Honorary Graduate Teaching Awards

A Hackday challenge for computing students, real world problems to develop the research skills of geography students and a maths assessment to test the knowledge of student primary teachers have all been recognised as examples of innovative teaching within the University.

The three projects were chosen as winning submissions in this year's Honorary Graduate's Award for Innovative Teaching.

A project for students on the Technology Innovation Management Course in the School of Computing by Dr Annalu Waller and David Farquhar was also commended by the University.

Dr Alastair Geddes and Dr Ed Hall in the School of Social and Environmental Sciences found success with their "Problem-based field research training in Geography" which was designed to give students more hands on experience of real world research.

Organisations within Dundee including Tayside Police, Visit Scotland, Dundee Healthy Living Initiative and Communities Scotland were invited to set realistic problems for the students to investigate. As well as providing the students with support throughout the semester the groups returned to hear final presentations and reports.

Projects studied by the students have included anti-social behaviour, East European in-migration, diet and health and tourism in Dundee.

'Students really benefit from this approach to teaching as they experience at first hand how knowledge is made, helping them to think more critically about claims to knowledge in academic papers and policy reports in all of their modules,' said Dr Hall.

'Problem-based active learning helps students develop skills of organisation, group working, decision-making, negotiation, problem-solving and presentation, which will serve them very well in the workplace and it means they take responsibility for their learning, laying the foundations for a successful degree and future career.'

Dr Geddes added, 'The module provides an excellent learning experience for students, staff and the outside organisations involved; the award is recognition of the hard work by all those involved.'

Sheila Henderson, a lecturer in mathematics education within the School of Education and Social Work, won her award for an online maths assessment she devised using Questionmark Perception software to address the maths knowledge of student primary teachers.

'The assessment offers formative feedback when students answer a question incorrectly, hopefully encouraging them to attempt the assessment again with better knowledge of how to tackle questions they were having difficulty with,' she explained.

'Last session all student primary teachers on the professional graduate programme and the vast majority on the undergraduate programme were able to meet the 80% threshold set in the assessment.'

Andy Cobley, Systems Manager at the School of Computing, won recognition for his Hackday project run in collaboration with software developers Yahoo! The company challenged students on the Internet Programming module to mashup Internet technologies to produce new software. The Yahoo! Developers returned three weeks later to help Andy judge the students work.

'The Hackday was a real challenge for the students,' said Andy: 'Not only did they have to produce a piece of software but they had to come up with an original idea that solves a real problem.'

'Students have told me that it was one of the best experiences of their course so far and they particularly enjoyed the freedom to express their own ideas in software.'

'I'm really pleased with the award as in confirms that learning can be fun as well as challenging and that allowing students the time to explore on their own really can pay dividends.'

Dr Waller's work with David Farquhar, which was commended in the awards, exposed students on the Technology Innovation Management course to the essential skills that are needed for entrepreneurship and gave them the opportunity to interact with captains of computer industry in Scotland.

Amongst those attending the final presentations were representatives from Sun Microsystems, Cisco, IBM and Wolfson Microelectronics.