Education by Morgan Williams

Education UCL SCHOOL OF LIFE AND MEDICAL SCIENCES Creating knowledge, achieving impact

PREFACE

UCL’s School of Life and Medical Sciences encompasses arguably the greatest concentration of biomedical science and population health expertise in Europe. Yet, in part because of UCL’s size and organisational complexity, the scale of the School’s achievements is not always apparent. This publication, one of six, seeks to address this, with a particular focus on our work in education. Our recent reorganisation, with the creation of four new Faculties, has been designed to create a more coherent structure and a platform for the development of a Facultyled strategy for the School. The restructuring has also placed great emphasis on cross-Faculty interactions and interdisciplinary research – and indeed on interactions with UCL departments outside the School. Such interdisciplinary endeavour is promoted through ‘Domains’, inclusive strategically led fluid networks, which encompass education as well as different areas of research. This approach allows us to connect all our activities, promoting collaboration and the sharing of expertise, platforms and resources. The School is commited to the tripartite mission. We recognise that education, research and enterprise are interdependent and the pursuit of excellence applies to all three. We seek an optimal student experience through a genuine research-informed approach to education, and the fostering of values that define all of our activities. Our other core principles – pursuit of excellence, academic freedom and accountability, interdisciplinarity, and partnership – all have important implications for the nature of the education offered by the School. These principles will guide us through what will undoubtedly be an exciting period of change. Our medical undergraduate and pharmacy degrees have recently been radically overhauled to provide an education more suitable to the challenges doctors and pharmacists will face in the future.

As well as reflecting a more patientoriented approach to healthcare, our courses provide a strong emphasis on developing fitness to practise and embedding intellectual and other skills enabling students not just to be effective doctors but also able to manage and drive forward change in health systems. A strong feature of our education is its intimate connection with world-leading research. As well as responding to the most exciting developments in science, we are constantly developing new courses to meet society’s and learners’ needs, taking advantage of the unrivalled intellectual expertise within the School. Across all areas of education, we aim to develop individuals and their skills as well as transfer knowledge. These skills are not restricted to those associated with a life in science or medicine, but prepare students for any kind of workplace and enhance employability. New technologies are providing opportunities to enhance the learning experience and to widen participation. Perhaps most significantly, we increasingly see the School not as the institution in which a student studied for a degree but as a lifelong partner in intellectual and personal development, of knowledge, skills and character. With such ambitious aims and the speed of change, this publication can provide only a snapshot of current work and an indication of future travel. Nevertheless, I hope it provides a flavour of the range of innovative education activities being undertaken, and a sense of the passion for education shared by staff across the School. Sir John Tooke Vice-Provost (Health) and Head of the UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences.

Basic Life Sciences: ‘Discovery’ research, from molecules to ecosystems.

Translation and Experimental Medicine: Driving translation to benefit patients’ health and well-being.

Neuroscience and Mental Health: The science of the brain and nervous system, from synapse to social interactions.

Population Health: Protecting and improving the health of populations, UK and globally.

Education: Innovative practice across the educational life course.

Enterprise: Capitalising on intellectual assets to change the world.

CONTENTS

Overview: A passion for education

Developing a distinctive high-quality education across the entire educational life course. Section 1: The right education

Matching the content of courses to the needs of learners at different stages of their educational journey. Feature: The educational life course

Section 2: The educational experience

Combining multiple approaches, and exploiting new technology, to enhance the learning experience. Section 3: Cycles of improvement

Using evaluation, research and reflection to maintain teaching at the highest possible standards. Feature: Skills for life

Section 4: Teaching with a passion

Recognising and supporting teachers with a passion for inspiring the next generation. Feature: Reaching out

Section 5: A global view

Providing learners with a global perspective on their knowledge. UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences, UCL Learning and Teaching Strategy and key links

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

A PASSION FOR EDUCATION The UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences aims to offer a distinctive high-quality education across the entire educational life course.

UCL graduates: beneficiaries of a special education.

Dorsal view of the zebrafish brain.

The UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences has a genuine passion for education. It is committed to providing learners of all ages with an exceptional education that builds knowledge but also develops people.

and, at its medical school, of a ‘UCL doctor’. As well as a sound foundation of knowledge, they should have well-developed enquiry and critical thinking skills, and a broader perspective of their social responsibilities locally and globally.

As one of the world’s leading centres of research, the School is ideally placed to deliver a ‘researchembedded’ education – with education provided by leading individuals in their fields with a deep understanding of their subjects and able to infuse their teaching with their own discoveries. Students benefit from exposure to the exciting environment of world-leading research, the very latest thinking and emerging trends.

A key aspect of this wider perspective is internationalism. UCL is ‘London’s Global University’, and the School is highly cosmopolitan, with around one in three undergraduates coming from overseas. UCL has strong links to other institutions throughout the world, encouraging dialogue and exchange. It has established Global Health as one of its ‘Grand Challenges’, a commitment to use its intellectual firepower to tackle the most important social issues of the day. The School is engaged in multiple activities to develop education internationally, and through UCL Medical School Education Consultancy is providing major input into medical education systems.

Naturally, the School aims to promote academic excellence. Entry standards are high and students are expected to work hard and achieve good grades. But expectations go beyond academic achievement. The School has a specific vision of a ‘UCL student’

The School educates people from all over the

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

world, but also ensures that every student receives an education embedded in a global context. In the highly networked, globalised world of the 21st century, a balanced education needs to provide students with a strong international perspective. Modern doctors need to be aware of cultural issues as much as the function of the liver, whether or not they end up working outside the UK. This breadth extends to the content of courses. The School provides multiple opportunities for interdisciplinary study, including the innovative Human Sciences BSc, Arts and Sciences BASc – a UK first – and a new BSc in Applied Medical Science. The modularity of postgraduate programmes is also permitting more flexible combinations of subjects to be taken. And teaching of generic ‘transferable skills’ is fundamental to all courses at all levels, reflecting the commitment to develop people not just their knowledge.

Education at all ages A further profound shift is seen in the extended and diverse ‘educational life course’. An individual’s contact with a university has traditionally been restricted to the years of an undergraduate degree. Increasingly, though, universities are contributing to the development of individuals’ knowledge and skills at other points in their life, through master’slevel study or continuing professional development. In some professions, particularly medicine and dentistry, continuing professional development is a formal requirement. For many others, further study is essential for career progression. The demands of modern working lives again call for greater flexibility in how this education is delivered, with more emphasis on modular courses and suites of modules tailored to individual needs, as well as distance learning components to complement face-to-face teaching (blended learning).

SCHOOL EDUCATION DOMAIN The School has established a cross-cutting education domain to identify, develop and disseminate innovative educational practice. The education domain provides a cross-Faculty forum to discuss educational practice across undergraduate, postgraduate and continuing professional development. It aims to nurture educational leadership across the School, identifying and encouraging the take up of good practice. It draws on experienced teachers across all Faculties as well as representatives from UCL’s E-Learning Environment team and Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching. It is currently focusing on two areas: the student experience (including e-learning) and educational leadership, which will consider issues such as how to recognise both the quantity and quality of staff contributions to teaching. Future priority topics will include assessment and feedback. Discussion is at the heart of modern education.

These shifts also reflect an important trend for university teaching to be responsive to the needs of both learners and employers – the NHS, for example. This threeway partnership should be mutually beneficial, with learners developing the knowledge and acquiring the skills that enable them to thrive and in turn advance the organisations in which they end up working. One aim of recent reorganisations of the UCL medical and pharmacy curricula has been to ensure that graduates are equipped to face the changing and challenging needs of modern health services. Teaching methods Lectures have been the mainstay of university teaching for hundreds of years. While they can be an effective way of transferring information from teacher to learner, they are by no means the sole method of teaching. Furthermore, new technologies are having a profound impact on the learning experience. Lectures are complemented by small-group learning, promoting discussion and collaborative problem solving – enhancing learning skills beyond simple accumulation of information. Lectures are routinely captured on video

and made available, with associated presentations, on the School’s virtual learning environment (Moodle). Some lecturers have already begun ‘lecture flipping’, where students watch a lecture in advance of a class and come together to discuss and raise questions. With online quizzes and assessment, personal voting systems (‘clickers’), multimedia teaching aids, podcasts and other innovations, new technology will undoubtedly continue to have a major impact on the learning experience. One challenge will be to ensure that innovations are rooted in a strong pedagogical framework and are rigorously evaluated, to promote innovation with a purpose rather than for its own sake. These trends have similarly profound implications for learning spaces. Lecture halls are being adapted for video capture and clickers. The role of libraries is being reassessed, with so much information now accessible virtually. And spaces are being created for students to work collaboratively in ways that suit them. Perhaps most profoundly, new technologies are opening up new methods for learning outside a university’s own physical

After a UCL degree, graduates join the UCL alumni community.

space – distance learning or e-learning. The School has ambitious plans to make more high-quality content available online, particularly to support continuing professional development, while maintaining instructor contact and academic rigour. All change This document is intended to give a flavour of how the School is responding to a variety of transformational shifts. These span local changes in healthcare systems through global social and political upheaval, to technological advances that make the world of knowledge available near-instantly on a smartphone or tablet.

Curricula and teaching approaches will continue to evolve to reflect these changes, to ensure that the School continues to deliver an education of the highest possible standard. Underpinning all developments is a commitment to develop and enhance the School’s teaching capacity, and a recognition that it is people who ultimately deliver an excellent education. As well as continuing to emphasise the value of teaching, the School is committed to developing teaching skills and recognising the contributions of those who excel in teaching.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

SECTION 1

THE RIGHT EDUCATION The content of courses reflects the needs of learners at different stages of their educational journey.

Julia Harris, a student on the four-year PhD programme in neuroscience.

With teaching time inevitably finite, curriculum planners must consider carefully what to include in courses. What is essential content for undergraduates, or for medical students? What knowledge and skills do trainee doctors need? What are the continuing professional development needs of doctors and other healthcare workers? Education is not solely about information transfer, of course. Other critical questions need to be considered. What should the balance be between information transfer and skills development? And how does an institution cope with the constant advance of knowledge? These and other key questions guide the development of the School’s courses. The School has the distinct advantage that teaching can draw upon researchers who are world leaders in their fields. With deep insight into their subjects, they are ideally placed to describe key principles and emerging trends, and to convey a

A high quality education must not only be academically rigorous but also rooted in real world challenges and opportunities. It must also develop thinking and learning skills, and nurture problem-solving abilities.

sense of excitement at the forefront of knowledge. Such are the benefits of a ‘research-embedded’ education, which ensures that students learn from the leaders in their fields, and have unique insight into emerging areas of science and medicine. A UCL education is intended to provide an outstanding preparation for a successful and fulfilling professional life. Education must therefore meet learners’ needs, as well as those of employers and society more generally. A high quality education must not only be academically rigorous but also rooted in real world challenges and opportunities. It must also develop thinking and learning skills, and nurture problem-solving abilities. Learning is now rarely complete at the end of undergraduate study.

Health professionals face additional specialist training, and are expected to continue developing their knowledge and skills throughout their career. Postgraduate study is an increasingly important way of developing specialist skills and knowledge, either immediately after graduation or later in a career. Further training and continuing professional development (CPD) is an integral part of professional life for doctors and dentists, and a passport to new opportunities for others. In recognition of this shifting landscape, the School is responding to the longterm needs of different professional groups. Periods of intensive tuition are increasingly being supplemented by longerterm relationships spanning entire professional lives.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

The organisation of the MBBS medical degree launched in 2012.

