My Teaching
I have an interest teaching Public Health and have recently completed my Postgraduate Award in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. Below, I outline my teaching responsibilites to date at the University of Warwick.
MSc Professional Project Supervision
I currently supervise two students undertaking their professional projects on the topic of effectiveness, acceptability and feasibility of food choice architecture interventions for dietary behavioral change in school settings (systematic reviews).
Undergraduate Research Support Scheme Mentor Student Careers and Skills As a student mentor, I provided online support to a group of 25 undergraduate researchers undertaking a funded summer research project across a range of fields and disciplines. My role was to provide support in achieving key milestones, including producing a poster and an abstract, and to provide constructive feedback to students on their projects and reflective research diaries.
ESRC Seminar Series: Complexity Pedagogy
Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies (CIM)
This seminar brought together a group of individuals across multiple disciplines to produce a group-based book on the pedagogy of complexity. We considered, from a complexity perspective, what is it about the way science and social science is taught that concerns, frustrates or worries us the most; as well as what we think students should learn about complexity. Based on the Book Sprint method, we worked as a collaborative to establish a structure and consider the content for a book about complexity that we would want our students to read. I attended this group to provide a health sciences perspective, and to help consider the book from both a teacher and postgraduate student perspective. The seminar has prompted me to explore further the concepts of complexity and how they apply to the health sciences.
Engaging postgraduate students in mixed methods: The use of a novel activity to teach data integration and synthesis
Institute for Advanced Teaching and Learning (IATL)
I worked as a teaching assistant for an IATL-funded project for the development and delivery of a mixed methods teaching session to postgraduate Health Sciences students, led by Dr Rebecca Johnson and Professor Frances Griffiths. The aim of the project was to foster students' learning of the concepts and techniques of synthesising research of different types. We used an Open Space Learning (OSL) activity to help meet this aim: OSL is a pedagogical technique which aims promote collaborative and active learning using challenging topics and tactile, memorable experiences in open spaces. The evaluation suggests that the session met its objectives in creating an active, collaborative and memorable learning experience and in bringing about transformed perspectives and understandings of mixed methods as a discipline. OSL proved an appropriate and valuable tool for helping postgraduate Health Science students to negotiate difficult threshold concepts of mixed methods synthesis. A full evaluation report can be found on the IATL webpages.
I have facilitated a number of sessions to Medical Students, including: 1) very brief interventions for alcohol reduction and smoking cessation; 2) on the concepts of prevalence, incidence and confidence intervals; and 3) health needs assessments. The sessions were designed for students to apply and practice skills for future clinical practice.
Case-based learning (CBL) is a learner-centred, inquiry-based method of teaching and learning. The aim is for students share knowledge and experience, develop their problem solving and team working skills, and become self-directed, reflective learners. Students work in small groups which they run themselves, with a nominated Chair and Scribe, and work through a medical ‘case’ over the space of several weeks. I worked as a CBL facilitator to oversee a small group, my role being to guide the group (not to teach), encourage effective collaborative working and ensure students were on track to meet the learning objectives set out by the case.
I teach on the MSc module Mixed Methods for Health Research module, with topics including Visual Methods in Mixed Methods Research and Real Life Example of a Sequential Design. I was part of the teaching team for the module Obesity and Weight Management in Diabetes in April 2016, delivering a lecture and practical session on the identification of obesity to an audience of postgraduate health professionals. I have also supported the assessment and feedback of postgraduate students attending the module Issues in Public Health. The coursework required students to develop an action plan for tackling inequalities in health in a specific area, including the costs and evaluation plan; and to write a press release to publicise the project.