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.
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.
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.
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, 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[…]
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.
Dr Stephanie Holton, Senior Lecturer in Classics and Ancient History, explains how students used AI generative tools to create visual representations of self-chosen textual sources, and how the software enabled students who struggle with confidence in their drawing skills to produce striking visual images, by allowing them to focus on the content of the text rather than on artistic ability.
Dr Angela Mazzetti, Senior Lecturer in Management Practice in NUBS explored how the transferability of human resource management concepts to a wider global context could be enhanced through involving international students in the co-creation of session content, enabling the concept of ‘the quality of working life’ to be explored from a diversity of global perspectives, encouraging students to reflect on how these insights might impact their future practice as people professionals.
Dr Amy Proctor and Dr Beth Clark designed a problem-based learning session for students of Sustainability in Practice – a new shared module for Agriculture, Earth and Environment, and Applied Social Sciences Cluster (AESSC) students. In this session, students will use AI tools to generate solutions to food insecurity, and evaluate them critically.