The right curriculum: Tailored choice for undergraduates The School offers a wide range of degrees, including both three-year BSc and four-year MSci and MRes degrees. Subject focus can be narrow, as in Pharmacology or Neuroscience courses, or broad, such as Natural Sciences and Human Sciences courses spanning multiple disciplines. The innovative interdisciplinary Human Sciences degree covers all aspects of the human condition, from archaeology to neuropharmacology. The course was inspired by the great zoologist, J Z Young, whose vision was to create a cohort of scientifically literate graduates with a broad perspective and wide range of skills, able to take on leadership roles in key social institutions. The introduction of a new Arts and Sciences (BASc)

degree, launched in September 2012, reflects the growing demand for an interdisciplinary course of study spanning science, engineering and the humanities (see page 7). The most pressing challenges humanity faces today cannot be readily categorised as ‘technological’ or ‘social’ but are complex multifactorial issues. There is an urgent need for individuals with intellectual fluency in multiple disciplines, with an understanding of different ways of thinking, of different vocabularies, and different cultures. The innovative BASc course is based around four pathways – cultures, health and environment, sciences and engineering, and societies – from which students choose one major and one minor. All students take seven core courses, spanning topics such as quantitative methods and the knowledge economy.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

The programme draws upon UCL’s great strengths across multiple domains, providing unparalleled breadth, depth and intellectual rigour. The School continues to develop its portfolio of undergraduate courses, to ensure it meets the changing face of work in healthcare and other fields. For example, a new undergraduate course in Applied Medical Sciences, based at the Royal Free Hospital campus, is being launched in 2014. This aims to fuse science with medicine and train a new generation to lead clinical science. In addition, a BSc in Population Health Sciences is being developed to meet growing needs for interdisciplinary biomedical and social scientists. A new four-year Biological Sciences programme is also planned, with an extended individual research project and a strong focus on teaching based on research problems. Students will exit with a BSc after three

years or a master’s-level qualification after year 4. Reflecting the School’s world-class research base in neuroscience, a new MRes in Brain Sciences will provide an integrated view of molecular and systemslevel neuroscience. The changing face of medicine has led to a major revision of UCL’s MBBS medical degree, relaunched in September 2012. An important driver has been the General Medical Council’s landmark ‘Tomorrow’s Doctors’ report, published in 2009, which outlined the changing expectations of medical professionals in a more patient-oriented health service. In fact, reconfiguration had begun earlier, with the start of a review of course provision in 2007. The ‘bottom-up’ review assimilated input from some 400 teachers, administrators and students, with the latter sitting on every decisionmaking body (see page 7).

Medical students James Watson and Gareth Chan.

Carl Gombrich, Programme Director of the BASc degree.

THE DOCTORS OF TOMORROW

CROSSING BORDERS

Current medical students have made important contributions to a course designed to develop the next generation of doctors.

The new Arts and Sciences (BASc) degree makes a virtue of breadth, says Programme Director Carl Gombrich.

Introduced in 2012, UCL Medical School’s new MBBS was based on intensive scrutiny of what was needed to prepare students for medical practice in the future. The Medical School has wellestablished methods for gathering input from its students, and built on these links to ensure that the student voice was heard during the re-engineering of the course. Student representatives play an important role as a conduit between teachers and learners. As well as sitting on committees devoted to each year of the MBBS curriculum, they also represent students on meetings with module organisers, discussing course content and student feedback. Many of these committees formed the basis of working groups which examined how particular modules should be organised, while others were established from scratch. According to Gareth Chan, President of the Students Union in 2012, the student voice is taken seriously. “What we say in meetings is really taken on board. We’re not there as a token box-ticking exercise.” As a fifth year now, he can appreciate how the course has changed: “When I was in my first year, it was very science heavy, very theory-heavy. Now there’s a lot more clinical exposure – getting into hospitals, getting into GPs, learning basic clinical skills. That can only be setting us in good stead.” Nevertheless, he suggests, it has maintained its academic rigour, expecting students to develop strong scientific skills. “Personally, I find it useful knowing why things happen rather than just that things do happen.” Some of the working groups looked at how the course should be taught, with student representative James Watson involved in a group examining e-learning. The Medical School was keen to move towards a ‘paper-lite’ curriculum, which was not welcomed by all: “It caused a lot of contention among the students. But that’s why you have the working groups so you can sit down and talk it through.” Bar a few teething issues, mainly related to the transitional period, he is positive about the changes and the way they were introduced. “They did really listen to us,” he suggests. And the new structure he believes is more geared towards learning to be a doctor. Care of the elderly, for example, has been moved from early to later in the course, when students may be better able to learn more nuanced doctoring skills. “Future years will be more capable and understanding of what is required in elderly care,” he suggests, “which is very important given what is happening with demographics in the country.”

As befits someone with degrees in maths, physics and philosophy, Carl Gombrich is an advocate of broadly based, interdisciplinary programmes of undergraduate study. We have a peculiar ‘hourglass’ approach to our educational life, he suggests, starting broad but narrowing and specialising for undergraduate studies, then expanding again as we enter the ‘real world’. The news BASc aims to avoid this constriction, developing well-rounded graduates whose expertise spans multiple disciplines and ways of thinking – something employers have long been clamouring for. “I simply describe it as an interdisciplinary liberal arts degree,” he says when pushed to define the new BASc, which took on its first cohort of students in 2012. “Once you start to say to students you can take a broad range, but it must be coherent, then the interdisciplinary links start to suggest themselves.” Students spend half their time on core modules, introducing key principles such as the nature of knowledge and research methodologies, and half on a major and minor pathway drawn from four themes – ‘cultures’, ‘health and environment’, ‘sciences and engineering’, and ‘societies’. By starting with a core module on the nature of knowledge, students immediately come to appreciate the value of different perspectives, of different ways of looking at issues. “It’s a sophisticated, high-level take on where we are with knowledge,” says Mr Gombrich. It is followed by two further core modules in methodology, addressing how knowledge is acquired and verified, by quantitative and qualitative methods, and when and how such methods are applied. These modules also provide students with sufficient knowledge and techniques to begin their own research as early as possible. With input from multiple UCL departments spanning every faculty, the course is ambitious in its breadth. It is challenging but entirely feasible for students to gain a sound understanding of specialist areas, without acquiring the depth of knowledge a professional would require. For example, UCL Engineering has written bespoke modules that reflect important aspects of contemporary careers in engineering. “These courses contain rigorous aspects of project management, data analysis and design, but they are not necessarily aimed at those interested in obtaining chartered engineer status. Although some of our students may seek such status at postgraduate level, BASc students taking these modules are more likely to be interested in careers where it is important to understand engineering principles and limitations.” Furthermore, he points out, some key ideas span disciplines, such as the ‘super-concepts’ – systems, complexity, evolution and entropy – proposed by Sir Alan Wilson, who teaches on the course. In one exercise, students were challenged to apply one of these super-concepts to a discipline they were studying in their chosen pathways. The results, says Mr Gombrich, were remarkably impressive for first-year students, who tackled subjects such as entropy in music and evolution in the development of literature.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Not all science students want to remain in science after graduation.

Stem cells, a hot topic in science and medicine.

USING SCIENCE OUTSIDE SCIENCE

ENHANCING TRANSLATION

Not everyone who takes a science degree wants to pursue a career in practical science. A new third-year module opens up a wealth of opportunities for Biosciences students who want to use their science without actually doing science.

Master’s students have the opportunity to learn directly from world leaders in some of the most exciting areas of translational science.

By the time they get to their third year, most students will have decided whether they are cut out for a life in practical science. Inevitably, there will be some who decide that their future lies outside the lab, but many will also want to put their scientific knowledge and skills to good use in their careers. The Introduction to Biosciences in Business and Media module aims to raise awareness of some of the career opportunities available outside science, and to develop some of the transferable skills that will be beneficial in those careers – or, indeed, the world of work more generally. The module was initially planned as an alternative to a practical project, tied to literature-based study. However, with keen interest from students doing the practical course, it was elevated to standalone module status. Teaching centres on four key themes: intellectual property, business development, communication and funding of science. The latter may seem of limited interest, but many features of funding, such as writing effective project proposals, carry over into other walks of life. Teaching on the course is highly interactive, especially tutorials and discussions. The course is also unusual in its extensive use of external speakers. Students have benefited from input from a patent attorney, a former UCL academic who has developed a successful publishing business, and members of the business development team at UCL Business. The tasks students have undertaken have been similarly innovative, including a Dragon’s Den-style pitch based on a simple business idea. The nature of this work has also allowed for more unusual types of assessment – of students’ Dragon’s Den presentations, for example, or their critical assessments of a patent. The communications theme has been similarly diverse, including a workshop on presentation skills at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) covering use of the voice and body. Students also had the opportunity to hear from scientists who have developed careers in science communication, for example, with the Naked Scientists and as a science editor at Nature. With so many external contributors, the course is not easy to organise. But following mainly positive feedback in its first year, it is retaining its place in the third-year curriculum.

The School’s research is world-class in many areas. Its researchers are carrying out research, and translating that research into clinical practice, in ways that few other centres can match. Master’s programmes aim to transfer some of that knowledge and expertise to wider audiences. The School was one of Europe’s first centres to carry out gene therapy trials, to correct inherited immunodeficiencies. Recent follow up of these patients has shown that they are doing remarkably well. In addition, new gene-based therapies are showing encouraging results for treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Cell-based therapies are already in use for haematological cancers, and exciting possibilities are being tested to combine genetic manipulation of cells to enhance therapeutic success. These exciting developments are at the heart of the School’s MSc in Cell and Gene Therapy – the UK’s only master’s course in this area. Drawing in particular on research being carried out at the UCL Institute of Child Health in partnership with Great Ormond Street Hospital, the course is a unique opportunity for researchers, clinicians and other healthcare professionals to gain insight into the principles and potential of one of medicine’s most promising areas, from individuals at the forefront of translation. Similarly, the School’s MSc in Nanotechnology and Regenerative Medicine draws heavily on its pioneering research in stem cell treatments. UCL researchers have played key roles in the development of replacement trachea based on artificial biocompatible materials seeded with patients’ own stem cells. The course is notable for its interdisciplinarity, spanning materials science and nanotechnology, stem cell biology and surgery (see page 11). Another area of growing medical importance is the trend towards personalised medicine. UCL’s breadth in expertise puts it in a unique position to offer courses in this area, including an MSc in Pharmacogenetics and Stratified Medicine, which draws upon expertise across multiple departments, including the UCL School of Pharmacy. The course is suitable for both researchers and clinicians, in academia and industry, and covers the principles behind individual variation in responses to drugs and how a better understanding of such responses is likely to have a profound impact on healthcare. It is also an excellent foundation for entrepreneurs looking to drive forward innovation in medical practice. www.ucl.ac.uk/cell-gene-therapy www.ucl.ac.uk/surgicalscience/prospective_students/programmes/msc_ nanotechnology_and_regenerative_medicine www.ucl.ac.uk/ugi/education/mscphx

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Surgery is one career route available to UCL medical graduates.

Course redevelopment has reflected the Medical School’s vision of a distinctive ‘UCL doctor’ – highly knowledgeable and skilled but also with a broad perspective, a flexible and adaptable approach, and robust scientific and intellectual skills. A UCL doctor will also have highly developed interpersonal sensitivity, consistent with daily contact with a vulnerable and culturally diverse group of people.

as ‘patient pathways’ – the routes patients take through the health service – rather than traditional clinical disciplines learnt independently of one another. It also reflects the key strengths of UCL Partners, an Academic Health Sciences Centre, such as mental health, social determinants of health, and life-course-based approaches, which form vertically oriented themes spanning all years of study.

The new course is based on six years of tuition, the third of which is devoted to in-depth scientific study leading to an integrated BSc. Years 4 and 5 see a strong focus on clinical practice, and in particular ‘life course’ perspectives. Fifth-year modules cover child and family health, women’s and men’s health, and ageing and end-of-life care. The final year aims to nurture students’ professionalism and their fitness to practise.

A major redevelopment has also been completed of the four-year undergraduate Master of Pharmacy (MPharm) degree offered by the UCL School of Pharmacy. As well as the scientific fundamentals of biology and chemistry, and of drug action, the course also provides an introduction to pharmacy practice. It also covers important emerging themes in pharmacy, including patient safety, behavioural medicine and paediatric prescribing.

