looking Beyond the Data – Using Student Learning Analytics as a Conversation Starter

Posted on by Sam

Dr David Grundy, Director of Digital Education Newcastle University Business School Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences  What did you do? I was part of the Learning Analytics Pilot who were using the Jisc platform, Data Explorer, to have data-informed conversations with my students about their progress and support. I usually have four meetings a Read more about Looking Beyond the Data – Using Student Learning Analytics as a Conversation Starter[…]

A photograph of Chris Graham

Using Vevox as a back-channel for student Q&As

Posted on by Michelle

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.

A photograph of John Holton

Developing diverse skill-sets, student engagement, and self-evaluation in a poster assessment

Posted on by Michelle

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.

Examining Different Learners’ Development of Critical Learning Skills in Postgraduate Taught Programmes: A Comparative Study in Accounting and Finance and in Applied Linguistics and TESOL

Posted on by Michelle

Lana Liu, Senior Lecturer in Accounting and Finance in NUBS and Mei Lin, Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistic in ECLS describe how they developed a critical learning skills (CLS) framework, which identifies critical moments in students’ learning journey and pedagogical strategies focusing on knowledge application and critical evaluations and helps inform critical thinking (CT) in curriculum design.