The range of projects that I have undertaken is extremely varied and I include four examples below to illustrate this variety.
Example 1. I worked with the College of Medicine and Dentistry at The University of Birmingham for 3 years to review, report on and design and delivery training to support their initiatives to develop the quality research supervision across the College.
The role –
- Successfully tendering for the work with the University
- Negotiating the extent of the brief and agreeing on a schedule or work and activities
- Conducting a desk-based review of processes and procedures
- Undertaking an extensive cycle of interviews with staff, students and managers
- Producing an Evaluation Report and Recommendations to Research Committee
- Designing and Delivery a suite of 12 workshops for all supervisors on Doctoral Supervision
- Evaluating and Reporting on the impact of the training to Research Committee
Evidence of Success – the initial programme of work did not include the training element but the College felt able to appoint me to lead this second phase of work being very satisfied with the quality of my initial report. The training cycle was considered to be ‘high risk’ as the College had many very experienced supervisors who could be offended by the request to attend ‘training’ – however, the sessions proved to be positive and constructive events with the tone of feedback being “So much more useful and enjoyable than I expected” – praise indeed.
“Kate has really helped us fast-forward our relaunch of doctoral supervision provision in our College of Medical and Dental Sciences”.
Corony Edwards, PFHEA
Example 2. The Royal College of Anaesthetists and The Faculty of Public Health both kindly invited me to join their training and examinations team to assist them as they reviewed and developed their professional examinations.
The role –
- Joining a team of experienced examiners and clinical leads to review the question setting style and approach.
- To provide external expertise on effective assessment design to complement the knowledge specialists on the team.
- To review and provide feedback on exam formats and questions
- With the Faculty of Public Health, I also ran a series of ‘question setting’ training events of clinical leads.
Evidence of success – The work with the RCA followed the work with The FPH and I was invited to join their examination team because of this track record.
Example 3. A Needs Analysis – Feedback to Students
The Royal Veterinary College, London, invited me to conduct a major review of feedback to students across the College and report back my findings together with a set of developmental recommendations for their teaching committee to consider.
The role –
- Presenting a work proposal to University
- Conducting a thorough review of course documentation and information
- Carrying out teaching and assessment observations across the different levels/years of the programme
- Holding focus groups and individual interviews with staff and students across the College.
- Doing a basic web search of the feedback practices considered to be novel and effective elsewhere.
- Conducting a literature review on student feedback
- Consulting with colleagues teaching on similar Vet. Programmes elsewhere about their feedback practices.
- Producing a report and making recommendations to the College.
- Presenting this to the College in an open forum event
Higher Education Assessment & Development 