Old Vic poster "up the feeder, down the 'mouth" against red theatre curtain
‘Every night elderly dockers were in tears. Many in the audience had seldom or never been to a theatre. They shouted out in recognition, ignoring the shushing. It was recognition ...
Measurable results in predefined categories versus out-of-the-box approaches along non-standard routes – faultlines in universities are often hierarchical, but there is a way out.   “Students love it because it’s different!” ...
News UniversalCity Launch Last week saw the UniversityCity project launch at the University. Staff and students were invited to hear about the platform from two of its founders, Chaz Golding ...
You will never teach the same class in two different rooms, says Greek philosopher Heraclitus (sort of). The flow will be so different. So here’s a few things we can ...
This unit provides practical hands-on experience of a multidisciplinary task to design, build and test an unmanned aerospace vehicle. The learning experience covers technical disciplines but also crucially offers experience ...
box with brain inscription on head of anonymous woman
In my previous blog I explained how metaphors offer a way of making that which is unfamiliar or hard to understand appear more familiar and knowable. In this blog, I’d ...
In springtime of this year 40 students and staff took part in an exciting sustainability-focused field trip to a 50-acre rewilding site in Devon. Embercombe is a largely off-grid education ...
As many of you will be aware, October is Black History Month. Every year, the same question emerges – why are we only choosing to recognise Black history in October? ...
house renovation
Our family recently returned from holidays, and on the outward and returning flight my three year old daughter was fascinated by the safety sheet she found in the seat pocket. ...
To many of us in Modern Languages, literature seems almost made for teaching. Here’s why.   People outside the Arts are sometimes disdainful of subjects that never seem to arrive at ...
“I look forward to marking essays,” says Dietmar Wetzel. Those of us who’ve been here a while will know that discussions about marking can feel like a tug of war. ...
This is a third-year optional unit led by Rosie Nelson in SPAIS. This unit offers an introduction into relevant issues and theory to explore contemporary sociological conversations around minoritized sexualities and ...
room chair lot
Over the last two days I welcomed into my classroom 500 new students. They are new to University, and teaching first years is also new to me. I have a ...
man people woman art
In June, I attended the Assessment in Higher Education International Conference #AssessmentConf23. It was a jam-packed two-day programme of speakers, combining traditional keynote and research presentations with masterclasses, mini-keynotes and ...
Happy Welcome Week to all of our new and returning students this week! We hope you've all had fun getting acquainted (or reacquainted) with the city in the rain! This ...
Ready to innovate, an enthusiastic teacher was met with silence and confusion by his students. Here’s how sociologist Dietmar Wetzel responded.   ...
If we’re serious about research-led teaching, we need to tell our students what we don’t – yet – know. Enter teaching-led research!  ...
BILT Student Fellow Dominique Duff interviewed colleagues from four units across the University to share their authentic assessment practices in this blog miniseries. This is a first-year unit designed to ...
Following the disruptions of the pandemic, most of us moved our teaching online. As the health situation changed, so did our practice and many started to implement hybrid modes of ...
Welcome back! We hope you all had a restful and enjoyable break and are enjoying the lovely late summer sun we are having this week. News Student Research Journal: Issue ...
I’ve heard a colleague describe their students as ‘wilted parsley.’ If we want to get the juices flowing again, we have to find out what our students are actually interested ...
There is no shortage of teaching tips and tricks, and many of them are tried and tested. But the reason why they work is not actually inherent in them ...
Living between the worlds of student and staff, Postgraduate Research students (PGRs) are an important part of the research ecosystem. To be successful they must make an original contribution to ...
Back in the Autumn term of 2019 I ran a unit on Timber Engineering. Rather than give lectures I decided to make the unit more authentic by inviting students to ...