External Examining: an Engineering Subject Centre guide.

This handbook was prepared for external examiners and for use in training workshops for newly appointed external examiners.

A module-based approach to foster and document the intercultural process before and during the residence abroad.

This article contributes to the debate on what form of preparation and support can enhance the intercultural student experience during the Year Abroad. It presents a credit-bearing and multi-modal module at a UK university designed to both prepare students prior to departure through a series of workshops and activities on an e-portfolio and help them engage in meta-reflection on intercultural issues during their stay. The presentation of the curricular components of the course and instances extracted from student blogs are contextualised within theoretical considerations on intercultural education and a holistic approach to student development. The longitudinal evolution of the module is presented in the context of an iterative approach leading to a cycle of revisions and amendments. With its pragmatic stance this article aims to address one of the concerns recently expressed about intercultural education, namely that although intercultural theories are suitably incorporated in the latest thinking on communicative competence, there is a lack of evidence-based practice.

‘Novice Teachers’ Views of an Introductory Workshop about Teaching in the Biosciences.

Seven regional networking events, aimed at supporting and developing ‘early stage’ novice university bioscience teachers were held across the UK. These workshops allowed 230 participants to reflect on teaching styles, learn about Higher Education Academy resources and discuss strategies to deal with a range of teaching situations. Post-event feedback was sought, and the results are presented in this paper. Feedback on the events was overwhelmingly positive, highlighting the need for such events to support the development of new teachers in higher education. Institutional training varies and these opportunities for sharing experiences, asking questions, networking and reflection on teaching practice were highly regarded. Most participants felt more confident about their teaching and believed that students were more directly engaged in their teaching after attending the events. Recommendations for support of this category of teacher include provision of discipline-specific events, opportunity for local area networking and support for the development of reflective practice in teaching and learning.

Using an Outdoor Learning Space to Teach Sustainability and Material Processes in HE product Design.

The world is facing environmental changes that are increasingly affecting how we think about manufacturing, the consumption of products and use of resources. Within the HE product design community, thinking and designing sustainability’ has evolved to become a natural part of the curriculum. Paradoxical as the rise in awareness of sustainability increases there is growing concern within HE product design of the loss of workshop facilities and as a consequence a demise in teaching traditional object-making skills and material experimentation. We suggest the loss of workshops and tangible ‘learning by making skills’ also creates a lost opportunity for a rich learning resource to address sustainable thinking, design and manufacture ‘praxis’ within HE design education. Furthermore, as learning spaces are frequently discussed in design research, there seems to be little focus on how the use of an outdoor environment might influence learning outcomes particularly with regard to material teaching and sustainability. This 'case study' of two jewellery workshops, used outdoor learning spaces to explore both its impact on learning outcomes and to introduce some key principles of sustainable working methodologies and practices. Academics and students mainly from Norway and Scotland collaborated on this international research project. Participants made models from disposable packaging materials, which were cast in tin, in the sand on a local beach, using found timber to create a heat source for melting the metal. This approach of using traditional making skills, materials and nature was found to be a relevant contribution to a sustainable discourse.