Case Studies

Dr Chris Blenkinsopp, from the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the University of Bath, discusses how and why he uses videos in teaching.

Dr Chris Blenkinsopp, from the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the University of Bath, describes his fourth year Civil Engineering Design project as a form of problem based learning in which students work for 'clients' on real world projects.

Dr Janet Bultitude, from the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath, discusses several different ways that she uses the software Socrative to interact with students in large lectures, including the use of open ended questions.

This 2014-15 project worked with students to develop a framework for supporting students in designing their own learning activities. Focussing on role play activities in a third year PoLIS unit (PL30548) as a test bed. The project began by upskilling the project leads through engaging in knowledge exchanges (conversations and workshop) with external academic experts in role play design. Following this a schedule and outline plan for the unit was developed and refined through peer review from our external expert.

Dr John Troyer from the Department of Social and Policy Sciences at the University of Bath answers the question of why he doesn't use powerpoint (or similar presentation technology) in his lectures and the benefits of this approach.

This 2013-14 project provided funding for a pilot, one day, conference style, training event for Student Academic Representatives across the University held in November 2013, in the newly opened Chancellors Building. The event combined enhanced training sessions to compliment the online training module, personal skills development activities and networking sessions to enhance the ‘informed student voice’.

Dr Steve Cayzer from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Bath discusses some of the background and reasons behind the department exploring the use of Moodle for double blind marking. He then discusses the lessons learnt from exploring this use, producing a set of requirements.

Dr Wali Aslam from the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies at the University of Bath discusses how and why he uses and combination of skype and twitter to engage his classes in conversations with students, academics, aid workers and journalists across the world. He then describes some of the lessons learnt in organising international conversations over skype for his classes, and some things to consider in advance.

Dr Hannah Durrant from the Institute of Policy Research at the University of Bath discusses the rationale for embedding serious simulation games into the teaching of Social Policy and then discusses using the simulation game Democracy 2 with students working in a special technology enabled group-work room.

Understanding the structure of a compound or material is central to the learning goals in many areas of science and engineering including chemistry, pharmacology, materials and chemical engineering, and biochemistry. But structures are three dimensional and conceptually difficult to understand through the normal two-dimensional learning formats of lectures, lecture notes, textbooks and whiteboards. This 2013-14 project provided access to software and extensive database resources to all undergraduate and postgraduate students, undertaking Chemistry and Natural Science degrees, to allow them to view and manipulate structures in three dimensions using departmental computer resources and their own laptops, computers, tablets and smartphones.