Category: Teaching Stories

The following teaching story was submitted byu Lucy Berthoud, a
Professor of Space Engineering in the School of Aerospace Engineering.

Encouraging students to engage with feedback

The students submit their coursework via Turnitin and Blackboard and get marked the same way. We spend hours marking student coursework and it is a bit dispiriting sometimes to discover that they have not bothered looking at the feedback. This particularly seems to happen if they are satisfied with the mark and it could be because there is a fair bit of negotiating the Turnitin interface to go through to access the comments. To combat this, I started releasing the feedback first and the mark on SAFE (SLSP) much later. Now, to discover their mark they have to go through all the negotiating of Turnitin and so they might as well look at the feedback at the same time. This seems to have encouraged the students to engage with their feedback.

Dr James Norman is a BILT Fellow and Programme Director for Civil Engineering.

A Friendly Welcome

As a lecturer I am always trying to think of different ways of crossing the divide between teacher and student. Some students are confident and will approach me with ease, but for many others they find it difficult to make the initial approach and admit that they didn’t understand what I said.

One of the ways I have tried to overcome this over the years is to think about the welcome at the beginning of my lecture series. Often I am nervous when I start teaching a new cohort and I always have to battle technology before I start a lecture but recently I have ensured that for the first lecture of the term I am set up with plenty of the time and I greet each and every student into my teaching space. I typically just try and smile and say welcome. It’s not a big act but hopefully it makes it ever so slightly easier for students to later come and ask a question.

The following teaching story was submitted by Ann Pullen, Faculty Education Director in the Faculty of Life Sciences and Programme Director for the MSc in Transfusion and Transplantation Sciences.

I’ve just been chairing the two day symposium on “Hot Topics in Transplantation” by the students on the MSc in Transfusion and Transplantation Sciences at NHS Blood and Transplant – Filton.

This is the authentic assessment on the Clinical Transfusion and Transplantation unit (weighted 30% on this 20 credit point unit, PANMM0019).

The students choose a topic to review that has appeared in the news in the last year.  They research their topic, critically evaluate the literature, prepare an abstract suitable for a scientific meeting, a poster and give a 15 minute oral presentation, with 5 minutes for questions and discussion.

Many of the talks were very impressive, triggering questions from the students, UoB and NHSBT staff, and thought provoking discussions amongst the students.

Talks included Uterus Transplantation (very topical for International Women’s Day), Breathing New Life into Bioengineered Lung Transplants, Reperfusion of Kidneys for Transplant and Faecal Microbiota Transplant.

Students from around the world (Chile, China, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates) presented alongside UK students, including those part-time students working for NHSBT or in NHS hospitals.

It was really great to see the students working together and supporting one another to refine their slides and practice their oral presentations, and then engaging in lively discussion following the talks.

Unit Director :Tom Bullock  (NHSBT)
Guidance on poster preparation: Gary Mallinson  (NHSBT)
Essential admin support : Laura Chapman  (Postgraduate Student Administration Assistant,  UoB)

Previous contributions by:
Unit Director (retired):  Nicky Anderson  (NHSBT)
Programme Director (retired):Tricia Denning-Kendall  (UoB)