Course organisation is influenced by the growing emphasis on current health service practice, such

Indeed, a key aim has been to ensure information is provided in an integrated

way, so that students can easily see the connections between what they learn and how their knowledge will be applied practically. There is also a strong focus on interprofessional learning, and appreciating how the work of pharmacists integrates with that of doctors, nurses and other healthcare professionals. After a further year’s preregistration training, MPharm graduates are in a position to take General Pharmaceutical Council exams and become fully qualified registered pharmacists. Postgraduate study: towards lifelong learning The view of an undergraduate degree as the culmination of formal study is gradually being eroded. Four-year courses leading to an MSci or an MRes – particularly suitable for those considering a research career – are increasingly popular. The School offers MRes degrees in Biomedicine, Clinical Drug Development, Drug

Design, and in Biosciences, the latter providing a route to specialisation in a wide range of areas, from ageing to stem cell biology. New MRes courses are now available in the emerging fields of synthetic biology and biodiversity, evolution and conservation. MSci courses enable students to study subjects in greater depth and are particularly useful in areas spanning disciplines, such as medicinal chemistry and medical physics. Many master’s are built around emerging fields in science and clinical practice. They offer access to the very latest thinking and practical application, in areas such as nanotechnology and regenerative medicine (see page 11) and cell and gene therapy (see page 8), where the School hosts worldleading research groups and has close links to specialist hospitals. Further courses are planned in a range of other areas, including sensory neuroscience, translational neuroscience, neuromuscular disease, and mental health sciences.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, former four-year PhD student.

Master’s-level education has been an area of considerable growth, in part because master’s qualifications increasingly facilitate entry to many professions. The School has an extensive portfolio of master’s courses, many tied to the professional development needs of particular professional groups. A wide array of options are available, for example, for speech and language therapists and for psychologists, in the latter case extending to doctoratelevel qualifications. Dental education is another area of highly successful CPD. Dental CPD is provided through the UCL Eastman Dental Institute – the UK’s largest provider of CPD for dentists and dental support staff. The Institute also offers full-time (and some parttime) master’s programmes, a clinical doctorate in paediatric dentistry, flexible learning certificate and diploma programmes as well as short courses associated with professional accreditation.

The CPD programme is highly flexible and attuned to the specific needs of dental practitioners, each course tying in with one or more recognised CPD priorities (professionalism, clinical skills, management and leadership, and communication). Dental CPD can draw upon excellent teaching staff and superb facilities, enabling practitioners to develop their skills in hands-on fashion. Training is flexibly delivered, emphasises student-centred learning and includes distance learning elements (corecpd.com, dcpbites. com; problems in British Dental Journal). It is highly effective at enhancing career prospects. From modules to MSc More generally, thanks to ‘modularisation’ of courses, more flexible master’s and CPD programmes are being offered. Learners are able to select from a suite of modules and acquire credits towards a certificate, diploma or full master’s qualification

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Professor Alex Seifalian, founder of the regenerative medicine MSc.

– or, indeed, simply take an individual module in which they have an interest. The Health and Medical Sciences Master’s illustrates how this model works. Launched in September 2012, it provides access to more than 30 modules, which hospital doctors, GPs, nurses, managers and other health service professionals can assemble into a personalised learning package. Additional modules are constantly being added to the module library. Similarly, through the MSc in Health Informatics offered by the UCL Centre for Health Informatics and Multiprofessional Education (CHIME), clinicians, informaticians and managers, or others, can study for a certificate, diploma or master’s, through blended learning, drawing on a dozen taught modules. Furthermore, modules can be taken individually to support CPD. This model also underpins a major new initiative in postgraduate medical

training. Working with UCLP, the School has developed a training programme designed to bring academic rigour to the postgraduate training of doctors and other healthcare professionals. The programme is specifically targeted at the potential health service leaders of the future, who are prepared to commit to the additional rigour of the UCLP programme in order to gain advanced knowledge and skills from a worldrecognised academic centre. The master’s revamp provides a foundation for a more integrated approach to CPD, with the potential for professionals from a wide range of medical, public health, research and allied professions to continue developing their professional knowledge and skills. The vision is for learners to see UCL not so much as the institution where they studied initially but as a body with which they remain in regular contact, drawing on its expertise to help them develop their knowledge, skills and careers.

Sahana Gopal, student on the regenerative medicine MSc.

Ian MacDonald, course tutor.

(RE)BUILDING THE FUTURE

FIRST-CLASS PERFORMANCE

The School’s MSc in Nanotechnology and Regenerative Medicine is an ideal introduction to an interdisciplinary field with the potential to transform medical practice.

One of its more unusual courses, UCL’s MSc in Performing Arts Medicine fills an important niche.

Surgical transplantation of artificial organs has been one of the most dramatic medical advances of the past decade. This pioneering work is a prime example of the value of interdisciplinary research – bringing together advances in surgery, stem cell biology and materials science. Working with world-leading teams, students on the MSc in Nanotechnology and Regenerative Medicine are well placed to be at the forefront of this new wave of medical innovation. Josephine Wong came to the course after a neuroscience degree. “Initially I was interested in stem cell research. I looked into what was available and there were only two courses that offered interdisciplinary research, so it was quite an easy choice.” However, through her practical project, she became intrigued by the potential of tissue engineering. “We get to choose our own projects. I thought this sounded really interesting so I gave it a try.” She is now continuing her work on collagen scaffolds in a PhD supervised by Professor Robert Brown. For Tanel Ozdemir, a library project in the final year of his degree in anatomy and human biology proved the turning point. “I became fascinated by the whole area of regenerative medicine.” The importance of nanotechnology, however, was a revelation. “After I started researching the course I realised it was a major field. The more I looked into it, the more interested I became.” Sahana Gopal also found herself moving in a new direction, after a degree in human genetics. Her interests lay in surgery and medical applications, and she recognised that the course provided a way into one of the most exciting areas of medical science. “The course gives you a really good edge because it’s a rapidly growing field.” After narrowly focused degrees, the interdisciplinary nature of the course has made a refreshing change. So too has been the wide mix of students, some from medical backgrounds, others from the physical sciences. And all of the students appreciate the close contact with leaders in an exciting new field: “It’s a very small group so the lectures and the seminars are very interactive, no one is afraid to ask questions,” says Sahana. “Teaching is very personal,” adds Tanel. “You can build real rapport with your lecturers.” Moreover, says Sahana, the course administrators go to great lengths to involve students, encouraging them to attend seminars and conferences and join relevant societies – ideal preparation for a future career in the field. “They make us a part of everything. It’s great for networking.”

‘Cello scrotum’ may have been exposed as a fake, but musicians and other performers are placed at a risk of multiple conditions because of their artistic endeavours – some serious enough to end careers. To promote specialist treatment of these conditions, UCL teamed up with the Royal College of Music, the British Association of Performing Arts Medicine (BAPAM) and Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance to develop the MSc – the first of its kind in the world. Trish Halliwell, a GP from Norfolk, has been taking the course for both personal and professional reasons. She plays the violin and piano, and her daughter is attempting to carve a career as a professional flautist. Trish heard about the course through BAPAM, and it immediately struck a chord. “I’ve seen my daughter and her colleagues have lots of problems. I thought maybe I could do something to help. And it’s something that I’ve always missed, the performing arts. This seemed ideal as it combines the medicine with the performing.” She is taking the course part-time, one day a week for two years, and to date has been very impressed. “It’s brilliant, I love it. I’ve found being back in the learning environment really stimulating.” Although opportunities to apply her new knowledge in general practice may be limited, she hopes ultimately to be able to put it to practical use. Michael Durtnall, Chairman of Sayer Back Pain Clinics, is also taking the course part-time: “After my very musical and artistic children had finished university, I decided it was my moment to look at postgraduate education again.” The course was precisely what he was looking for: “When I saw the listing, I was electrified. This was exactly the course for me, as I always especially enjoyed treating dancers and musicians, and I wanted an in-depth but broad course on treatment of performers which included research.” He has found the practical aspects of the course particularly useful. “I think the real gem of this MSc is the hands-on nature of the teaching. You have one of the world’s leading hand surgeons, Mr Ian Winspur, precisely demonstrating on your own hand how to properly examine various hand and wrist conditions, and osteopath Jenny Morton teaching with experience of musical theatre as a singer, dancer and performer herself.” For his research project, he is measuring leg-length differences in musicians and dancers using novel methods that avoid the use of X-rays. He is also studying musicians and dancers at Central Ballet School, Ballet Rambert as well as musicians at the Royal Academy of Music. He has enjoyed the experience so much that he is now applying to do a PhD: “The research bug has certainly bitten.”

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

CPD is central to dentists’ professional life.

Julia Harris with course director Professor David Attwell.

DEVELOPING DENTISTS

A TRANSITION TO RESEARCH

The flexible continuing professional development offered by the UCL Eastman Institute can enhance intellectual as well as practical dental skills.

A four-year PhD is a valuable learning experience on the journey towards a research career.

For dentists, continuing professional development (CPD) is not just beneficial but mandatory – the General Dental Council insists on 250 hours of CPD over a five-year cycle. The UCL Eastman Institute caters to these requirements through a varied and extensive programme of CPD, all designed to be intellectually stimulating as well as practically useful. At the heart of the programme are a range of MSc and MClinDent programmes, some parts of which can be taken as standalone certificates or diplomas. Short courses, from single days to intensive five-day hands on courses, are also offered – in practical areas of dentistry, from paediatric dentistry to sedation, but also in finance and practice management. Other courses are suitable for those preparing for professional exams. Postgraduate study can obviously be used to update and enhance practical skills. But for Nicholas Socrates, a dental practitioner based in Aylesbury who studied for an MSc in Restorative Dental Practice at the UCL Eastman Dental Institute, the experience can be far more profound: “It’s made me think about dentistry in a completely different way,” he says. “The treatment I’m doing now is completely different from what I was doing ten years ago.” For Mr Socrates, the Eastman course was a striking contrast with one on a similar topic he was taking at a different centre: “That was one dentist saying this is my way, this is the only way, this is how you do things. I went down to the Eastman and it was completely different.” The Eastman course involved far more discussion around possible approaches, with views solicited about treatment options. The result was a more stimulating course, but also one that has encouraged him to take a more reflective approach in his own practice, where he receives complex referrals from other local practices. Like most of the Eastman courses, his MSc involved a mix of distance learning and practical work and discussion at the Institute. Mr Socrates also appreciates the benefits of a challenging research project, painful though it was at the time. “When you’re reading through journals, you have far more understanding – you can pull things apart more easily!”

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

UCL has been at the forefront of four-year PhDs, through programmes such as CoMPLEX (Centre for Mathematics and Physics in the Life Sciences and Experimental Biology) and the Wellcome Trust Four-Year PhD Programme in Neuroscience. Launched in 1996, this pioneering and highly competitive programme – just six students are admitted from more than 400 applications – was one of the UK’s first four-year PhDs in the life sciences and is an excellent preparation for life in research. An early beneficiary was Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, who completed her PhD in 2000 and recently secured a prestigious Royal Society University Research Fellowship at UCL. “The advantage of a four-year course is that you can get a taster of working in different labs during your first year,” she suggests. As well as some formal tuition – particularly valuable for those with little or no grounding in neuroscience – students spend three-month rotations in different labs. “That’s really useful. A lot of people come out of their undergraduate degrees not really knowing what they want to do their PhDs in. In a three-year course, you just have to go straight into the lab and get stuck in. It’s much more risky.” Furthermore, the rotations provide a very broad foundation. “You get a lot of training in different skills, in different lab techniques and gain experience of different areas of neuroscience. That broader experience definitely comes in handy later.” Someone hoping to follow in Professor Blakemore’s footsteps is Julia Harris, currently in her fourth year on the Neuroscience programme, supervised in her PhD project by course director Professor David Attwell. As well as the practical experience gained during her early lab rotations, she has appreciated the course’s attention to a research career: “The emphasis is on teaching you to become a scientist,” she says. “It’s a completely different approach from being an undergraduate,” she adds. There is a strong emphasis on skills development: “It’s about how to go about designing an experiment, completing an experiment, writing it up and presenting it – developing the skills to independently do every step of the process that a mature scientist would do.” As she nears the end of her course, she is keen to continue in research and build on the foundation provided by her PhD: “I think it’s prepared me excellently.”

The UCL Eastman Dental Institute runs an extensive skills development programme for qualified dentists.

