The Meaning of Excellence in Learning and Teaching to Students
About this Project
This project built on the work of the Teaching Recognition and Reward Learning Circle and the 2021 WIHEA Masterclass celebrating everyday excellence in teaching and learning. The project adopted a mixed methods approach. A short survey was sent to UG and PGT students from a range of departments on what excellence means to them. The results guided the development of semi-structured questions that were posed in two follow-up student focus groups; these questions were co-created with students, who facilitated the focus groups to encourage open discussion. These results will enable production of a resource inclusive of student perceptions, themes and examples of excellence, for the evaluation and development of pedagogic practice, awards and building promotion cases.
Project Aims
- Promote the student voice to ensure learning and teaching excellence is recognised in a meaningful way for students
- Raise awareness of student perceptions, themes and examples of excellence in learning and teaching for academic departments
- Enable departments to signpost staff (and students) promoting a wider embedment of excellence at curriculum level (e.g., review of existing modules, design of new modules), fostering a positive impact on the student learning experience and programme objectives
- Demonstrate applicability of such pedagogies to all different learning environments and disciplines for positively impacting overall student experience
- Have relevance to the Warwick Awards for Teaching and Excellence (WATE) process to ensure the student voice is captured within a post pandemic environment
Project Impact
The outcomes of the project will provide resources to allow Departments to evaluate and further develop excellence in learning and teaching, inclusive of student views and experiences, building off the data collected in the focus groups and surveys. This will not only positively impact student experience within the learning and teaching environment, feeding into the WATE awards, but also provide a source of support for building future promotion cases for staff themselves. This project will provide university management and academics across the university with greater insight as to what students value in their university teaching and learning experience. The results will also be disseminated through conference presentations and a pedagogy research paper, reflecting the partnership between academics and students through timely research.
You can read the focus group and survey data here:
Project Lead
Dr Claudie Fox
Psychology
Project Co-Lead
Dr Martyn Parker
Statistics
Staff Collaborators
- Dr Lydia Plath, History
- Dr Nicholas Jackson, Economics/Mathematics
- Dr Lory Barile, Economics
- Prof. Caroline Elliot, Economics
- Dr Daniel Franklin, Life Sciences
Student Collaborators
- Adam Wells, Psychology
- Gema Mistry, Statistics