Teaching and Learning Innovation Fund winners announced

The winners of the 2015-16 awards from the Teaching and Learning Innovation Fund have been announced.

The Fund offers grants of up to £20,000 for University staff to fund creative projects that will enhance teaching and learning at Cambridge.  Projects will begin in the spring of 2016 and run throughout the year, with outcomes reported to the Digital Teaching and Learning Sub-committee in Easter Term 2017.

This year’s bids were particularly strong, with a number of proposed projects offering clear benefit at the pilot stage and potential for wider applicability across the collegiate University. 

This year’s funded projects are:

• E-portfolios to enhance student reflection in workplace learning environments, Dr Clare Allen, Department of Veterinary Medicine.  This project aims to pilot the use of student e-portfolios to document placement learning when off-site.  This will increase student reflection on professional development, assist in the integration of content from the course into a clinical context, and assist staff in giving students formative feedback on reflective writing.  

• MaterialsPi: Materials science education tools for Raspberry Pi integrated student projects, Dr Maximilian Bock, Department of Engineering.  This project aims to create an open-source teaching tool to support educators and learners using Raspberry Pi computers.  Students will access quantitative and qualitative material properties, compare materials, and share project ideas using interactive games, visual charts, and project-based learning capabilities.  For more information, visit the project website at: www.madanyu.org/projects/materials-pi

• Development and deployment of a mobile app to collect student feedback, Dr Afzal Chaudhry, Department of Medicine.  In conjunction with Mr Jay Mehta and Dr Richard Davies, School of Clinical Medicine, this project aims to review and refine the development of a mobile feedback app, for widespread deployment across a larger cohort.  The Department has already piloted an app with a small cohort to positive success; further development will enable a more resilient and scalable hardware solution for large-scale deployment and staff support.

• Project TATE (Tablet Assisted Teaching in Engineering), Dr Ronan Daly, Department of Engineering.  This project aims to build on the success of a previous TLIF-funded trial of tablet teaching, using that data to provide a framework of considerations for the wider community who may be interested in implementing tablet-based teaching.  The project will also provide a suite of trialled, assessed and documented teaching resources to assist in wider adoption.

• Managing shortness of breath and chest pain: Online moulages and interactive role-playing scenarios for medical students and junior doctors, Dr Nicola Jones, Dr Priya Sastry, Mr William Mair, and Ms Nasima Ismail, Department of Medicine.  This project aims to develop online teaching tools to support medical students in the field.  20 scenarios will be developed within which students’ decisions about treatment take them down alternative clinical narratives, with realistic and developing symptoms and test results delivered in real time.  Students will be exposed to the consequences of their clinical decisions and able to work through multiple scenarios with professionals in the field. 

• Building positive and inclusive learning cultures through a theory-based staff training programme, Dr Ingrid Obsuth, Institute of Criminology.  This project aims to pilot use of the Connect® programme, which develops teaching staff’s capabilities to connect with learners in ways that foster emotional well-being.  The project will build on the success of a previous TLIF-funded project, Learning Together, to enhance teaching practice of staff at Cambridge and at HMP Grendon.  Training in the programme will be provided to a small set of staff, who will help fine tune its adaptation and deliver it across the University.  The potential for the programme to be integrated into University PPD training will be explored.

• Structural design principles: Diverse content for diverse minds, Dr Michael Ramage, Department of Architecture.  This project aims to develop a set of videos and interactive media that will draw on the ‘flipped classroom’ model to provide architecture students with introductory material and key concepts prior to lectures.  The videos will also enable applied research principles currently difficult to capture in the lecture environment to be integrated into student learning, allowing tangible application of abstract information.  Resources will be available to students online to enable directed learning outside of the classroom.

• PyCav: Unifying undergraduate computation at the Cavendish, Prof John Richer and Dr Austen Lamacraft, Department of Physics.  This project aims to integrate computational physics teaching and learning more closely into the existing courses in the Department of Physics by creating a coherent, cutting-edge curriculum based on the Python programming language. It will develop physics problems to be solved by students related to two of the undergraduate courses, develop Python tools for data analysis in the practical classes, and create Python simulations for use as "demonstrations" in lecture courses.

• Learning How to Look: Developing a Digital Teaching Collection for Archaeology, Dr Chris Wingfield, Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology.  This project aims to create a digital repository of 3D images of objects from the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, to support the teaching of Archaeology students.  Objects are currently handled during scheduled practicals each term, so creating an online interactive database will allow students to access this at any time, in tandem with the relevant lecture timetable.  Lecturers will provide probing questions and accompanying information that will enable students to explore key objects.