Cambridge Teaching Forum: Programme

• Dr Joe Sutliff Sanders, University Associate Professor, Faculty of Education

Whereas the sciences offer doctoral students collaborative spaces as part of the usual postgraduate provision, humanities doctoral students often work in solitude, a situation that can foster isolation, competitiveness and a failure to share professionalisation and good work habits.

In this talk, I report on an experiment I have been running in pursuit of a democratic, humanising, community-building for my supervisees. The exercise has reduced competitiveness, enhanced collaboration and fostered a better understanding of what it means to be a professional academic amongst supervisees, and has become one of the highlights of my working life.

• Prof. Sonja Amadae, Director, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
• Dr Vanessa Burns, Teaching Associate, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
• Dr Colum Finnegan, Research Assistant, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk

The postgraduate pedagogical landscape faces unprecedented challenges to deep and sustained learning: the integration of generative AI into student learning; the need to deliver applied content for an increasingly professionalised cohort; and the difficulties of developing inclusive and decolonised courses for high-intensity Master’s cycles.

In this session, we share innovative approaches to delivering interdisciplinary postgraduate education in global risk and resilience. We present ‘open pedagogy’ and ‘reverse classroom’ models that partner with students to co-produce publications and syllabi, and we reflect on how these models support critical co-existence with AI, support applied teaching, and help bridge the attainment gap for international and widening participation students.

• Prof. Patrick Barrie, Professor of Chemical Engineering Education, Department of Chemical Engineering & Biotechnology

This talk will give an update on developments within the Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology tripos. The new structure course started in October 2023 for first years, and so undergraduates have now reached the 3rd year of the revised course. The talk will reflect on what worked well and what didn’t work so well during the revision process, both for lecture courses and for assessed project work. 

The talk will also discuss a short new module on virtual chemical plant operation because it is a nice example of technology enabled learning. 3rd year undergraduates work in pairs for four two-hour workshops. They operate a virtual chemical plant, learning the equipment, starting up and shutting down the process, and dealing with faults that occur. The software combines the worlds of digital twins and gaming PCs. The module fills a previous gap in the curriculum – past students had little idea what equipment looked like or how to operate a chemical plant.

• Prof. Sally Boss, Teaching Fellow in Chemistry, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry
• Prof. Deborah Longbottom, Teaching Fellow, Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry

As part of a curriculum review in Chemistry, coupled with the University’s Teaching Review, we have updated our second-year organic practical class, focusing on key techniques and adopting a ‘spiral curriculum’. Strategic removal of 75% of the write-up component has given students more time to focus on improving their practical skillset. Sustainability concepts have been embedded and group work included in the class.

Feedback confirms that the changes made have resulted in students learning with more structured purpose, with a reduction in ‘overwhelm’ associated with the previously higher workload.

• Dr Iulia Coanda, Senior Blended Learning Researcher, Blending Learning Service

This session presents a cross-disciplinary overview of student views and experiences of generative AI at the University. Drawing on qualitative data from departments and faculties including Chemistry, Geography and History, it outlines students’ first thoughts on AI, the uses they attribute to it and the concerns they raise about its place in education. The session focuses on students’ descriptions of their practices, views and feelings, giving academics material for reflection on their own approaches to AI within their disciplinary context.

• Andrea Chlebikova, Senior Project Chemist, Department of Physics

Experienced educators typically diagnose student misconceptions through dialogue, or by scrutinising detailed written work. During training, large language models (LLMs) often ingest online forum discussions. While sometimes a point of ridicule, this exposure potentially creates a large repository of common sources of student confusion. This session examines the capability of LLMs to identify underlying mistakes based solely on single-word or numerical answers to chemistry questions. We analyse the potential of LLMs to ‘reverse engineer’ student thinking from final outputs and discuss how this capability could be used to enhance learning by providing personalised, automated feedback to incorrect answers.

• Abigail Crowther, Learning Design Consultant, Judge Business School

This talk will share on ongoing project at the Judge Business School to integrate AI into the learning experiences of students, transforming traditional paper-based case studies into interactive and authentic experiences. It will discuss the rationale for the project, how the simulation has been designed and developed, early insights into creating more engaging case-based learning, and future directions for the project.

• Alberto Garcia, Librarian, Murray Edwards College

In this presentation, I will discuss the AI literacy training course I have developed for academic librarians at the University. Designed as an asynchronous course, this initiative aimed to help academic librarians across the University strengthen their proficiency in AI literacy by providing time to experiment with different tools and fortnightly meetings in person to discuss best practices and questions arising from the course material.

Drawing on a thematic analysis of participant feedback, I will discuss how this initiative addressed a critical skills gap and empowered participants to feel more confident engaging with AI in higher education.

