by Dr Julie Pepper and Dr Katherine Ashbullby The Top Banana network, which started thanks to an Exeter Education Incubator Discovery Grant, aims to share best practice at Exeter University to promote positive maths self-concept and prevent maths anxiety. It has a Microsoft Teams channel and 20 members (new members still welcome, please email me – j.s.a.pepper@exeter.ac.uk). The aim is to use the network to promote best practice and act as a catalyst for more research. Several of the network members are actively researching the topic. For example, Dr Andrea Giachino is working on an Education ..read more

by Pavel Loginovic and Shihan Salihu We are Pavel and Shihan, two members of the Melanin Matters Team. Melanin Matters is a group composed of 4 Medical Students at the University of Exeter that aims to bridge the diversity knowledge gap existing in our medical curriculum. Everything started when we went to the Respect Festival 2022 held at Belmont Park alongside 5 other medical students to raise awareness of the presentation of skin conditions across different skin tones to the public. On that occasion, we had the opportunity to interact with over 500 people, thanks to posters we made and anat ..read more

By Dr Julie Pepper Thank you for reading my first ever go at a blog post! While my dad was an accountant and liked maths, I grew up knowing my mum found maths “scary.” I think her experiences at school gave her a low maths self-concept as well as maths anxiety. Even though I was in the middle set in year 8 at school, I never considered that maths wasn’t for me as my parents instilled in me a belief that it was. So where does the name “Top Banana” come from? I went to a sixth form where the A level maths class all dropped out, but I was so lucky as my amazing maths teacher, called Jane Steele ..read more

by Dr Martin Robson, Senior Lecturer in Strategic Studies Simulated exercises are a proven pedagogical tool to provide students with a ‘sandpit’ to test concepts and theories in a simulated real-world context for the purpose of pedagogical progression, personal training and the reinforcement of skills and behaviours. Simulations involve participants to collaborate in teams, deploying a set of skills and behaviours to manage multiple concurrent time sensitive tasks. Simulations provide high quality employability skills, replicating some of the tasks included in UK Civil Service Assessment Centr ..read more

By Kerry Deacon, Project Manager of the Exeter Education Incubator at the University of Exeter Generative AI in Higher Education Generative AI tools such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 are changing the landscape in higher education. As with any new emerging technologies, there are opportunities to explore and challenges to overcome. Generative AI tools have the potential to transform teaching and learning by allowing for the automation of many forms of original content creation.  Students and educators now face a difficult question: how do we mitigate the risks AI poses to education and assessment ..read more

By Nicky Thomas The “Graduate skills to Thrive” framework, affectionately has been researched and developed by Nicky Thomas, working with colleagues in the University of Exeter Business School (UEBS) and Student Employability & Academic Success team (SEAS). As a Business School we know how important professional SKILLS are to a student’s chances of career success.  This is why we are launching and embedding the GRADUATE SKILLS to THRIVE framework into Business School academic modules so that students can identify, practice and reflect on the skills sets we know are important for their ..read more

By Dr Tamsin Kilner Planning My Education Incubator Project So, I began thinking about my Incubator Discovery project in the following terms: ‘The literature indicates that neurodiverse students face greater challenges in HE, both in terms of engagement in learning and retention (see for example Clouder et al. 2020). They are also at greater risk of mental health and wellbeing challenges. This facilitated workshop will bring together colleagues with a range of experience of Universal Design Learning (UDL), together with student partners from across the institution, to explore ways to ..read more

by Brian Rappert How can wonder be brought into education?  This question was central to my Education Incubator Discovery grant.  As background, as part of a study into acquiring embodied skills, over the last five years I have learnt to perform as an entertainment magician. Within this work I have sought to devise public shows and campus-based sessions that combine the discussion of academic ideas with magical effects.  One difficulty of devising such events is understanding how best to sequence and incorporate magic effects in order to harness their affective and cognitive imp ..read more

by Leila Dawney, Sharon Strawbridge, Annabel Watson, Senior Academic Conduct Officers. It has been an unhappy revelation to many of us working in student cases and academic conduct that a disproportionate number of the students that we see come from overseas. Sometimes the meetings that we have with students are emotionally challenging. We see how students’ misunderstandings of academic conventions in UK universities, or their cultural understandings and beliefs about how and when to seek help, can lead their academic practice to be referred to formal disciplinary pathways, when some early int ..read more

by Sophie Houghton, Digital Learning Developer As part of a new Education Incubator project, I’d like to introduce the University of Exeter’s Digital Maker Space (DMS). I’m Sophie, and I’m the Digital Learning Developer for Renewable Energy. I’m working in a team alongside Barrie Cooper, Pierre de Brosses, Valentin Kozsla, Henry Ukomah and Sai Mahima Kshetragna, and we will be attempting to develop new and exciting learning resources using a variety of technologies that can be found in Exeter University’s Digital Maker Spaces. We will also be working alongside three Student Project Coordinator ..read more