Skills development Personal development is central to the UCL learning experience. Students finish their undergraduate studies not just with a bank of new knowledge, but as more mature individuals with an enhanced social and international perspective, and with a wide range of skills that enhance their employability (see page 30). These efforts are reflected in the consistently high numbers of self-employed UCL graduates and their excellent employment prospects after graduation. This commitment to skills and personal development extends beyond undergraduate study. It also applies to master’s-level education and, with the trend towards lifelong learning, it is also integrated into the growing range of CPD opportunities provided by the School.

The long-term aim is for students to see UCL as lifelong partners in their personal and professional development. One way in which such long-term relationships are fostered is through UCL’s Alumni Relations, which maintains contact with some 150,000 former UCL students. As well as a way of maintaining contact with peers, it also provides access to extensive networking and mentoring opportunities. Education for research – and beyond A PhD is the usual stepping stone from undergraduate study to a research career, and is a critical period for the development of new skills. For four-year PhD programmes, the transition from undergraduate to postgraduate study is less marked, with a first year including periods

of formal tuition – though with greater emphasis on independent learning and critical appraisal – alongside research projects. UCL was one of the first UK institutions to introduce a four-year PhD programme, the interdisciplinary CoMPLEX (Centre for Mathematics and Physics in the Life Sciences and Experimental Biology) programme designed to enhance connections between the mathematical, computing and physical sciences and biology. UCL also hosts four-year PhD programmes in numerous basic, translational and clinical areas. Supervisors naturally play an important role in developing PhD students’ skills. Such work is supplemented by an extensive programme of support provided by UCL’s Graduate School. Catering to both master’s and PhD

students, the Graduate School has a strong focus on the generic and transferable skills that will be important in a research career as well as in the wider world. An extensive portfolio of courses covers topics ranging from practical presentation skills to development of leadership abilities and entrepreneurship (see page 30). Clinical academic career development is particularly challenging as individuals have to coordinate clinical training with academic training. Clinical academics are likely to be particularly important in translational studies yet are also in short supply. The School has established an Academic Careers Office to provide support and careers advice for this critical group.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

The School is building educational relationships that last a lifetime.

THE EDUCATIONAL LIFE COURSE BASIC SCIENCE CAREER PATHWAYS

MEDICAL CAREER PATHWAYS

UNDERGRADUATE

MEDICAL

BSc, MSc, BASc

MBBS

MEDICAL

MEDICAL MASTER’S

Integrated BSc

MEDICAL

PHD/POSTDOCS: RESEARCH TRAINING

MEDICAL Foundation Year 1 Foundation Year 2

MODULES

RESEARCH OR OTHER CAREER

Flexible, blended learning Potential for certificate, diploma or master’s qualifications

MEDICAL Postgraduate medical speciality training Certificate, diploma or master’s

MEDICAL CAREER CPD

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

CPD

Education increasingly spans an entire career. Following undergraduate studies, professional groups such as doctors, dentists and pharmacists face further years of professional training. Basic scientists may go on to study for a master’s-level qualification and a PhD, particularly if they are intending to develop a career in research. The need to maintain a knowledge base and develop new skills is leading to a greater

emphasis on further professional development, with ‘continuing professional development’ (CPD) firmly embedded within the medical and dental career pathway and of growing importance in pharmacy and in research and science- and health-related professions. This emphasis on CPD is providing opportunities to repurpose master’s-level modules so that they can be taken in flexible ways in mid-career to boost skills and knowledge.

DENTAL CAREER PATHWAYS

PHARMACY CAREER PATHWAYS

DENTAL

PHARMACY

Undergraduate dental training

MPharm

DENTAL

TRAINING YEAR

Foundation year

MASTER’S

Postgraduate dental training Certificate, diploma or master’s

OTHER CPD SUPPORT

MODULES OTHER CPD SUPPORT

PHARMACY CAREER

DENTAL CAREER CPD

CPD

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

SECTION 2

THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE As well as content, education also depends on how it is delivered. The School is combining multiple approaches to enhance the learning experience, and drawing on exciting opportunities offered by new technology.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Voting can make lectures a more interactive experience.

Lectures and demonstrations have formed the heart of university education for many decades. While large-group teaching has its place, particularly for courses with large numbers of students, the School is also adopting numerous ways to supplement such teaching – and improve student satisfaction and attainment.

be practically applied, not simply learnt in order to pass an exam. These changes also encourage teachers to consider scope for new forms of assessment.

Teachers now need to consider where learning should take place – is the lecture theatre truly the best place to learn in the 21st century? They also need to think about how engaged students are in their own learning, and how an enhanced experience during teaching can benefit their learning. More sophisticated forms of learning, such as enquiry- or problem-based learning, put the onus on students to think about what information they need and how they can access it. Contextual learning can help students appreciate how their knowledge can

Above all, teachers increasingly need to think about how new technologies can enhance teaching. In recent years, the availability of information has been transformed. The sum of world knowledge is now available at the click of a button. Information can be stored and shared digitally with unparalleled ease. New opportunities abound, from multimedia learning aids to remote access to content. The role of technology in teaching and learning is a highly dynamic field, and the School is taking the first steps on what may well be a transformational journey.

More sophisticated forms of learning, such as enquiry- or problem-based learning, put the onus on students to think about what information they need and how they can access it.

Embedded education For courses leading to a well-established workplace – such as medicine or pharmacy – learning is increasingly integrated into places of practice. Redevelopment of UCL Medical School’s MBBS course has significantly increased the extent of early patient contact and exposure to practical medicine. UCL has the advantage of multiple clinical sites to draw upon, including world-leading centres such as University College London Hospital, the Royal Free Hospital, Great Ormond Street Hospital and Moorfields Eye Hospital, as well as a network of other hospitals, clinics and general practices. Students on the new MBBS have increased exposure to

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

‘Clickers’ have been installed in several UCL lecture theatres.

Trends in headwear – an evolutionary meme?

CLICK TO GO

FLIPPING MARVELLOUS

‘Clickers’, personal voting devices, open up multiple avenues for more engaging teaching.

‘Lecture flipping’ has proved an ideal way to discuss evolutionary concepts.

It is easy to see students as passive participants in learning forums, particularly in large-group sessions. However, ‘clickers’, or personal response devices, are being used in a range of enterprising ways to create a more engaging learning experience. One convert is Dr Hans van de Koot. “They’re terrific. I use them in all my classes.” They can be used at the start of lectures to judge how much students already now, but also to assess progress. “At various points in the lecture, at natural breaks between subjects, I use it to see how much they’ve understood of the lecture,” says Dr van de Koot. “Sometimes it’s difficult to know!” They can also profoundly change the dynamics of a class, with students discussing why answers are right or wrong. “They engage with the material a lot more than they otherwise would. I love them, and the students love them too.” Another advocate is Dr Yogini Jani, who has integrated clickers into a ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ style quiz. She teaches final-year medical students about safe prescribing and use of medicines, which can seem remote given they are not legally allowed to prescribe until they have qualified: “Standing there talking in front of them is one option,” she says, “but, let’s face it, it would be really boring.” Instead, to get across ten key messages, she uses the popular quiz format. “It was a novel way of getting a message across and making it slightly fun, holding their attention.” The questions tackle some of the key issues around use of particular drugs, as well as practical issues – such as doctors’ notoriously poor handwriting: “We’ve got examples, unfortunately, where things are written very ambiguously. So we put that up and say ‘OK, tell us what you think this medicine should be’.” Typically, half the students get the answer wrong – vividly illustrating the importance of clarity. Students enjoy the teaching, says Dr Jani, and clearly engage more: “You can see them looking round the room thinking ‘who voted that?’ That makes it quite interesting!” She has also introduced clickers in other teaching, finding it a helpful way of recapping on learning. Although the game’s famous ‘lifelines’ are mentioned, students do not have the option to ‘phone a friend’ – though Dr Jani would have no problems with them doing so, as accessing reliable information is central to good prescribing behaviour. “The practice we want to instill is ‘don’t guess’. This is somebody’s life. If they look up the information that’s great, as long as they get the answer right in the end.”

From the days of Socrates, dialogue has been a valuable way to engage students in learning, at least in small groups. With new technologies, there may be less need for educators to convey information that students can easily access for themselves, freeing up contact time for more engaging discussion and debate. Dr Richard Goldstein has used the ‘lecture flipping’ approach for precisely these ends. A researcher at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research with an honorary position at UCL, Dr Goldstein’s interests lie in evolutionary biology. When the BASc was canvassing for ideas for courses, he put in a proposal, convinced that evolutionary theory was an ideal basis for an interdisciplinary course. “Evolution is a lens that can be used to look at a wide range of phenomena,” he says. “When you think where we are, why we are, where we came from, what is our place in the universe, you can see all of that in an evolutionary context.” His proposal was accepted and a second year module is being run on ‘Evolution and the Human Condition’. But course director Carl Gombrich also suggested that Dr Goldstein contribute to a first-year module on ‘super-concepts’, which includes evolution. And he also suggested that Dr Goldstein try the lecture-flipping approach – where lecturers record a presentation that students watch before a class. An innovation introduced by Dr Goldstein has been to get students to submit questions in advance. These are then voted on by fellow students, and lecturers address the most popular. “I was a little bit sceptical at the beginning,” says Dr Goldstein. “In a normal lecture you get so much feedback from students – confused faces, bored faces, attentive faces, whatever. So I was not quite sure how it was going to work.” In fact, he says, it went extremely well. “They came up with really wonderful questions that hit the fundamental issues.” And the dynamic of the learning experience changed completely. “Because it had started out as a dialogue, the dialogue continued. So it was very good at breaking down the boundary between lecturer and class.” As well as core evolutionary principles, the lectures covered how they could be applied to other situations in human biology, such as the puzzling ubiquity of art, to the transmission of ideas – from religion to trends in baseball cap wearing. Potentially both the topic and the nature of the students contributed to the success of the experiment: “BASc students are really involved and thirsty, curious for new ways of combining things. So this group was particularly well suited for such a method.” Nevertheless, he adds, flipping may be an excellent way to cover ‘hot’ areas of science: “It clears space for people to investigate and pursue ideas.”

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

patients, beginning in year 1 and particularly in years 5 and 6. Unusually, they will have the opportunity to follow individual patients for extended periods, gaining greater insight into patients’ journeys through the healthcare system. And their final year will emphasise not cramming for final exams but preparation for practice. To mirror these changes, the course has a greater emphasis on workplacebased assessments. From the start of their studies, students will use an ‘e-portfolio’ system, to match the technology they will be using when they qualify. The e-portfolio captures all documentation recording their learning, including workplace-based assessments. To make the transition to foundation years as smooth as possible, the e-portfolio has been adapted from a currently used system. UCL Medical School is also leading attempts to standardise the e-portfolio across UK medical schools and to develop enhanced versions. The e-portfolio system is also used on a range of UCL master’s courses. Workplace-based learning is also central to pharmacy education. Most students on the four-year MPharm undergraduate degree will end up working in either community or hospital pharmacies. The UCL School of Pharmacy has established close links with regional bodies to ensure that both undergraduate and postgraduate training reflects the real-life work of qualified pharmacists. These close links enable undergraduates to undertake much of their training in NHS facilities. To provide a realistic learning environment, the School has established a ‘teaching

pharmacy’ in which students can practise dispensing medicines. The integration between academia and practice has led to a profound change in postgraduate training. The UCL School of Pharmacy has played a leading role in the establishment of Europe’s largest foundation training programme, incorporating nine universities and more than 70 NHS trusts across the south and east of England (see page 22). The initiative, soon to be replicated nationally, is helping to ensure that the skills of the UK pharmacy workforce meet NHS needs. Realistic settings are also crucial to the Eastman Dental Institute’s CPD learning environment for dentists. By providing access to the very latest equipment, the Institute ensures that clients can develop skills at the forefront of dental technology and introduce them into their own practices. Methods for learning Traditional lectures are increasingly being augmented by small-group work and forms of selfdirected study. One striking application in medical education is the ‘OSCE’, or objective structured clinical examination – a form of role-playing in which students examine an actor simulating a particular condition. OSCEs are valuable in testing a wide range of clinical skills, from physical manipulation to patient communication. Being highly structured and objective, they are amenable to assessment. Students generally work their way through a series of ‘stations’, each individually assessed. The emphasis on application of knowledge in reallife settings, rather than

