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Opening slide of Teaching Excellence awards ceremony

2017 Results

The Division is pleased to announce the recipients of the 2017 Teaching Excellence Awards:

Major Educator

Dr Denis O'Leary -  in recognition of his singular contribution to developing the next generation of clinical teachers in Oxford.  With the imminent demise of the Diploma in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, Dr O'Leary has developed and led the organisation of the Developing Learning and Teaching (DLT) Course for Medical Educators. Amongst other initiatives, and in conjunction with the Associate Dean for Postgraduate Medical Education, he has formed the Oxford University Medical Education Fellows (OUMEF), a group of qualified doctors in training who work together, with the support of Oxford University, to promote, coordinate and quality-assure excellence in the medical education of students and doctors. He also organised a ‘Buddy Scheme’ which links every junior Foundation doctor with those at a more senior ‘registrar’ grade on a one-to-one basis.

Excellent Teacher

Associate Professor Kristine Krug - for  designing and organising the implementation of a new practical class especially for the Biomedical Sciences course which has involved a large amount of work and personal time commitment. This effort was recognised by entire cohorts of year 1 and year 2 students in their feedback and evidenced in their nomination of Prof Krug for the Excellent Teacher Award.

Professor Matthew Rushworth - for huge personal commitment put into organisation and delivery of  high quality lectures, classes and tutorials to first- and second-year students following the Biomedical Sciences programme and for organisation of an option available to second-year students, as continuously evidenced in feedback of entire cohorts of year 1 and year 2 students.

Early Career Excellent Teacher

Dr Jennifer Carter - for  involvement in the on-going development and delivery of the MSc Global Health Science course, and for being a devoted teacher who knows how to communicate statistics to students, many of whom come with a fear of numbers, and yet are expected to excel in an MSc course designed to give intensive training in epidemiology and statistics.  Her passionate teaching style and her excellent consolidation sessions have been recognised and praised by students as being ‘indispensable’ and 'the star of the course'.

Dr John L. Kiappes - for contributions made to the organic lecture course and practical which allowed the Department to provide these courses to students internally, rather than via other departments. The new chemistry practical might now be better described as medicinal chemistry, rather than simply as organic.  The organic lectures Dr Kiappes has given incorporate biological examples throughout that contextualise the material for students, making the information itself and its relevance clearer. In their feedback students speak not only of his ability to teach, but also to create a good environment in which to learn.  He has been highly praised for skills and knowledge as well as being engaging, helpful and approachable.

Commendation

Commendations for sustained excellence and commitment as evidenced by individual student feedback were awarded to the following previous recipients of Teaching Excellence Awards or Commendations:

Associate Professor Helen Christian

Associate Professor Paul Fairchild

Professor Chris Norbury

Professor Trevor Sharp

Associate Professor Pawel Swietach

Associate Professor Alison Woollard

 

Further (first -time) Commendations were awarded to:

Dr Zoi Alexopoulou - for showing a clear passion for teaching (through application of innovative methods, self-evaluation, continuous training) and making it as inclusive as possible for those with disabilities by adjusting teaching style to individual needs of a student.

Professor Nigel Emptage - for an excellent contribution by delivering teaching (through lectures and seminars) of the highest quality to students studying the Advanced Option in Neuroscience and sustained record of excellence and commitment (as evidenced by students who voted Prof Emptage ‘FHS teacher of the fortnight’ for the fourth 2-week period of the FHS / Part II course).

Dr Damian Tyler - for very successful development, organisation and implementation of a new 2-week theme (Metabolism) within the Advanced Option in cardiovascular, renal and respiratory biology for third-year Pre-clinical and Biomedical Sciences students who found Dr Tyler's teaching enjoyable, engaging, clear and of highest quality.

 

Learning Support

Mrs Felicity Bennett - for continuous adaptability and willingness to take on new tasks (examples include analysis of formative examination results and provision of critically useful insights, based on extensive experience,  to the course teaching and assessment committee aiming to update and refresh the course) and especially for exceptional manifestation of commitment by taking on a workload and responsibility significantly beyond the expectations of her grade and job description after the retirement of a key member of staff.

Projects

Professor Brian Angus (Journal Club for Foundation Year Trainees and Final Year Medical Students) - This project is a part of wider vision to encourage integration of the educational opportunities available to final year medical undergraduate students and foundation year trainees. The primary aim is a reciprocal arrangement whereby final year medical students are able to attend foundation trainee teaching events and foundation trainees may benefit from educational events run for the final year medical students. Journal club will provide an official platform for this endeavour.

Dr Nicola Barclay (Enhancing Online Teaching Methods in the Oxford Online Programme in Sleep Medicine) - This project proposes to exceed student expectations in two areas:  online discussion groups (it will assess suitability of platform 'Zoom'), and the quality of recorded lecture material (it will investigate pros and cons of two recording methods - live lecture recording versus the chroma-key technique).

Read more about the Sleep Medicine project

Dr Paul Dennis and Professor Chris Pugh (Student-led Review of the Graduate-Entry Core Syllabus) - The project will provide funds for five graduate-entry students to review sections of the core syllabus in order to make it more useful to students attending Graduate-Entry Medical Course.

Dr Deborah Hay (Pilot assessment of interactive in-lecture question technology in the Laboratory Medicine Course) - The award will enable the Laboratory Medicine Course team to make an informed decision about future investment in interactive in-lecture technology. Laboratory Medicine Course is a mandatory ten-week course for fourth year medical students which currently has a format of didactic lectures  The aim of the project is to evaluate the utility of two technologies for permitting real-time in-lecture interactive questions, Socrative and MeeToo, in terms of benefit to students, range of features and ease of use.

Associate Professor Leanne Hodson and Professor Marella De Bruijn (Confident Personal Impact Training for Women: a pilot study) - This award will enable piloting of a 2-day workshop around the theme of confident personal impact training, for a number female DPhil students who would have passed transfer of status. The aim of the project is to help female DPhil students (who are believed to be less confident than male ones) build up confidence in personal impact and develop a skill set to aid successful transition from DPhil student to postdoctoral scientist (and beyond) in order to attempt address the gender disparity gap that seems to be increasing across the academia with seniority.

Professor Anton van den Merwe (How to do science – Discussion groups on experimental design and reproducibility for the MRC DTP) - Following the award of the MRC DTP funding it has become clear that there is a need for more cohort building activities to bring MRC funded students together on a regular basis. This award will fund one of the strongly supported proposals, namely establishment of discussion groups for each cohort of MRC funded students, with initial sessions around such critical areas as research integrity/reproducibility and experimental design.

Dr Denis O'Leary (Near-Peer Teaching Activities between OUH Foundation Doctors and University of Oxford Clinical Medical Students) - This award will enable investigation  of near-peer teaching (NPT) between Foundation Year Doctors employed at OUH hospitals and medical students at the University of Oxford with the longer-term objective of developing a framework for assessing and improving the teaching quality provided by Foundation Doctors at OUH.

 

Congratulations to all of the awardees.