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Department of Economics

Warwick Economics staff recognised for teaching and tutoring excellence

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Warwick Economics staff recognised for teaching and tutoring excellence

Thursday 17 Jun 2021

We are delighted to announce that four academic staff from the Department of Economics have been recognised for their achievements in the 2021 Warwick Awards for Teaching Excellence and 2021 Warwick Awards for Personal Tutoring Excellence.

Warwick Awards for Teaching Excellence (WATE) 2021

Warwick Awards for Personal Tutoring Excellence 2021

The short list of nominations for excellence in teaching 2020/21 in the Department of Economics also included:

We congratulate all winners and nominees for being recognised for excellence in teaching and wish them further successes in their teaching practice.

Award Winner Profiles

Find out more below from each of the winners about their individual contributions and achievements.

Amira Elasra

I am a Senior Tutor and Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Economics and the Director of Pastoral Support leading a group of Year Tutors and all the Personal Tutors within the department

In this role, I have shown commitment to personal tutoring and supporting students through the development of new departmental mitigating circumstances webpages, tailoring personal tutor meeting forms to each cohort and setting workload models for Year Tutors. I have been dedicated to student wellbeing and introduced in collaboration with the pastoral team daily pastoral drop-in sessions and the design of a student welfare survey. These contributions have improved the department’s NSS scores for academic support provision. This commitment has led to my role in informing departmental decision making on academic and pastoral support provision.

I am proud and grateful for receiving the Warwick excellence award for personal tutors. Attending to students’ pastoral needs is a big challenge and a duty for us to allow students to have the best student experience they can get at Warwick. I am very grateful for the support and cooperation of my colleagues to make this happen.
Andrew Brendon-Penn

I am a Warwick graduate and a Teaching Fellow in the Mathematics Institute and a Specialist Mentor with Disability Services. I have a passion for student wellbeing and for technology.

My initial scepticism of online teaching has been replaced by optimism. Through necessity and with a steep learning curve, it has provided invaluable opportunity for experimentation and innovation as I created my department’s first two fully online modules. Listening to students has shaped my practice and has helped me to find the technological solutions to keep a human touch in my teaching.

I feel honoured to be amongst the winners of the 2021 WATE Awards. I love mathematics and teaching, and I hope to impart some of my passion for mathematics on those I teach. This year has been a challenge with a steep learning curve as we have all had to adapt quickly to online delivery, but the Warwick community is supportive and creative, and so together we could find solutions and opportunities in online platforms that we hadn’t previously considered. I’d like to thank my colleagues and my students for their support in shaping my teaching practice. Their feedback and encouragement have been invaluable as I have experimented with new techniques and technologies. I’m delighted to receive this award and that my efforts have made a difference to the student learning experience at Warwick in an extraordinary year.

Lory Barile

I am an Associate Professor (T-Focussed) in Economics, Fellow of the HEA and Associate of The Economics Network (EN). I am Director of Graduate Studies (Taught Degrees), and among other responsibilities, within the Economics Department, I am also WP Co-ordinator and Co-chair of the Students’ Progression Working Group.

Over the summer 2020, I played a key role within the Economics Department to help transition to a blended learning approach, creating written resources and recommendations for colleagues and students to assist them moving to online T&L delivery. During the pandemic, I also developed a ‘virtual’ Departmental study buddy scheme to offer students with more chances to work with their peers and interact and socialise with others from their Programmes. Linked to the work conducted over the summer 2020, I am currently leading on an IATL funded pedagogic research project aimed at understanding students’ engagement with online resources pre/post COVID-19.

I am delighted to be one of the recipients of the 2021 WATE awards. It’s been an extraordinary year, full of challenges but also opportunities to learn and acquire new teaching skills. We all have worked extremely hard to develop and deliver blended learning and I’m very pleased to be recognised for my individual contribution to the collective effort to achieve excellence in teaching during challenging times.
Stefania Paredes Fuentes

I am an Economics Educator working on increasing diversity in Economics and creating more inclusive learning environments that embrace this diversity. At Warwick, I co-organise the Warwick Anti-Racist Pedagogy Forum. In the UK, I am Diversity Champion of the Royal Economic Society and sits in the Economics Network’s Executive Board.

COVID19 challenged every aspect of our work. My goal this year was to rethink academic spaces in a way that students could engage and feel part of the academic community despite the challenge we all (students and staff) may encounter. In order to support students and in the hope that all students had a fair chance to do well in my courses, I created teaching resources that embedded three principles: engagement, flexibility and collaboration. Using Teams, I developed learning communities that fostered students’ sense of belonging. I learnt that teaching with empathy adds value to my work as a teacher.

I am honoured to be recognised for my work through a WATE award. I feel particularly privileged that the WATE nomination came from students themselves. It has been an extraordinary and challenging year in which staff and students have both been forced to adapt to new ways of teaching and learning. To see the positive results of my efforts in creating inclusive learning environments in such a hard year, is already a great recognition. While I am humbled to be acknowledged for the efforts I personally made, there are innumerable staff and students who work tirelessly to make the University become a more diverse and inclusive place, and who have not received an award. I would dedicate this WATE to them for all their hard work.