regurgitation of facts in examinations, also lies at the heart of ‘case of the month’ assessments (see page 21). Each case is based on a carefully designed scenario, which final-year students work their way through online. Many of the cases are generated by foundationyear trainees, helping to develop their teaching skills. Students undoubtedly find the cases challenging, but they are excellent preparation for clinical practice. Having been pioneered for years 5 and 6, they are now being rolled out to year 4 students. Small-group and other innovative teaching approaches are also being adopted outside medicine. With UCL’s extensive museum collections to draw upon, object-based learning is one area of growing importance (see page 23). Assessment is also an area where new approaches can be tried. Students are being encouraged to evaluate their peers (see page 26), while a journal club module on the Neuroscience MSc course is assessed by providing students with a paper in advance of an exam then testing their understanding of the paper and ability to assess it critically. Support infrastructure Technology is now integral to the learning experience across the School. The core learning technology infrastructure is provided by Moodle, an open-source platform widely used in education. Moodle provides a virtual learning environment for students and teachers, with several add-on tools to support more interactive learning. Moodle provides a convenient system by which course materials can be

shared. A more imaginative use is the recording and posting of lectures and associated presentations, through the ‘Lecturecast’ facility. This is particularly useful for students who may have missed a lecture and for learners whose first language is not English, who can easily return to parts of a lecture to recap or check their understanding. UCL is installing video equipment across its lecture spaces to ensure that all presentations are recorded. More innovative still is to use Lecturecast and Moodle facilities to rethink approaches to teaching. Several teachers are experimenting with ‘lectureflipping’, whereby lectures are recorded and shared in advance on Moodle, with teaching time devoted to discussion and follow-up of any points of uncertainty. Students also have the opportunity to submit questions in advance of a class. In the BASc course, students rank the questions and the ‘hottest topics’ form the basis of classroom discussions (see page 18). Moodle offers other opportunities to enhance learning experiences. With the near-ubiquity of MP3 players, some lecturers have turned to podcasting as a way to provide additional information or as aids to revision. Podcast production by students has also been introduced on some courses, enabling students to develop skills in new ways of communicating. Among the plug-ins available for Moodle is ‘Turnitin’, which provides a way to detect plagiarism in student submissions. It provides a valuable way to educate students about attribution and encourage self-monitoring as they draw on online sources. Through

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Professor Elizabeth Shephard (right) with Charmian Dawson and Dr Amanda Cain.

another popular third-party plug-in, Peerwise, students are developing their own questions to test the learning of their peers (see page 29). Other technological innovations are increasingly being used to provide a more engaging learning experience. Among the most popular are ‘personal response devices’ – more colloquially known as ‘clickers’ – which allow students to provide feedback during classes. Each student can respond to questions, with answers being displayed to the whole class. Clickers are being used in many novel ways (see page 18). Some teachers test students’ levels of knowledge at the beginning of lectures, or to assess students’ understanding part-way through classes. The results can also be used to stimulate further discussion. If two conflicting answers are popular, for example, classes can discuss their relative merits. Clickers are very popular with students. Their anonymity can be a benefit, enabling everyone to contribute equally. Clickers can be hired for use in classes and have also been permanently installed in some lecture halls and classrooms. 20

Involving students in the development of teaching aids has been a key principle of Professor Elizabeth Shephard, winner of multiple UCL teaching awards, and her teaching team. Teaching fellow Charmian Dawson, for example, was herself a UCL student who first got involved in teaching during a summer project. An enthusiasm for animation led her to begin developing genuinely interactive learning tools (see page 36). Such teaching aids have helped students get to grips with dynamic biochemical processes, but are also useful preparation and support for practical classes. Similarly, providing students with video cameras led to some highly innovative materials to help develop numeracy skills – with plasticine figures being used to explain logs and other areas of mathematics (see page 21). Professor Shephard’s group also makes use of online quizzes and assessments. A further advantage is that all data on performance are captured, so it becomes possible to analyse trends in performance and links between use of particular tools and scores in assessments.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Animated figures help to clarify mathematical concepts.

New technology is not always the answer, however. One of the most successful projects was a revamp of the post-exam week, when first-year students were given the opportunity to interview lecturers about their research and develop poster presentations – an experience enjoyed by both students and staff (see page 22). Distance learning Moodle is also forming the core of a major development in distance learning, which will have a particular focus on training and CPD for doctors and other healthcare professionals. Through the ‘UCL eXtend’ initiative, the School is developing a suite of distance learning materials drawing upon its many areas of excellence in research, clinical practice and education. UCL eXtend is a UCL-wide programme which will ultimately provide access to a great diversity of courses, in scope as well as subject area. Courses will range from short ‘tasters’ to advanced specialist training. Some will be free and others will attract a charge.

For the School, the platform will support specialist training of medical graduates, as well as CPD opportunities for consultants and other healthcare professionals to develop their expertise and employability. Areas of focus will include knowledge updating and the translation of scientific advances in clinical care, through best current clinical practice, and development of personal and leadership skills. An important challenge is to ensure that the rigour of distance-learning courses is maintained, and to find ways to achieve suitable student–tutor interactions – a far greater challenge than simply making material available online. The MSc in Global Health and Development (see page 44), for example, is piloting a distance-learning module in health economics, attempting to develop opportunities for online student–student and student–teacher interactions, such as virtual journal club sessions. Future developments are likely to include a greater emphasis on blended learning, where online access is combined with periods of direct contact.

Dr Amanda Cain, with plasticine figures.

‘Case of the month’ tests patient-oriented skills.

A WAY WITH FIGURES

DR FINLAY’S E-CASE BOOK

Tasked with finding a way to boost numeracy skills, a group of creative students came up with a novel solution – stop-motion animation of plasticine figures.

The ‘case of the month’ learning tool challenges medical students to think like a doctor.

“Getting former students involved in creating resources for incoming students is a good idea,” says Senior Teaching Fellow Dr Amanda Cain. “We have indications of areas of weakness in our students, but they have a slightly different idea of ways we can support them better.” The summer break is a good time to put this principle into action. And in 2011, Dr Cain thought film-making might be a way to generate such new teaching aids. “Video is a resource we haven’t made much use of as yet, so we thought let’s see what we can come up with.” A small teaching grant provided funds to employ students over summer, and equip them with a couple of video cameras. “And we let them loose really.” Beyond a broad remit to develop something to support the numeracy skills required for practicals – a perennial issue for students – the students had complete creative freedom. “We had no preconceived ideas that they might come up with animations,” says Dr Cain. “That was something far harder than we thought they’d do.” The new resources are an engaging guide to some simple mathematical concepts, such as logs. “Some of the maths is quite simple, that’s not really the problem; it’s how they apply the maths to the scientific problem.” Dr Cain believes they may be enough to ease students into the right mindset, and can develop their understanding further through a range of other tools, including worked examples and online quizzes. What is important is to have a range of approaches suitable for different types of learner. Dr Cain is a part of a team that has introduced a range of innovations to teaching and assessment (see page 20), often drawing on input from students. This has extended to experiments with peer assessment by students, as a way of improving note taking in lectures. “Peer assessment is one of those things that students don’t like and don’t see the point of initially,” says Dr Cain. “All staff think it’s a great idea!” Nevertheless, there is good evidence that it improves attainment. “There’s always a few grumbles. But we can justify exactly why they’re doing it. We think it’s actually giving them additional skills in the note taking and the assessment. If they can see the criteria that work has been marked against, it gives them a better idea of what it was they should have put in their own work.”

The sixth year of the MBBS medical degree is focused on preparing students for medical practice. Of profound importance is clinical decision making, which depends not just on the accumulation of knowledge but on the proficient application of that knowledge. Learning and assessment is therefore strongly based on ‘every day’ situations faced by doctors – and the ‘case of the month’ is an important way such skills are developed. Tests of ‘situational judgements’ are becoming more popular in medical education. Broadly speaking, they ask a would-be doctor ‘what would you do when…’ for a typical clinical situation. The case of the month tool brings this approach into the world of virtual learning. Through Moodle, medical students are presented with a clinical scenario and must choose what to do and explain their answers. The scenario gradually unfolds over a series of sessions. At the end, students receive individualised feedback on the answers – a highly labour-intensive process but thought to be worthwhile given the high value of the exercise. The cases are typically written by junior doctors and closely map to real clinical experience. They are also being used to target areas that trainee doctors feel least confident about – such as prescribing and use of the British National Formulary. The case is extremely detailed, and it would be very difficult to create a similar learning experience through lectures or seminars. Medical students complete six cases of the month during their final year. The approach is now also being adopted for fourth-year students, to provide an early experience of developing clinical decision-making skills. The scenarios will not be so involved, however, and more use is likely to be made of ‘single best answer’ questions so assessment and feedback is manageable. Medical student James Watson, who was involved in the redevelopment of the MBBS course, has also worked extensively on the case of the month tool. He acknowledges that they are timeconsuming to develop, and to assess, but suggests they are well worth the effort: “They are extremely informative and they are bang on the sorts of things that inevitably will come up in your practical exams or written exams – and more importantly, the things you’ll actually see when you qualify.”

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Exposure to the workplace is central to pharmacy education.

Post-exam week provided students with insight into research.

DEVELOPING THE PHARMACY WORKFORCE

THE SCIENTIFIC LIFE FOR ME

A pioneering partnership between NHS employers and the higher education sector is ensuring that post-registration pharmacists have access to professional development foundation training tailored to their workplace roles.

Free time after exams provided an opportunity for firstyear students to discover more about their lecturers’ research interests and career paths.

Some 20 per cent of graduate pharmacists go on to work within the NHS-managed sector, where they have a critical role to play in promoting the optimal and safe use of medicines. Ensuring the competency of healthcare professionals in the NHS has become a major issue in recent years, and pharmacy is no exception. Thanks to an innovative programme heavily dependent on the work of Professor Ian Bates and colleagues at the UCL School of Pharmacy, a model approach to professional development has been established across the south and east of England. The Joint Programmes Board is responsible for the training of pharmacists during their early years of practice. It covers London, eastern and southeastern England – in total, some 40 per cent of the patient population of England. It is based on a unique partnership between nine higher education institutions, including UCL School of Pharmacy, and a host of regional NHS Trusts and employers. The roots of the initiative lie in groundbreaking research carried out a decade ago, which highlighted the lack of any clear development plans for the NHS pharmacy workforce. There was little or no emphasis on professional competencies, and no mechanism for ensuring that professional development was linked to NHS needs. In response, Professor Bates and colleagues developed a series of practitioner development frameworks – a General Level Framework for early career pharmacists and an Advanced Level Framework for later-stage professionals. These frameworks were rigorously evaluated through a range of research methodologies. At the same time, dialogue with health service bodies enabled Professor Bates and colleagues to bring together multiple NHS bodies and develop a training programme meeting the needs of the wider NHS. As well as delivering a workplace-based training programme tailored to employer needs, this close integration between the NHS and education has delivered other benefits. For example, students spend more time in workplace learning, easing their transition into work. The approach has proved highly influential, and has been used as a model for national programmes. The competency-based approach has also been highly influential in the development of global frameworks to develop the international pharmacy workforce.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

For biochemistry students, the week after exams has traditionally been spent on transferable skills – using databases, writing a CV and so on – and preparation for year 2. After the stress of exams, however, students can be excused for being less than enthusiastic participants. A range of innovative new exercises – including interviewing their lecturers about their research and producing poster presentations on one of their papers – has proved a much more engaging way to develop key skills and learning. Teaching fellow Charmian Dawson, who came up with the idea, was struck by the impact on students: “Some of them were almost tearful they were so inspired by the researcher they had spoken to.” Notably, it helped to break down barriers. “They see a gap between themselves and the lecturers. They were a little bit intimidated previously. They really appreciated the opportunity to sit and talk to somebody they’d seen as very high up.” Dr Chris Taylorson, one of those interviewed, highlights another advantage: “Not only do they find out what we’re doing researchwise, what areas we’re interested in and how we go about doing it, they’re also learning how we got into these things in the first place.” Students were given guidance on questions to ask, and were encouraged to explore the implications of research. “It stretches their mind into thinking a little bit left field,” says Dr Taylorson, “to where things can go and possibilities for the future.” Dr Andrew Martin also highlights how the exercise helped students see their teachers as ‘real people’: “Students have the chance to find out about the people who teach them and the kind of research that goes on. Apart from the research project, they don’t really know what we do.” For those interested in a research career, he suggests, the work was particularly beneficial “Overall it was a useful exercise. If they want to stay in research, they can find out what is involved.” Such sentiments are echoed by students who took part. “It was really inspiring,” says Casey Kiew, who is keen on developing a career in research. Her group won the award for best poster: “That was rewarding as well”. Jwalin Patel makes a similar point: “I want to become a researcher, so it was nice knowing what he was doing on a daily basis and how he got where he is.” As class rep, he also saw a marked change in his fellow students: “Before we started the programme, no one was looking forward to it. Everyone was just numbed by the exams. But once they entered, many people thought it was really helpful.”

Objects from the Grant Museum.

Practising doctors contribute hugely to a medical education.

AN OBJECT LESSON

DOCTORS WITH DISTINCTION

Objects can play a valuable role in all kinds of teaching.

Experienced doctors in district hospitals make an invaluable contribution to medical teaching.

For some subjects, objects would seem to be essential to teaching – it is hard to imagine geology or zoology being taught satisfactorily without physical specimens. But Dr Helen Chatterjee in UCL’s Museums and Collections believes objects have much greater potential to support learning and teaching. UCL is fortunate to have multiple collections of objects to draw upon. It is home to the Grant Museum of Zoology, which houses some 60,000 specimens, as well as the Petrie Museum of Egyptology and the UCL Art Museum, which includes the drawings collection of the Slade School of Art. Many departments have their own collections – indeed, the number of objects in UCL collections is thought to exceed a third of a million. Following a PhD on the phylogeny and biogeography of gibbons, and time spent as a curator at the Grant Museum, Dr Chatterjee now combines research in primatology with a position as Deputy Director of UCL’s Museums and Collections. One of her key aims is to enhance the use of UCL’s objects in teaching. In zoology, for example, she has overseen the development of a virtual learning tool, VERB (virtual educational resource for the biosciences), to expand students’ exposure to zoological specimens outside the classroom. ‘Zoomoodle’, as it is also known, contains a series of web books with text and visual imagery to promote learning of animal diversity in an evolutionary context. It has proven popular with students and is being rolled out more widely across UK academia in partnership with the University of Reading. A completely different use of objects has been adopted in a project for medical students run in collaboration with UCLH’s arts curator. In one elective module, second-year students developed ‘memory boxes’ – small collections of objects used to engage with hospital patients. The project helped students develop their communication and empathy skills, at a time when they had had little previous contact with patients. Its evaluation also provided a good introduction to the planning of research. Some objects have intrinsic explanatory value, but they can also have the power to inspire, provoke and excite. Objectbased learning can provide multiple benefits, from, for example, experiential or group-based learning. Object-based learning has been integrated into the new arts and sciences BASc, and Dr Chatterjee and her team are now reaching out to other departments and staff involved in teaching to see how their students might also benefit from the power of touch.

As well as UCLH in Central London, UCL medical students also undergo clinical training at nearby district general hospitals, including Luton and Dunstable and North Middlesex University Hospitals. Two recent winners of Excellence in Medical Education Awards, Dr Parthipan Pillai and Dr John Firth, illustrate the kind of impact teachers at such centres can make. In 2012, Dr Pillai, lead undergraduate tutor at Luton and Dunstable, received a special award for his ‘exceptional commitment to excellence in clinical teaching’. He has been involved in UCL teaching for more than a decade, and regularly picks up awards from students. As well as organising all the teaching at Luton and Dunstable, Dr Pillai is also directly involved in teaching, and in assessing the hospital’s teachers. He has also introduced teaching innovations, such as a focus on patient safety. “Even though we’re always thinking about it, we’re never been taught about it as a medical student.” His passion for teaching grew from an early appreciation of his own mentors. “I had some very good teachers in my early life. I enjoyed being a good student and it helped me become a good teacher.” But what makes a good teacher? “A good teacher should understand the students, come down to the medical student’s level and teach them what they are wanting at that level. I still remember bad teachers and good teachers – how bad teachers demoralised me and destroyed my confidence, and how good teachers brought me up.” His dedication is striking in an era when hospitals are dominated by targets and the demands of clinical work threaten to sideline teaching. The awards, he suggests offer some recompense: “I’m going home late, but at least I’ve been appreciated by the students and the university.” John Firth received a special award for enhancing science in medical education. A consultant histopathologist, he has raised the profile of a potentially neglected subject, pathology. He has rescued surgical resections and other clinical samples, and even museum exhibits, enabling students to gain real hands-on experience – something no lecture could provide. “If you don’t know your pathology, you’re not going to be a very good surgeon,” he suggests. Physical assessment can provide vital information in areas such as colon and rectal cancer and obstetrics and gynaecology. His demonstrations, in the now rarely used post-mortem room, with students gloved up and gowned, receive uniformly high marks in student feedback. Students may be exposed to surgery, he says, “But the last thing they see is the resection going into formalin.” Actually physically examining the material provides a whole new level of insight: “It’s a very good learning tool.”

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

SECTION 3

CYCLES OF IMPROVEMENT A constant commitment to evaluation, research and reflection is required to maintain teaching at the highest possible standards.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Feedback from students is essential in course development.

Teaching is an activity that requires preparation, skill in delivery and a commitment to constant reflection and reinvention. Not only does knowledge advance, but new teaching methodologies and technologies are constantly being developed. Good teachers therefore need to be reflective practitioners, open to new opportunities and innovations, constantly seeking feedback and areas to improve, and willing to try new things. Results from the annual National Student Survey provide an objective view of students’ impressions of their courses, and paint a positive overall picture of education across the School. The Medical School’s MBBS degree achieved an outstanding 93 per cent overall satisfaction score. Several of the School’s courses achieved greater than 90 per cent student satisfaction, including Biochemistry, Human Sciences, Neuroscience and Psychology.

Everyone knows how inspiring a good teacher can be. Whatever their background, all staff will benefit from a sound understanding of educational theory and how students learn, alongside practical advice to enhance their teaching.

As would be expected, formal quality assurance systems are in place to audit and promote high standards in teaching. Through an Internal Quality Review process introduced in 1992, departments are subject to five-yearly reviews and development planning. Important though such exercises are, they reflect only one aspect of a commitment to excellence and continuous improvement. Further essential information comes directly from students themselves, who have abundant opportunities to provide feedback on modules, courses and individual teachers – feedback that receives genuine close attention. Classes also have representatives to maintain communication between teachers and learners.

Promoting good educational practice Everyone knows how inspiring a good teacher can be. Whatever their background, all staff will benefit from a sound understanding of educational theory and how students learn, alongside practical advice to enhance their teaching. Many individuals across the School have established innovative and successful teaching practice. Valuable central support is provided by the UCL Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CALT), which operates across the whole of UCL but has two teaching fellows dedicated to work with the School of Life and Medical Sciences.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Dr Richard Milne.

Dr Katherine Woolf.

PEER PRESSURE

TACKLING THE ATTAINMENT GAP

Disappointed with the quality of essays he was assessing, Dr Richard Milne decided they could benefit from pre-submission review – by the students themselves.

Research is getting to the roots of the ethnic attainment gap in medicine.

For several years Dr Richard Milne has been teaching secondyear undergraduates about infectious organisms. Assessment has been through an essay, with generally unsatisfactory results: “I’ve been repeatedly disappointed at the standard of the essays that have been submitted.” “They’ve been poor at two levels. They’ve been badly written – it’s as if no one proof-reads anymore. But they’re also bad on a higher level, in that there was no evidence that anyone was actually thinking about the subject and assimilating the content from the different lectures and producing a coherent stream of ideas.” In his own work, he realised, he relied on others to help shape important documents. “It struck me that I would never send any document out, be it something for publication or a grant application, without showing it to people and getting comments from my colleagues. So I thought why not do that with the students?” In 2012, that is precisely what he did. The 70 students taking the course were paired up and exchanged draft versions of their essays, providing feedback and discussing each other’s efforts face to face in a lecture session. His aim was to improve the quality of the essays, but equally importantly to develop transferable skills, helping students develop, review and revise documents, and also provide constructive feedback. “I was uncertain whether they would play the game and participate,” says Dr Milne, “and actually they did, by and large.” An evaluation, coordinated by CALT, suggested that students appreciated the new approach. One commented: “Reviewing the essay brought up questions which I then had to look up – thus helping me find areas of the module I hadn’t realised I’d misunderstood.” And, Dr Milne discovered, the experiment had a positive impact, with marks improving across the board. “The most pleasing output was the increase in first class level results,” he adds. “Last year 10 per cent of students were at this level, this year it was 25 per cent.” Dr Milne has previously tried other novel approaches to broaden students’ skills base. For a third-year module, he asked students to prepare short presentations on papers, but with larger class sizes this became impractical. Instead, he switched it to an ‘elevator pitch’, with students having just four minutes to convey the key points of their chosen paper. “Of course they all raise up their hands in horror at that. But actually they do an exceptionally good job.” Dr Milne is careful to outline very clearly the rationale for new approaches and the likely advantages, and achieves good buy-in as a result. “I increasingly think they’ll do anything as long as they’re given clear guidelines, clear support and clear deadlines.”

In 1995 a startling news story pointed out that all students failing their final clinical exams in Manchester had Asian surnames. The research of Dr Katherine Woolf and colleagues has revealed that ethnic differences in performance are ubiquitous in UK medical schools, and has challenged some conventional explanations for why they exist. To gain a more complete picture, Dr Woolf and colleagues combined data on 23 studies that had examined ethnic differences in the academic performance of UK-trained medical students and doctors, covering more than 24,000 individuals. The clear finding was that members of minority ethnic groups fared worse across the board, in undergraduate and postgraduate assessments, and in all forms of assessment (face-to-face clinical assessment and machinemarked work). While not huge, the attainment gap was certainly significant – the odds of a minority ethnic candidate failing an exam, for example, were 2.9 times those of a white candidate. Qualitative research with UCL medical students and teachers provided evidence that stereotyping of minority ethnic (particularly Asian) students did exist among teachers and even students themselves. Perhaps, then, under-performance was a consequence of ‘stereotype threat’ – a negative feedback loop in which students subconsciously conform to a stereotype associated with the group they identify with. In the USA, simple interventions, promoting more positive mental attitudes, have been found to have a marked impact on academic achievement. When a similar intervention was tested in UCL medical students, however, the results were unexpected. The performance of minority ethnic students given the intervention did indeed match that of white students – but only because the white students did worse than expected. The qualitative study shone light on common conceptions about certain groups – for example, the stereotype that Asian students are pushed into medicine and are therefore less motivated; however, studies of two cohorts of UCL medical students conducted in 2006 and 2007 by Dr Woolf during her PhD found no evidence that motivation, personality, study habit or socioeconomic factors accounted for the ethnic differences in performance. On the other hand, the qualitative results led Dr Woolf in intriguing new directions. Students from white and minority ethnic groups described how they tended to coalesce into cliques. Dr Woolf has therefore begun to examine student social networks – discovering that the performance of individuals are associated with those of others within their social group. Woolf K, McManus IC, Potts HW, Dacre J. The mediators of minority ethnic underperformance in final medical school examinations. Br J Educ Psychol. 2013;83(Pt 1):135–59. Woolf K, Potts HW, Patel S, McManus IC. The hidden medical school: a longitudinal study of how social networks form, and how they relate to academic performance. Med Teach. 2012;34(7):577–86. Woolf K, Potts HW, McManus IC. Ethnicity and academic performance in UK trained doctors and medical students: systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ. 2011;342:d901.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

New spaces are being introduced for students to work together.

As a mark of the status attached to medical education research, it is being entered as a separate category in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework.

