UK Centre for Materials Education
Working with you to enhance the student experience
Working with you to enhance the student experience
More specifically we aim to:
We recognise that academic staff are working under enormous time pressure. We offer a
blend of support and services designed to help you develop your teaching
practice, whilst preserving valuable time to focus on other work areas.
Our ambition is to work in close partnership with the academic community
to progress towards excellence in materials education that matches our
excellence in research. The information below is intended to give a flavour
of our work. If you have any questions, or would like to take advantage
of our support, then please contact one of our staff.
Our website is a rich source of news and information relevant to anyone teaching materials science. It provides details of funding opportunities, forthcoming events, teaching development projects, and links to other useful web sites. Visitors can also download, or read online, a variety of good practice guides, quick guides and casestudies as well as the recent National Materials Subject Profile.
Our Database of Resources can also be accessed through our web site. This fully searchable catalogue contains over 2000 resources on various topics in materials science and materials education. Our database services over 800 searches per week from lecturers wishing to develop their teaching, and students seeking to supplement their learning. The following examples give a flavour of the resources available:
We produce and/or distribute a range of Publications such as our boxed-set of booklets Materials Education: 12 Guides for Lecturers, the Higher Education Academy briefings on Assessment, Enhancing Graduate Employability, and E-Learning, as well as recent case studies; 'Working in Partnership with Students: The Summer School at Cambridge' and 'Employer-College Partnerships: Developing a Materials Foundations Degree'.
We also publish regular Electronic Bulletins to ensure our community is kept up to date with the full range of our activity.
UKCME provides grants (typically £5000) to individual academics wishing to develop, implement and evaluate new approaches to their teaching. Since 2001, Teaching Development Grants have funded 58 projects, and 27 institutions and organizations have benefited from this scheme. A number of projects initially funded through this scheme have developed further so as to be incorporated under the more comprehensive and wide-ranging Supported Change Programme.
The Teaching Development Grants have addressed Learning and Teaching projects in four broad areas:
We are currently undertaking a historic review and analysis of the Teaching Development Grants Scheme as part of the Centre’s continuing evaluation process.
Each year we hold a number of national workshops on key themes in materials education. These workshops have addressed a diverse range of subjects including Teaching Materials Using Problem Based Learning, Enhancing Creativity in Science and Engineering, Ethical Materials Selection and Effective Schools Liaison.
We hold an annual Recently Appointed Lecturers Course (2-day residential) that introduces new Materials lecturers to various teaching and assessment methods as well as issues such as course design, planning learning outcomes and how to evaluate their teaching.
We also hold an annual Student Representatives Course (2-day residential) for students who serve on staff-student committees. The aim of this course is to give students an insight into the world of learning and teaching from the lecturer’s perspective, and to help them develop personal skills that equip them to better represent their peers and provide more useful feedback to staff.
We co-host two biannual conferences on learning, teaching and assessment: the Science Learning and Teaching Conference (in partnership with the subject centres for Physical Science and Bioscience); and the Innovation and Good Practice in Engineering Education Conference (in partnership with the subject centre for Engineering). These are held on alternate years with the next Science conference in June 2009 and the next Engineering conference in July 2010.
UKCME is working to raise public awareness of the discipline of Materials Science and to promote it as an attractive option for study. Examples of our activity include:
We collaborate with a wide range of organisations within the HE sector to develop approaches and resources to help departments address issues such as:
