Working in Creative Partnership with Students to Co-Produce Neuroanatomy e-Learning Resources in a New Era of Blended Learning

Anatomists are well placed to tackle the transition from face-to-face to blended learning approaches as a result of the rapidly forced changes brought about by Covid-19. The subject is extremely visual and has, therefore, previously been a target for the development of technology-enhanced learning initiatives over the last ten years. Today's students have come to expect the integration of technology in the classroom and remotely. They adjust quickly to the innovative use of new applications and software and have begun to integrate it within their own workflow for note taking and study aids. Given the intense drive toward blended deliveries of anatomy as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, it is easy to picture how the benefits of working in partnership with students (in order to achieve many of these aims) would be possible, particularly in difficult subjects like neuroanatomy. In doing so, it provides anatomists with new opportunities to engage students in a way that aligns well with best practice frameworks for engaging students through partnership. The current United Kingdom guidelines set out by Advance HE (a professional membership organization for promoting excellence in higher education) strongly encourages the higher education community to seek out appropriate academic contexts where a balance of power can be struck between staff and student to create a community of practice. If such an approach can be fully embraced by anatomists, a strong argument can be made for seizing the opportunity to optimize the benefits of student partnership work in this discipline.     

Making it all work: the engineering graduate of the future,a UK perspective

High skills are today seen as being of vital importance to economies, industries, companies and individuals. The engineering industry is no exception and the graduate engineer has a key position in this regard. In the research reported in this paper, the authors use in-depth interviews with industry experts to investigate the provision of undergraduate engineering education in the UK. The current and future skill needs of industry are examined. A typology of future engineering roles and their requisite attributes is proposed. Implications for undergraduate engineering are also discussed.     

A Practical Way of Structuring Teaching for Learning

Over recent years there has been a convergence of ideas about how students learn. This is useful information for developing teaching methods that make effective learning more likely. An attempt to put this into practice in an introductory education subject is described in detail. It involved making decisions about issues that are common to different approaches to teaching in higher education. These included the way activities were structured, how experiences were used, the sorts of choices students could exercise and how learning was distributed. It is argued that learning in higher education depends on the balance that is struck in terms of these and related decisions.     

Applicable Adaptive Testing Models for School Teachers

Small‐ and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) play an important role in creating a dynamic and successful European economy. Time‐poor managers in these organisations generally have fewer opportunities for training and development than their counterparts in larger organisations. As a result, different requirements are placed on training. The aim of this study was to test the principles of action learning in a virtual environment. The action‐learning programme was based on virtual working but did also involve face‐to‐face workshops, thus providing a blended approach. The project was designed to be “evaluation‐led”, with evaluation progressing alongside the project from design to finalisation. The focus of this paper is on how the evaluation‐led approach unfolded. To this end, we start by explaining our research approach, we then move on to an analysis of the project to conclude with a discussion of the findings and of the lessons learnt. We conclude by highlighting some further research needs.