CALT is a centre of pedagogical expertise providing intellectual and practical support to enhance the quality of teaching and students’ learning experience. As well as working to embed UCL’s teaching and learning strategy, CALT aims to support the professional development of staff engaged in teaching and promote a culture of evidence-based teaching – the use of practices backed up by sound educational theory and supporting evidence. In practical terms its work encompasses workshops and conferences to promote skills development, advice and consultancy to individuals or groups keen to enhance particular areas, planning and support for education research projects, and development of resources to support effective teaching. CALT has helped departments to organise awaydays to discuss student-focused teaching. It also provides resources and support to

enhance approaches to the peer observation of teaching, where colleagues sit in on lectures and provide constructive feedback to each other. One-off support has included input into a project being led by ophthalmologist Dr Ian Murdoch, who has been working to develop the ophthalmological skills base in West Africa. CALT has fed into course design and approaches to ‘train the trainers’. Ophthalmologists are desperately needed in the region, where thousands of people could potentially regain or retain their sight. CALT has also helped Dr Richard Milne introduce and evaluate a pilot project in which students review each other’s work (see page 26). In many areas, CALT works closely with UCL’s E-Learning Environments team, to promote the use of new technologies in education. During the first half of 2013, for example, a programme of lunchtime seminars, ‘Summits and Horizons’, was organised

Museum objects have formed part of the ZooMoodle project.

for staff, with internal and external staff, to discuss various innovative uses of new technology – in areas such as feedback and distance learning. CALT also runs an annual teaching and learning conference. A joint event was organised in 2013 with E-Learning Environments and UCL Careers on ‘Embedding skills and employability in the curriculum’. Significant funding is available for lecturers or departments that want to explore new approaches in their teaching. This includes Teaching Innovation Grants of up to £5000, used to develop the successful ‘ZooMoodle’ application (see page 23) and to facilitate the introduction of Peerwise (see page 29). Specific E-learning Development Grants are also provided for technological innovations. Projects include a systematic evaluation so learning can be gained from each project and used to inform future developments. Support for use of new technologies is provided by the E-Learning Environments team. As well as providing support for the main e-learning tools, the team also works to identify new opportunities to use

technology to improve teaching and learning. ‘E-Learning Facilitators’ (ELFs) work with E-Learning Champions in UCL Schools to drive forward the use of new technologies. Education research One aim of CALT is to ensure that education activities are as far as possible evidence based and backed up by sound educational research. Such research is particularly well established in medical education, an area in which the School has a strong tradition. One of the most significant areas of work is around the revalidation of doctors. UCL Medical School holds a contract from the General Medical Council (GMC) to assess the competence and ‘fitness to practise’ of all doctors whose performance has been questioned and have been referred to the GMC. Such work requires a rigorous assessment of professional skills across a wide range of disciplines. A bank of assessment tools have been developed for this purpose, the validation of which has itself generated useful data.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Dr Deborah Gill, Deputy Director of the Medical School with responsibility for undergraduate programmes.

Other nationally important research has been carried out on the use of psychometric testing to guide selection into foundation-year placements. By adapting well-validated methods used in the retail sector and other parts of industry, Medical School researchers have been able to develop assessments to profile candidates and establish their suitability for particular roles. Preliminary work has begun to establish whether some form of profiling might also be feasible to guide entry onto medical school undergraduate courses. Other work has examined the suitability of computerdelivered clinical problem solving tests and so-called ‘situational judgement tests’ to contribute to the selection process for specialist training. This work contributed to the national situational judgement tests rolled out nationally in 2012.

Equality has long been a foundation of UCL’s education. Important research carried out by Dr Katherine Woolf and colleagues has looked at striking ethnic differences in achievement (see page 26). As at other UK medical schools, black and minority ethnic students at UCL Medical School fare less well than might be expected. This inequality in attainment is also seen in other subjects. Its causes are not obvious, and are likely to be complex. Dr Woolf is a member of a UCL’s Race Equality Group. The group aims to ensure equality of opportunity for students from all ethnic backgrounds, but also works to tackle the related issue of under-representation of ethnic minority groups among academic staff. One innovative projected supported by the group will see a group of students learn film-making skills and produce short films

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

highlighting the experience of ethnic minority students across UCL. Large medical education research projects and programmes are funded by external grants. But small grants are also made available internally to support innovation and research. The Targeted Education Development and Innovation (TEDI) fund has supported numerous staff initiatives, as well as work by students (see page 29). The Medical School also supports medical education research in other ways. It organises a high-profile annual Medical Education Conference, which in 2012 covered teaching, learning and assessment in the workplace, as well as a seminar series. With the Royal College of Physicians, it also runs a highly successful master’s course in Medical Education, which has expanded significantly in recent years.

As a mark of the status attached to medical education research, it is being entered as a separate category in the 2014 Research Excellence Framework. The Medical School is also in discussion with the nearby Institute of Education, with a view to closer collaboration. There are potentially fruitful opportunities for crossfertilisation between the Institute of Education’s pedagogical expertise and the Medical School’s work in clinical education.

The Peerwise system is being used by several UCL groups.

Medical student Alex Nesbitt has led education research projects.

QUESTION TIME

CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK

Use of the ‘Peerwise’ system has enabled the School’s linguistics students to develop their own questions on course content.

Alex Nesbitt and fellow medical students have found out for themselves what their peers think about the quality of feedback they receive.

An excellent way to judge whether you have understood a topic is to try to teach it to someone else. This principle underpins the Peerwise system, which provides the tools to enable students to develop their own questions for their peers. One area where it has been successfully integrated into teaching has been on the School’s Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology course. Peerwise has been developed by a team at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. Through a simple web interface, it enables individuals and groups to put together questions, multiple choice or freeform. The idea is that students develop questions, a range of plausible answers (for multiple choice questions) and an explanation of why the right answer is correct. Their peers then complete the questions and can feedback their own comments on the quality of the questions. As well as demanding a much deeper understanding of topics, students are far more engaged in their own learning in the Peerwise approach. Development of questions also provides an opportunity for group working. And the fact that the Peerwise work also feeds into students’ final assessment ensures they take it seriously. The pilot was put together by a small team in the linguistics department, including teaching administrator Stefanie Anyadi (see page 36), Dr Hans van de Koot and module organiser Dr Andrew Nevins, with input from Dr Rosalind Duhs in the Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching and Steve Rowett in E-Learning Environments. A key role was played by the modules’ three postgraduate teaching assistants, who provided initial training to students as well as practical support when needed. The project was supported by a small grant from UCL’s teaching development fund. The pilot proved extremely popular with the students and with the teaching assistants, who have enjoyed mentoring students with the new tool. Plans are afoot to extend use of the tool to other modules, with the teaching assistants passing on their knowledge and skills to other postgraduate students who will be involved in teaching.

Feedback is recognised to be a valuable aspect of the learning experience. In medical education, it is a critical part of workplacebased assessments, where students’ performance is evaluated in scenarios mimicking actual clinical practice. Senior doctors, however, often question whether students actually gain much from such feedback. On a sabbatical year in the students union, Alex Nesbitt wondered whether this was really the case. “Most universities get quite poor feedback ratings on the National Student Survey. Although UCL got quite a good one, and the Medical School got a really good one, I thought it would be interesting to have a look specifically at the feedback medical students get to evaluate how useful it is, how effective it is and how much developmental value it has.” With support from Dr Ann Griffin and Dr Alison Sturrock, Alex put together a team to carry out two mini-projects on feedback. The first explored students’ views of feedback and of a recently redesigned feedback form. The second examined the quality of the written feedback clinicians were providing. Contrary to what consultants had assumed, a survey of UCL’s medical students revealed that feedback was definitely seen as useful. “We found that students valued the opportunity to get personalised feedback from senior colleagues, consultants and registrars on the wards. They wanted feedback in person when they do the exercise. Students find workplace-based assessments useful for their learning.” The survey also suggested areas where improvements could be made: “We’ve come up with some tips for students and consultants to make sure the transactional feedback is as effective as possible.” An analysis of the written feedback, however, was less positive. “Written feedback was quite poor overall,” Alex suggests. Assessors often recorded nothing or very generic comments, or suggested that students should just keep practising: “We felt that was something students would do anyway. It wasn’t very useful feedback.” Alex and his team have prepared posters from the research projects and presented their findings at medical education conferences. They are also being written up for publication. It has provided Alex with first-hand experience of education research, from devising studies to dealing with referees’ comments on manuscripts. He has appreciated the light-touch guidance provided by Dr Griffin and Dr Sturrock: “They were very constructive in their criticism and feedback but also let us develop the project ourselves.” While Alex has returned to his own medical studies, the projects have ignited an interest in education and education research. “It’s definitely something I would like to pursue in the future.”

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Personal development and enhancement of skills are central to both undergraduate and postgraduate education.

SKILLS FOR LIFE Alongside new knowledge, the School places great emphasis on the broader development of undergraduate and postgraduate students. Core teaching emphasises the development of critical and creative thinking, problem solving and other learning skills, and the sourcing and appraisal of information. A UCL education also encourages students to value learning throughout life and to prioritise their continuing professional development whatever their chosen career. While not formally assessed to the same extent as knowledge, skills

development is core to an undergraduate education. It is monitored through UCL’s online student information system, Portico, and the e-portfolio tool. Many opportunities for development of generic skills, in areas such as communication and teamworking, are built into the teaching provided to undergraduates. For the commercially minded, there is a strong emphasis on the development of entrepreneurial skills (see box). Other services such as UCL’s Careers Service offer valuable assistance for work experience and placements, and guidance

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

on future career decisions. UCL’s Alumni Relations Office is also a useful source of contacts and mentoring opportunities. Voluntary work also contributes to personal development, and UCL offers an active volunteering service that is taken up by many students.

promotes the professional development of UK postgraduate research staff. It covers four domains:

Skills development is just as critical during postgraduate education. UCL Graduate School has developed an outstanding portfolio of development opportunities, ranging from half-day events to in-depth residential courses. The programme draws upon the Researcher Development Framework developed by Vitae, which

• Communication, influence and impact.

• Knowledge and intellectual abilities • Personal effectiveness • Research organisation and governance

The support offered to PhD students is designed to provide an excellent preparation for a research career. However, the overwhelming majority of students – some 97 per cent – will not actually end up in an academic research career. Hence

THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT UCL seeks to instill a spirit of entrepreneurship in its students, and through UCL Advances it provides many forms of support to enable students to develop their entrepreneurial skills and business ideas. Students have found acquiring entrepreneurial skills – leadership, innovative thinking, creativity, and a can-do mentality – of value in a variety of commercial environments, as well as when setting up their own businesses. To develop these skills and support UCL students’ entrepreneurial ambitions, UCL Advances offers a multitude of training opportunities, including workshops, an ‘Enterprise Bootcamp’ and short courses in areas such as small business management. Students can also access multiple opportunities for networking and obtain guidance from student business advisers and mentors. These activities can draw upon UCL’s extensive network of alumni, as well as local businesses. UCL Advances already engages with 300 small companies and supports 50 companies, and has plans to expand this to 125 by 2016. Students can also gain workplace experience through paid internships – funded by UCL Advances – with start-ups across London. Through the scheme, students have gained a thorough overview of business management and some have found permanent jobs. In addition, UCL Advances also enables students to gain consultancy experience. Groups of students are briefed on business and consultancy, before undertaking consultancy projects with local start-ups. For students who are keen to develop a business idea, funding in the form of loans is available through the Bright Idea scheme, while UCL Advances can also help budding entrepreneurs identify other potential sources of seed funding and investment opportunities. Space is also available in an incubator, ‘The Hatchery’, providing a base from which students can develop a new business.

provision is also made for the employability skills that will be advantageous in other career paths. Some courses are aimed at developing specific technical skills, from bioinformatics to confocal microscopy. Others have more general aims, to develop thinking and intellectual skills. As well as developing expertise required for a PhD and later research, many courses focus on generic or transferable skills, personal effectiveness covering areas such as time management and project management, while a suite of courses aims to build communication and interpersonal skills. When they begin at UCL, PhD students set up an online Research Student Log to document their work and progress. The Log is an ideal tool for identifying training needs and discussing development opportunities with supervisors. Students

are expected to acquire a minimum of 20 points for development activities during the year, which amounts to 10 days training per year of their course.

before being allowed to take on supervisory duties. A tier system is used to recognise the additional contributions made by experienced supervisors.

