AWARDS
Lecturers Recognised for Outstanding Work
She presented her findings on the flipped classroom approach as part of CETL’s Teaching and Learning Week that was held 7-10 June. Lecturer in Management Sonia Mahon said she was “surprised and delighted” to be recognised by CETL. She explained that her team had to pivot quickly over the last two years in order to continue to ensure the smooth delivery of classes to the students. As part of Teaching and Learning Week , she presented the findings of her research into why students decided to come to campus to write their assessments during the pandemic. “The assessments for Social Sciences were virtual but proctored by the Responder software. Some students opted, despite their unease of coming out of their bubble, to come to campus to write their assessment rather than being remote. So about 12 percent of students in semester one in [the] class and about eight percent of the students in semester two [in the] class chose to come to campus. “Most students identified technical issues. There were three themes that came out of the research, and the most prevalent theme was technical issues that were issues with their infrastructure. In semester two, it still remained the dominant feature but was followed closely by the attitudinal theme. Many students were unwilling to install the software on their systems and preferred to come to campus to use the resources. “So the three themes were captured under technical, environmental and attitudinal,” Mahon stated. She also praised CETL for providing a support system for teaching staff. l
Sonia Mahon Lecturer in Management The UWI, Cave Hill Campus
Dr. Leah Garner-O’Neale Lecturer in Chemistry The UWI, Cave Hill Campus
T wo lecturers at The UWI, Cave Hill Campus have been recognised for their outstanding work during the last academic year by the Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) . Lecturer in Chemistry in the Department of Biological and Chemical Sciences Dr. Leah Garner-O’Neale and Lecturer in Management Sonia Mahon received the CETL Partner Award during the centre’s Teaching and Learning Week for going beyond the call of duty to work in partnership with CETL at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Garner-O’Neale said while she did not expect it, she was honoured to be recognised: “The truth is that I can’t say that I have done anything extra. I just think that I do what is required. Teaching is something that I am passionate about; I am passionate about seeing my students succeed,” she said.
The chemistry lecturer explained that she adopted the flipped classroom approach to ensure that her students received the best instruction. “Students go to a classroom for a lecture; that’s the time they spend with the teacher. And they take notes and then they go away from the class, and they try to understand what they had just been exposed to. Then the teacher might give them some tutorial questions to help cement it, and then later down, they get an exam to test whether or not they understood the concept. So being in the lecture is a passive undertaking; passive in the sense that all they’re doing is sitting down and listening. “But … in the flipped classroom approach, what happens is that the passive part of it is done at home. So I produced a set of videos for each content area, about five to ten minutes each. And they were able to go through those videos at home at any point in time that they thought most appropriate,” she stated.
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