Reinvention Centre - Undergraduate Research-based learning
The bid (worth £3.3 million) was for a project to establish a Reinvention Centre for Undergraduate Research led by Dr Mike Neary of the Department of Sociology in partnership with the School of the Built Environment at Oxford Brookes University.
The purpose of CETLs is to promote excellence across all subjects and aspects of teaching and learning in Higher Education. Funding 74 CETLs to the amount £315 million over five years from 2005-06 to 2009-10, the CETLs represent HEFCE's largest ever single funding initiative in teaching and learning.
The Centre's purpose is focused around developing, consolidating and enhancing research-based learning within the undergraduate curriculum.
The Centre:
- Promotes new methods in teaching and learning with a focus on research-based learning
- Redesigns the spaces in which students learn
- Funds undergraduates to carry out research (£1,500)
- Funds academics to develop research-based teaching (£10,000)
As part of the initiative the Reinvention Centre has £35,000 of funding to award to Warwick staff for research-based learning projects and £5000 to award to students. Matching sums are available for Oxford Brookes staff and students.
At the launch event four speakers will explain the Centre's aims and work:
- Professor Michael Whitby, Pro Vice-Chancellor for Teaching and Learning
- Dr Mike Neary, Reinvention Centre Director
- Clive Robertson, Head of Learning and Teaching Development, Oxford Brookes University
- Marion Temple, Reinvention Centre Deputy Director
If you would like to attend please email reinvention@warwick.ac.uk
This focus on research is not simply a matter of the way in which a lecturer's research informs their teaching; but, rather, on a much broader appreciation of the relationship between teaching and research.
At the core of this broader approach to the relationship between undergraduate teaching and research is the understanding that undergraduate learning is enhanced through active engagement in their own research projects, in collaboration with other students and their teachers. It is expected that these research projects will take place at times other than the end of the degree programme.
Academic colleagues across the two universities will be encouraged to bid for Reinvention Fellowships (£10,000) to develop their teaching in ways that correspond to the aims and purposes of the Reinvention Centre.
Student research will be further enhanced through curricula redesign to include an expansion in the number of modules across the faculties within which there are undergraduate research opportunities, particularly in the second year, or part-time equivalent. As well as innovation within modules the Reinvention Centre hopes to increase extra-curricula research opportunities, research scholarships, accreditation for research skills, student exchanges and joint ventures with outside organisations.
Initially focusing on the collaborating departments, the Reinvention Centre's work will be extended into other departments within the two universities over the lifespan of the CETL. As the Centre is working across departments a key issue is the way in which undergraduate research differs in different disciplines.
For more information see http://www.warwick.ac.uk/go/reinvention