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Enabling student-engaged learning in a tutorial environment

Photo of Jim Beynon and Miriam Gifford
Jim Beynon and Miriam Gifford

Photo of Semina Ploumakis and Judith Brown
Semina Ploumakis and Judith Brown

A team of Life Sciences staff - Miriam Gifford, Jim Beynon (both pictured left), Kevin Moffat and Lorenzo Frigerio - was awarded a grant to run a pilot scheme in the use of iPads and apps to make undergraduate tutorial delivery more engaging and interactive.


Miriam Gifford is an Associate Professor in the School of Life Sciences. Her research aims to understand plant plasticity and how cells communicate to enable plants to respond to the environment.

Jim Beynon was Chair of Plant Systems Biology in the School of Life Sciences and Warwick Systems Biology. In his research group he studies plant-pathogen interactions and uses a combination of biological, mathematical and computational approaches to understand how plants cope with stress.

This IATL project was inspired by the way that the speed and diversity of computational applications has enabled Jim and Miriam to make novel discoveries in their research. Both of their research groups also heavily use apps and mobile technologies to analyse and communicate data. Life Sciences has a strong IT basis and we built on these skills in this project. Life Sciences educators, learners and technology developers came together to improve the experience of our students.


Semina Ploumakis and Judith Brown (both pictured left) were appointed to make some of our second-year research topic tutorials more interactive. They also worked with Rebecca Freeman and Parm Jootla to help deliver some exciting new tutorials. For any further information please email miriam dot gifford at warwick dot ac dot uk.


Final report