UK Centre for Materials Education
Working with you to enhance the student experience
Working with you to enhance the student experience
The UK Centre for Materials recently hosted a workshop highlighting three FDTL (Fund for the Development of Teaching and Learning) projects:
These three projects are aimed at encouraging innovation and stimulating developments in teaching and learning within the area of materials technology.
These projects are funded under phase three of FDTL, within the subject strand of the Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund (TQEF). This scheme also funds nine projects within the subject area of engineering. For full details of FDTL projects within all subject areas, see www.ncteam.ac.uk.
The three projects featured welcome involvement from members of the materials academic community. If you wish to find out more and have the opportunity to influence the future direction of these projects please contact the individual projects to express your interest.
Aim: "to disseminate and embed good practice in developing key skills in the curriculum and prepare students for future employment and lifelong learning."
The project, which is in the area of key skills, graduate employability and lifelong learning, has been running for 12 months.
To date we have carried out audits of key skills practice at the three partner institutions and at a number of others across the country. The ways in which key skills are developed and assessed has been sought and the student perspective has been obtained through questionnaires and focus groups. Collation and analysis of this information is currently underway.
|
The project is also well advanced in the development of a 'Staff Resource Pack on Key Skills', and 'Preparing for Work Placement Guides' for tutors, employers and students. A 'Student Progress File' is being developed and a number of institutions will be collaborating with the project to produce Case Studies' of good practice in key skills development and assessment. Resources produced will be placed on the project website: www.keynote-project.co.uk. |
David Allen - Keynote Project |
Aim: to build on recognised expertise in the use of Information Technology (IT) in enhancing student learning experiences and disseminate the techniques within the materials education community.
Project staff have visited all the collaborating institutions to discuss
their interests and prospective contributions, which will include participation
in the creation of an on-line micrograph library. This teaching resource,
which builds on the example of Manchester's 'Internet Microscope',
is going ahead in liaison with the MATTER project. Several students
will
work over the summer on the Cambridge Department's sets of metallographic
specimens and fracture surfaces to obtain high-quality digital images
to form the nucleus of the Library, for which additional items will be
imported from our partners.
|
|
Specification of the essential IT procedures that will underpin the project is well advanced, including the link with MATTER. All pages included within the project web site will be validated using Bobby, a web-based tool that analyses pages for their accessibility to people with disabilities. A short on-line tutorial incorporating video components has been created for evaluation by staff and students in the collaborating institutions. |
| Dr John Leake - DoITPoMS | See www.doitpoms.ac.uk for more information. |
Aim: to identify good practice in materials tutoring, and to engage and provide support for lecturers and tutors who are enthusiastic about improving their practice.
'Tutoring Materials' is a three-year project, which recently started in March 2001. Discussions have been held with partner institutions interested in developing a range of tutoring methods in materials, such as problem-based learning, video-conferencing, peer tutoring, on-line learning, group work with peer assessment, and personal skill development classes. Currently, the project team are establishing criteria for good practice in tutorials, for employability, accessibility, enhancing students' approaches to learning, and motivation for studying materials.
The project team will visit partner institutions, in order to explore tutoring methods and identify criteria for good practice. This will be conducted by discussions with students, by observing tutorial sessions, and meeting with lecturers and tutors. From the findings, booklets will be published for the UK materials community containing 'Case-studies in Materials Tutoring' and 'Guidelines for Best Practice', and an enthusiasts network will be established from the project consortium.
If you would like to become involved in the project consortium, and are interested in developing your own materials tutoring methods, please contact Dr Caroline Baillie (c.baillie@ic.ac.uk).