• Katharine Radice, Transition and Participation Advisor, Gonville & Caius College

This presentation will explore the difference between the study habits often embedded at school and the approaches and dispositions needed to thrive at Cambridge. Drawing on experience in the secondary school sector and one-to-one work with undergraduates at Cambridge, the presentation will outline why ‘teaching to the test’ in secondary schools can cause procrastination, perfectionism, low confidence and academic anxiety for undergraduates. I’ll then share ideas for how supervisors can best support students in this transition.

• Sophie Hughes, Assistant Senior Tutor: Pastoral, Lucy Cavendish College
• Dr Koenraad Claes, Assistant Skills Programme Coordinator, Lucy Cavendish College
• Dr Amy Smail, Evaluation Consultant

Since Michaelmas 2024, Lucy Cavendish – the Cambridge College with the highest number of state school admissions – has introduced a new Skills (Tutorial) Programme to enhance first-year transition. In this session, we share insights from a participatory evaluation, guided by an independent evaluator, which centred student voice across the academic year. Students’ co-defined outcomes of participation were central in enabling us to revise programme structure and pedagogy for the current iteration. We reflect on the value of student voice within evaluation and share practices intended to inspire colleagues seeking to embed participatory approaches within their own programme evaluations.

• Dr Rosanna Carver, Teaching Associate, Department of Geography
• Prof. Emma Mawdsley, Head of Department, Department of Geography

When asking students to engage with multiple crises including dispossession, conflict and environmental change, we must also encourage them to imagine alternative possibilities. Our third-year paper ‘Geographies of Hope’ is based on the idea that hope is central to emancipatory education (hooks, 2003). This presentation reflects on our experience of designing and teaching a paper that addresses “the grief that students feel and the hope they find… while making space for their full affective selves” (Lopez, 2022: 794). Drawing on slow teaching and creative pedagogy, we share ways to encourage engagement with critical hopeful understandings of the world, as a vital starting point for change (Ahmed, 2017).

• Prof. Paul Wilkinson, Clinical Dean, School of Clinical Medicine

I commonly hear, “Our students should be more resilient”. This presentation will define resilience and present empirical data. Thirteen resilience factors (individual, family, peer), mental health and ‘stress’ were measured in 451 Cambridge medical students at baseline (several months before exams) and during exams. The strongest single predictor of each of exam-time mental and stress was baseline mental health and stress. While predictive effects of individual baseline resilience were small, the total effect of all resilience factors was greater than that of mental health or stress. I shall compare possible approaches to improving student mental health / stress: improving mental health symptoms directly or ‘improving resilience’.

• Prof. Elizabeth Soilleux, Professor of Diagnostics and Biomarkers, Department of Pathology
• Sarah Barden, Medical Student, University of Oxford School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences

To inspire future biomedical sciences applicants to Oxbridge, we undertook a small study in the teaching of key concepts in molecular biology, entailing a kinaesthetic ‘arts-based’ workshop. As part of a summer school in Cambridge, students used letter beads and pipe cleaners to make physical representations of DNA, RNA and protein sequences to teach reverse complementing DNA, transcribing DNA to RNA, translating RNA to protein, and the impacts of certain DNA mutations on the final protein sequence. Students completed Likert-type 5-point scale questionnaires giving very positive feedback. This activity might also be used in undergraduate teaching.

• Prof. Matthew J Mason, University Physiologist and Professor of Comparative Physiology
• Dr Kamilah Jooganah, Senior Teaching Associate, Cambridge Centre for Teaching & Learning

Experimental practical classes have been such a fundamental part of scientific training that their purpose has often been taken for granted. However, in recent years, many such classes have been replaced with online alternatives. The ongoing curriculum reviews here in Cambridge make this an opportune moment to reflect on the broader purpose of ‘live’ practicals. Based on our recent publication in Current Opinion in Physiology (Jooganah & Mason, 2026), we categorize the key scientific and social learning objectives of such classes, and suggest how we can make practicals more effective learning environments. 

Jooganah, K. & Mason, M.J. (2026) The educational benefits of experimental practical classes in physiology. Current Opinion in Physiology: 47: 100919.

• Dr Lorna Waddington, Associate Professor of International History, University Academic Lead for Academic Integrity, University of Leeds

GenAI tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini and now part of everyday university life, but how do we use them to genuinely enhance student learning rather than replace it? This talk shares a 9-week genAI ‘plug-in’ build into a compulsory first-year History skills module. Each short 15-25-minute session sits within a seminar and gives students space to try out genAI while building the core skills every historian needs. Students put genAI to the test: exploring its strengths and blind spots, spotting bias and omissions, and comparing outputs with real scholarly sources. They also experiment with prompts to see how phrasing changes responses and reflect on the ethical questions raised by AI in academic work. The project shows how genAI can shift from being a quick-fix shortcut to a springboard for deeper learning. By tackling it head-on, students sharpen their critical thinking, digital literacy and ethical awareness – skills that prepare them not just for university, but for an AI-shaped future.

