Loughborough University’s centrally supported student response system, Vevox, allows staff to create engaging classes through real-time polling and live discussion, but it also contains a survey feature that staff are starting to use to gather mid-module feedback. Creating a survey provides more time to act on valuable feedback from students and implement changes before moduleRead more
In this blog-post for the Centre for Academic Practice, Nuzhat Fatima, LSU Welfare and Diversity Executive Officer, discusses the Black and Minority Ethnic student attainment gap in UK higher education institutions, and introduces a new research project at Loughborough entitled ‘Experiences in the Classroom and Beyond: The Role of Race and Ethnicity’ What is theRead more
Our most recent CAP Forum focused on research-informed curriculum design. As a recent Research-informed Teaching Award winner, Dr Line Nyhagen took us through some of her wonderful successes and some of the challenges she has faced in four specific innovative teaching practices which were designed to enhance student engagement. The first is a field visitRead more
Dr Thomas Steffen, a recipient of a 2016 Teaching Innovation Award (TIA), explains how he has applied gamification to learning electrotechnology. What did you want to achieve? This project set out with a rather simple idea: to use an interactive simulation tool to teach students the basics of electric circuits in TTB211 Electrotechnology. We allRead more
This is the first call for submissions for Loughborough University applicants seeking funding under the 2017 Teaching Innovation Awards. These high profile awards support individuals or teams of staff or students and staff to develop and share innovative teaching ideas both internally and externally. These awards are a key part of Loughborough University’s commitment toRead more
In the latest of the Teaching Innovation Award updates Dr Ella-Mae Hubbard and Professor Carys Siemieniuch reflect on how their project has flourished thanks to student engagement. The project aimed to address the issue of a shortcoming in student project work by enabling students to engage with procedures in validation and verification through some newRead more
A group of student historians from Loughborough are heading out into schools across the UK this winter on a mission to research teaching. The staff-student collaboration project, Developing Outreach and Employability through Innovative Teaching, led by Dr.Catherine Armstrong and final-year student Lauren Porter involves students observing how history is taught in schools. Both primary andRead more
Six final year students from the School of Business and Economics (SBE) have shared their experiences of placements to help those now hunting for a place for next year. The students worked for a range of different companies, from KPMG to Nottingham Panthers. Their experiences had been very different with one exception – all saidRead more
In a recent post Chris Millward, Director for Policy at the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), summarised the findings and recommendations of a Which? report into Higher Education, placing it within the context of the HEFCEs own work. Millward begins with a note of caution, contrasting the reports “relatively small” sample size (the undergraduate survey, conducted by YouthSight, on behalf of Which?, surveyed 1023 first and second year undergraduates online) to the National Student Survey (NSS), which last year received 320,000 responses of which 86% reported they were satisfied or strongly satisfied with their course. Even this figure, Millward concedes, still “leaves a significant minority who weren’t satisfied” and that while “there is good work going on…there is room for improvement”.