Dr Elisabeth Rushworth, Dr Catherine Cropper and Dr Helen Vaughan received their award at the Merchant Taylors’ Hall in London.
A team from the University’s Central Teaching Laboratory has been awarded a Higher Education Academy’s (HEA) Collaborative Award for Teaching Excellence (CATE).
The new CATE award, being piloted this year, recognises teaching excellence by teams at higher education providers. The collaborative award reflects the key role that teamwork has in promoting student success through learning and teaching. The CTL were announced as winners at a ceremony held at the Merchant Taylors’ Hall, London. At the same ceremony, Dr Susanne Voelkel also received her National Teaching Fellowship award.
The CTL comprises Geologist Dr Elisabeth Rushworth with scholarship interests in internationalisation and interdisciplinary team work, Dr Helen Vaughan, a physicist with interests in embedding employability skills through in-curriculum and co-curricular learning experience and Dr Catherine Cropper, a chemist who specialises in digital laboratories and engaging parents and children in STEM.
Impact across the University
HEA judged the CTL to have had impact on departments across the university, supporting new pedagogies in large group teaching, improved delivery of employability skills and the introduction of cross disciplinary modules and multi-disciplinary dissertation projects.
Together they have developed and embedded the collaborative “Educational Broker Model” at Faculty level. As educational brokers they work with academic and technical staff in discipline specific departments to develop and support teaching and learning in CTL.
Fifteen institutions were shortlisted for the award. Six of these institutions were awarded grants of £15,000 to disseminate their learning, including the University of Liverpool.
Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, Professor Gavin Brown said: “I would like to congratulate the CTL team on their award which is a great example of teaching excellence at the University. Their work has given students the opportunity to work with peers from other disciplines, allowing them to develop the necessary skills to find meaningful employment in the modern STEM world.”
“I would also like to congratulate Dr Susan Voelkel on formally receiving her Fellowship Award recognising the positive impact she has had on the quality of Life Sciences teaching at Liverpool.”
For further information on the Collaborative Awards for Teaching Excellence go to: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/cate-2016