• Dr Deborah Talmi, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology

This study evaluates the potential contribution of generative AI to university exam marking. As AI systems can now generate credible essays and provide formative and summative feedback, it is vital to clarify the unique value of human academic judgement. We compared marks assigned by a multi-LLM ensemble with those of human assessors in undergraduate psychology essays from three British universities. AI and human markers align reasonably but performance varies across essay types and grading in undergraduate assessment. Our findings reveal both promising capabilities and clear limitations.

• Session Chair: Emily Tannert Patterson, Product Strategy Manager and Senior Learning Designer, Cambridge Online Education, Cambridge University Press and Assessment
• Contributors:
  • Prof. Nathan Crilly, Professor of Design, Department of Engineering
  • Dr Alexandru Marcoci, Assistant Professor of Global Risk and Resilience, Centre for the Study of Existential Risk
  • Dr Matthew WC Tang, Associate Teaching Professor in Digital Electronics & VLSI Design, Department of Engineering
  • Dr Virginia Pedicord, Assistant Research Professor, Cambridge Institute of Therapeutic Immunology & Infectious Disease

Despite – or perhaps because of – the proliferation of online learning in the post-Covid world, online teaching and learning is often considered a distant second-best option when designing learning experiences. However, because online course design provides the opportunity to consciously apply backwards design and interactive learning principles, the application of pedagogy learned in the process of online course design can improve the quality of design for and delivery of in-person learning.

This panel discussion will explore the experiences of four University of Cambridge professors from diverse backgrounds and subjects who all have experience developing online learning with Cambridge Advance Online, the University’s commercial continuing professional development online learning platform. These four professors will share how they utilised what they learned during their course development to improve their in-person teaching and therefore their students’ learning experiences.

The discussion will be moderated by Emily Patterson, Senior Learning Designer for Cambridge Online Education, who has partnered with numerous university academics (including the four panellists) to produce award-winning online learning experiences.

• Hayley Hilson, Outreach Manager, Lucy Cavendish College
• Anna Foskett, Outreach Assistant, Lucy Cavendish College

The Academic Attainment Programme is Lucy Cavendish College’s flagship outreach programme, supporting high-achieving sixth-form students from underrepresented backgrounds to realise their full academic potential and progress to highly selective universities. Delivered online over 18 months, the programme is truly nationwide, reaching 1,500 students annually and 1 in 3 schools across England and Wales. It combines tailored subject-specific tutoring, opportunities for skills development and supracurricular exploration, and expert university application guidance.

This talk will explore the programme’s pedagogical design, scalability and evaluation, drawing on five years of delivery and data. It will highlight evidence showing that participants are significantly more likely to receive offers from and progress to the University of Cambridge and other Russell Group universities, and reflect on what sustained, remote academic intervention can achieve for attainment-raising at scale.

• Jessica Asiedu-Kwatchey, Vice-President for Education & Widening Participation, Cambridge Students’ Union

This talk presents research which examines the various awarding gaps existing at Cambridge, focusing on disparities in student experiences for those from Black and British Bangladeshi backgrounds, as well as for female students. Drawing on quantitative survey data and qualitative student perspectives, the study explores structural, pedagogical and environmental factors contributing to these gaps. The session will highlight evidence-informed interventions aimed at fostering equity, with a particular focus on how the University can offer more targeted academic and pastoral support to these groups of students. Overall, this research seeks to demonstrate how the University can translate data into meaningful action in order to improve student outcomes and dismantle barriers contributing to the existence of awarding gaps.

• Prof. Anna Hollis, Teaching Professor in Equine Studies, Department of Veterinary Medicine

Microaggressions are subtle, everyday comments or actions that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative messages towards marginalised groups or individuals, including neurodivergent individuals. Minimal anecdotal reports of neurodiversity-associated microaggressions exist, and it is not known whether veterinary students experience these during their studies. A survey was distributed to UK-based veterinary students between February and June 2024. Responses were received from 51 students, of which 43 were neurodivergent. Neurodiversity-associated microaggressions were experienced by 58% of respondents, and these occurred across a variety of learning environments. Further studies are required to investigate the impact of these microaggressions on neurodivergent veterinary students.

• Dr Samuel McDermott, Associate Teaching Professor and Programme Manager, EPSRC Senior CDT, Department of Chemical Engineering & Biotechnology, Selwyn College

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Senior Technologies and Applications in an Uncertain World delivers and integrated 1+3 programme which combines an interdisciplinary MRes with a PhD. The renewal of the CDT provided a timely opportunity to re-evaluate and redesign the MRes to ensure alignment with the changing training needs of our student researchers. Through a participatory process involving current students, alumni, academic staff and industry partners, we gathered diverse perspectives on what effective researcher training should look like in today’s interdisciplinary and rapidly changing sensor research landscape. These insights informed a comprehensive redesign of the programme, resulting in an MRes that is more engaging, more relevant, and more closely aligned with the skills and capabilities required for successful sensor research careers.

• Dr Mary Fortune, Associate Teaching Professor, Department of Public Health & Primary Care

When you are writing an exam, how do you choose the pass mark? Do you always pass a fixed proportion of students, or would you be happy for the entire cohort to pass if they have all demonstrated the requisite knowledge and skills? There are many methods that can be used to set a pass mark, or to assess the reliability of an assessment after it has been sat. However, they often rely on subjective judgements by a small group of people, small data sizes and statistical assumptions which are clearly violated.

In this talk, I’ll be discussing Foundations of Evidence-Based Practice, a first-year course taken by all medics and vets. I’ll discuss some of the changes I’ve made to the assessment in order to make it more authentic, while keeping it within a computer-markable format. I’ll also discuss why I believe that doubling the length of the exam will make it more accessible for many disabled students.

• Dr Oleg Kitov, College Associate Professor of Economics, Selwyn College, Faculty of Economics

‘Learning by doing’ is a blended pedagogical framework that redesigns quantitative economics teaching from episodic, high-stakes assessment to continuous, evidence-based practice. Students complete fortnightly, timed, closed-book tests designed with spacing and interleaving to trigger effortful retrieval. A sustainable feedback loop follows: learners self-mark against detailed rubrics, exchange structured peer feedback to build evaluative judgement, then use supervisor dialogue for targeted coaching. Finally, a formative two-stage assessment combines individual with collaborative problem-solving. Supported by simple cloud submission and PDF annotation, this method reduces anxiety, deepens conceptual understanding, and scales across problem-based disciplines with performance gains and higher first-class rates.

• Dr Niki Sol, Change Manager, Education Services
• Jess Joseph, Functional Analyst, University Information Services

The Cambridge Timetabling Project is transforming how we design and deliver student timetables by improving quality, equity and personalisation. This presentation will showcase how new modelling tools enhance timetable quality, such as eliminating Saturday lectures, and enabled evidence-based understanding of teaching patterns. We will also explore how personalised timetables can better support diverse student needs, including accessibility requirements and realistic travel times between teaching locations. By embedding inclusivity and data-informed decision-making into timetabling processes, the project aims to create learning environments that enable all students to thrive across the collegiate University.

• Andy Corrigan, Digital Library Coordinator, Cambridge University Library

Images and primary sources make learning more engaging, but IIIF – the International Image Interoperability Framework – reimagines what we can do with them. Digitised collections from all over the world can be used with a variety of free tools and methods to enrich teaching practice and the experience of students. IIIF viewing tools that enable detailed visual comparison can also facilitate collaborative analysis and annotation, stimulating discussion in hybrid spaces. Interoperability enables the reinterpretation of reconstruction of existing historical objects and the generation of new virtual objects of enquiry. Interactive and embeddable storytelling tools provide engaging ways to relate and learn from cultural collections, but also contemporary visual and even audio resources, inviting deeper relationships between students and digitised collections than traditional presentation tools like PowerPoint.

We can use these digital tools to undertake virtual and immersive activities that are not possible with the physical world alone, generating a new type of hybrid experience. IIIF is a vast and collaboratively developed community, and the team behind Cambridge Digital Library will share a new resource to help you and your students to develop digital literacy around it and learn about the methods and tools that are available to you.

Online exhibit sample

• Dr Helen Van Noorden, College Associate Professor and Director of Studies in Classics, Girton College
• Dr Harriet Groom, Fellow in Biomedical Sciences and Director of Studies in Biological Natural Sciences, Sidney Sussex College
• Dr Matthew Neal, Acting Deputy Senior Tutor in Teaching & Learning, Girton College
• Dr Catherine Sumnall, Deputy Senior Tutor, Sidney Sussex College

College academic leaders operate within different contexts and educational strategies but share the challenge of evaluating interventions and measuring their ‘success’. This session is informed by experiences of implement teaching & learning initiatives at Girton, Sidney Sussex and Downing since 2022, and by the wider HE landscape debating the question of ‘educational gain’ as a metric or as an ambition.

Through facilitating two breakout discussions, we seek to share and gather wisdom on designing, implementing and evaluting one-to-one coaching-style interventions, larger onboarding courses and systemic changes. Such evaluations may feed into College ‘Education Strategies’ for the longer term.