IATL hosted a pedagogic workshop for the HEFCE-funded project on Innovative Food Systems Teaching and Learning (IFSTAL) on Monday 18 April 2016 for colleagues from five higher education institutions (the Universities of Oxford, Reading, Warwick, City and the Leverhulme Centre for Integrative Research on Agriculture and Health (LCIRAH), which is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the Royal Veterinary College (RVC), the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). Read more about IFSTAL at Warwick.

IFSTAL aims to:

1. Establish a pioneering consortium of universities to deliver collaborative training and capacity building in the holistic study of food systems.
2. Develop, implement and assess a new mode of teaching based on inter-university collaboration and exploiting the latest learning technologies.
3. Enhance student learning, insights, experiences and opportunities by offering a range of topics to set their specialist areas of study within a full food systems/food security context.
4. Create a cohort of Masters and PhD graduates equipped to address food systems challenges by combining a deep understanding of their specialism with critical and innovative thinking of the broader social, economic and environmental context.

IATL were invited to support IFSTAL’s teaching and learning aims, with a specific focus on best practice in interdisciplinary education. As part of the day we demonstrated three innovative practices developed at Warwick: a) open-space learning, b) portal pedagogy and c) interdisciplinary modules.

One of the participants commented that: ‘I felt the day had been structured incredibly well to help us understand our programme and ways we might have of improving what we offer our students. The learning spaces were excellent and the workshop leaders were very skilled at facilitating our discussion and helping us navigate through some of the options for change. The content was very relevant to our needs.’

We very much look forward to continuing this collaboration. If you would like further information about this event or similar projects, please contact Dr Jonathan Heron: Jonathan dot Heron at warwick dot ac dot uk.