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.
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.
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.
Lee Fawcett, Senior Lecturer in Maths, Stats and Physics, discusses how he collaborated with the University of Florida to develop a short virtual exchange course around the use/misuse of data – enabling students to collaborate with overseas students, while also addressing inequalities relating to physical mobility opportunities and embedding intercultural awareness into the undergraduate curriculum.
Dr Helen Mason and Gabrielle Vallons explain how the Peer Mentor Induction Period Challenge on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals is incorporated into first year teaching and delivered to students studying Nutrition and Dietetics, creating opportunities for students to submit group proposals for creative and innovative solutions to campus related issues with the potential to have lasting impact across the student body, alongside enhancing Peer Mentors’ personal and professional development.
Tracy Scurry, Professor of Work and Employment and Sarah Carnegie, Senior Lecturer in HRM from Newcastle University Business School, discuss the Get Sust! project, working in partnership with students to develop a game-based learning approach to engage Business School students with sustainable development, to facilitate a social and developmental learning experience, and support the personal development of students by enhancing their teamworking skills and global and cultural awareness.
Dr Raghda Zahran, Programme and Project Manager from the Project Management Office worked with colleagues from the School of Computing to engage postgraduate students taking an Innovation Project, offering students a unique opportunity to apply their Data Science skills meaningfully, alongside developing an understanding of Learning Analytics from Newcastle University students’ perspectives, to inform the development of practical tools and strategies.