Overview
Role responsibilities
Based within the University’s Education Fellowships Team, I am a Senior Lecturer and lead the AdvanceHE-accredited Associate Fellowship Programme and Fellow Development Scheme (D1). I take lead responsibility for the design and delivery of both pathways, including curriculum development, facilitating workshops, programme evaluation and ongoing development, in collaboration with other members of the team. As part of this role, I am also involved in a range of projects and groups supporting postgraduate students in the development of their teaching, as outlined below.
Key work/specialisms
- Team lead for Associate Fellowship Programme and Fellow Development Scheme (D1)
- Co-founder and current co-lead of the University’s World Café and Teaching Clinic events, in collaboration with Dr Ceri Morris
- Founder and current lead of the ‘Introduction to Teaching and Supporting Learning’ (Launchpad) workshops for postgraduate tutors across the University
- Member of the Doctoral Academy Operations group supporting postgraduate students in developing teaching skills
- Leader of the former AHSS ‘Learning to Teach’ programme supporting PhD students with teaching responsibilities (2014-2022)
Biography
My Higher Education career began in 2010 as a Postgraduate Tutor in the School of English, Communication and Philosophy at Cardiff University. Here I began developing my approach to teaching and supporting student learning in undergraduate seminars, enhancing my practice with the support of the School’s ‘Learning to Teach’ CPD programme. In 2013, I worked as an Associate Lecturer at the University of the West of England (UWE) Bristol. It was in this role that I discovered the value of cultural artefacts – music, images, video, memes and metaphors – as memorable and relatable frames of reference in teaching.
In December 2014 I returned to Cardiff, taking over as the Learning to Teach programme lead. In 2017, following a period of extensive development and renaissance under my leadership, the programme was made available to all postgraduate tutors across the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. In 2020 I led the design and development of the new Associate Fellowship Programme and Fellow Development Scheme (D1) as part of the University’s Education Fellowship Framework. From April 2021, I moved to a full-time role in the Learning and Teaching Academy, where I am now the team lead for Associate Fellowship.
I have a developing educational research profile and currently have a number of projects in progress. My research interest is predominantly the use of cultural artefacts – music, images, video, memes and metaphors – as memorable and relatable frames of reference in teaching. I am currently involved in a cross-institutional project exploring the wide variety of metaphors used by teachers in Higher Education to conceptualise their personal teaching philosophy.