Although primarily aimed at research students, courses are also open to MRes students and some to taught graduate students. A further development is the extension of support to postdoctoral scientists. Additional personal development may be valuable in the transitional period as postdocs take up new positions, while the growth of lifelong learning means that many junior researchers are also keen to develop new skills.

For those pursuing a research career, a new Academic Careers Office has been established to enthuse and develop the next generation of innovative and inspiring biomedical and clinical academic scientists. The Office is responsible for initiatives such as the ‘Future Leaders’ programme, which aims to develop the leadership skills of exceptional individuals, profiling of academic role models across the School, and the ‘Future Fifty’ mentoring programme for promising early-career researchers.

Supervisors have an important role to play in guiding the development of students, and receive training to ensure they can perform this role effectively. All would-be supervisors must complete a course and demonstrate their aptitude

training cohorts. Finally,  in partnership with the UCLH–UCL NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, pioneering initiatives are encouraging nurses and allied health professionals into biomedical research. Leadership and other transferable skills are also integral to the School’s postgraduate medical training and CPD provision. Transferable skills development will form an important strand of the online CPD opportunities made available through UCL eXtend.

The Office provides a single point of contact for funders in managing the School’s large clinical and academic

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

SECTION 4

TEACHING WITH A PASSION A UCL education depends on teachers with a passion for inspiring the next generation, who are provided with the support and resources they need to deliver an outstanding educational experience.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Stefanie Anyadi, who leads a UCL-wide teaching administrator network.

The skill and enthusiasm of teachers are an essential part of education. Education is central to the mission of the UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences, and it is committed to developing the teaching skills of its staff and recognising those who excel in teaching. Most young academics can expect to combine teaching with research and other academic duties. The School prepares them for teaching roles through courses run by the Institute of Education, leading to recognition by the Higher Education Academy. Some may go on to specialise in teaching, an option becoming more possible through teaching fellow posts which offer the prospect of long-term career progression. Education across the School is also notable for the diversity of people involved in teaching. As well as the School’s own academic staff, it can also call upon researchers in institutions such as the MRC National Institute for Medical Research and large numbers of clinical

Education is central to the mission of the UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences, and it is committed to developing the teaching skills of its staff and recognising those who excel in teaching.

specialists. With strong importance attached to interdisciplinarity, teachers from other UCL schools or from other professional fields also contribute to teaching. Recognising excellence Excellent teaching across UCL is recognised through the Provost’s Teaching Awards scheme. Launched in 2007, the awards are made annually to individuals and teams that have made “outstanding contributions to the learning experiences and success of our students”. Special categories exist for early-career staff and for teaching support staff, as well as for experienced teaching professionals and teams. Previous winners have included Dr Amanda Cain (see page 21) in 2011, Dr Helen Chatterjee (see page 23) and Charmian Dawson,

jointly with Professor Elizabeth Shephard and Dr Andrea Townsend Nicholson. The latter group’s work has encompassed the development of innovative multimedia learning aids (see page 36) and a radical rethink of a general skills week after first-year exams (see page 22). Technological advances also underpinned the award made in 2012 to Dr William Coppola. For more than a decade, Dr Coppola has been expanding the e-learning infrastructure within medical education, helping to establish online feedback systems for students, leading on the rollout of Lecturecast, and helping to integrate the new e-portfolio system. Winners in 2013 included Dr Richard Milne (see page 26), Stefanie Anyadi (see page 36) and Mike Rowson,

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Preparing for a life in teaching.

Clinical Teaching Fellows often combine teaching and practice.

A SOLID FOUNDATION

INTEGRATED TEACHING

Early-career academics have the chance to explore the theoretical foundations and practice of teaching, and gain formal accreditation.

Clinical teaching fellows bring direct experience of clinical practice into the classroom.

Most UCL academics are expected to have some involvement in teaching. To prepare them for teaching roles, the UCL Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching organises a foundation course in conjunction with the Institute of Education, which can lead to formal recognition by the UK Higher Education Academy. Sabine Joseph, currently studying for a PhD in cognitive neuroscience, has been exposed to a variety of teaching styles – thanks to a liberal arts and science degree in Maastricht, The Netherlands, and a Dual Master’s split between Paris and UCL. “During my master’s, it was interesting that you could study similar subjects in two different systems and everything is presented so differently.” Past experience, she suggests, is highly influential: “Everyone came with a different perspective on teaching, people were quite influenced by their own backgrounds. If you came from a teachercentred school you would now value those teacher-centred styles of teaching more.” The course, she feels, was helpful in overcoming such preconceptions: “We were confronted with other ways which we were less familiar with. Everyone had to reflect on these different teaching styles and build their own model of what they think is the best way of teaching.” Sabine has begun to apply some of her new skills, having helped to organise and teach a class on neuroscience and the media for master’s students. Ultimately she hopes to combine teaching with research: “Just doing one or the other would be too one-sided.” Neta Amior, in the third year of her PhD, sees teaching as a natural complement to research: “I enjoy the concepts in science. Research tends to involve repeating experiments, leaving less time or need to think about such concepts. Teaching gets me thinking about science again.” She is also able to pass on some of her enthusiasm for science: “It’s nice to see them learning about it, and being inspired about it. That’s quite rewarding.” The course, she suggests, has given her a much better understanding of what teaching involves, and what the challenges are likely to be. The emphasis on planning has made her more prepared for a life in teaching. She was impressed with the rigour of the course – earning the formal qualification was no box-ticking exercise and will, she believes, significantly improve the quality of her teaching. After an MSc, Maha Abdollah is now studying for a PhD at the UCL Cancer Institute. When she returns to Egypt, teaching is likely to be an important part of her career – hence her interest in the course. “It will be one of the main things I will be doing when I go back home, so I thought it was a necessity.” She found it particularly helpful to have discussions grounded in solid educational theory, which helped to make sense of past experience. With a combination of theory and practice, she has also been able to try things out and get feedback. “I really enjoyed it,” she concludes.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Almost all doctors are engaged in education to some extent, helping to develop the next generation of clinicians. Some can become even more deeply involved by taking on Clinical Teaching Fellowship positions – helping to develop their own skills as well those of students. UCL Medical School has around six to eight Clinical Teaching Fellows at any one time, in full- or part-time positions lasting up to two years. Typically, Fellows are at registrar level, training to be a consultant in their area of speciality. Before her UCL position, Dr Rosie Belcher had already spent a period as an education fellow in an NHS trust. “That was very coalface,” she says, her time spent almost exclusively on direct teaching. Her part-time 18-month fellowship at UCL provided scope for a more varied experience. Although the UCL fellowship lengthened her training, Dr Belcher believes it was helpful to maintain her practice. “It’s good also to be in a clinical job. It gives you credibility with students that I’m still doing clinical work, I’m still based in the reality that they’re experiencing every day.” Like all Clinical Teaching Fellows, Dr Belcher contributed to a range of core activities, such as teaching on Training to Teach courses, marking first-years’ work, assessing reflective essays and developing scenarios for ‘case of the month’ (see page 21). Fellows also have the opportunity to develop their own projects – in Dr Belcher’s case, helping to implement a new e-portfolio system which students use to record their progress and assessments. The position also provided scope for research, enabling Dr Belcher to explore issues around the e-portfolio. Not all doctors are enamoured of the e-portfolio, and Dr Belcher was keen to know whether the degree of engagement with the e-portfolio had any bearing on exam performance, and whether negative attitudes had filtered down to students. Dr Belcher also helped to organise a conference for teaching fellows, initially planned as a way for fellows to network and discuss their experiences. “It was very popular,” says Dr Belcher. “People who came were much more junior than we were expecting and asked for tips for how to get into education, what they could do at their level.” The following year’s conference was therefore given a stronger careers slant. Dr Belcher believes that the fellowship has also been beneficial for her. The fellowships are, she suggests, tailored to individuals’ experience and interests. “They’re very much aimed at developing people’s skills. I definitely feel I’ve learned a lot.”

Many clinicians contribute to medical training.

a Teaching Fellow in the Institute of Global Health who was also one of four recipients of an ‘Outstanding Teaching’ award in UCL Union’s first Student Choice Teaching Awards in 2013. Two other teachers in the School, Dr Alastair McClelland and Dr Julie Pitcher, picked up students’ awards for ‘Outstanding Support for Teaching’. The length, breadth and complexity of medical education naturally means that large numbers of people are involved in teaching medical students. UCL Medical School organises a wide range of annual awards for teaching, the scope of which extends to the many clinicians involved in teaching medical trainees at affiliated hospitals and other sites. These include the prestigious Excellence in Medical Education Awards, made annually to individuals and groups making an outstanding contribution to undergraduate medical education. Individual winners in 2011/12 included Dr Parthipan Pillai (Saad alDamluji Award) and Dr John Firth (David Jordan Award), featured on page 23.

Students in UCL’s main library.

UCL has established a Professional Development Programme in Academic Practice, which is mapped against the HEA’s national standard, the UK Professional Standards Framework.

Each year, medical students also provide extensive feedback on their teachers, providing a further opportunity to recognise those whose efforts have been appreciated by their students. Recognition is also given to the vital work of administrators, at UCL and clinical sites. A new certificate of merit scheme is also being introduced for foundation-year doctors who make a major contribution to medical student training. Indeed, all kinds of people are involved in medical teaching, from newly graduated foundation-year doctors to experienced consultants. UCL provides numerous ways for trainees doctors to become involved in teaching and to enhance their teaching skills. This includes resource documents such as Guidance for Junior Doctors, while practical guidance on medical teaching is provided through Training to Teach courses.

The Medical School also recruits Clinical Training Fellows, who work parttime for two years or fulltime for a year (see page 35). Typically registrar level, fellows undertake a wide range of teaching duties across all years of undergraduate teaching, and foundation year teaching, and also manage their own individual projects, in education research or similar. Fellows also contribute to teaching courses and the Target Medicine widening participation initiative. Clinical Training Fellows have also been involved in organising Trainees in Medical Education (TiME) conferences. Originally planned as a forum for those already involved in teaching to discuss and share good practice, the conferences turned out to be extremely popular among students and trainees keen to become more involved in teaching. The 2013 conference, covering transitions in medical

education and training, was held in conjunction with the Medical School’s popular annual Medical Education conference. Developing teaching skills and careers For academic staff, the UK’s Higher Education Academy (HEA) is playing an important role in promoting the practice of teaching in universities and other higher education institutions. As well as providing opportunities for staff development and networking, the HEA also provides formal recognition of high-quality teaching. To guide teaching staff development, UCL has established a Professional Development Programme in Academic Practice, which is mapped against the HEA’s national standard, the UK Professional Standards Framework. Early-career staff are provided with opportunities to undergo training and gain HEA accreditation (see page 34), through a programme organised by the Institute of Education and UCL Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching (CALT).

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Stefanie Anyadi (left).

Charmian Dawson.

THE PERSONAL TOUCH

EDUCATION IN ACTION

Teaching administrators can play multiple roles in education, says Stefanie Anyadi, particularly catalysing the uptake of new technologies.

Multimedia opens up multiple opportunities for a more engaging education, says Charmian Dawson.

Academic staff are obviously critical to student education, but behind the scenes teaching administrators provide essential backup. As well as illustrating the vital role they can play, Stefanie Anyadi is helping to develop teaching administrator functions across UCL. The teaching administrator role is evolving, often tailored to local departmental needs and covers a range of job titles, says Stefanie. “We deal with everything from admissions to support for lecturers, examinations, pastoral issues, all kinds of things.” Stefanie leads a support team within UCL’s Division of Psychology and Language Sciences. She has also established an extensive network of contacts across UCL, an important factor in the dissemination of new technologies. “By sharing all these new initiatives with other people, particularly with other teaching administrators, we can then bring it to the academics. They’re so busy with their research and teaching and supervision they often don’t have time to be proactive about innovation. We can bring it to them and provide the initial support to encourage them to take the first steps and take it forward themselves.” Good examples have been the ‘personal response systems’ – or ‘clickers’ (see page 18) – and the Peerwise project (see page 29). Stefanie is also helping her department move towards paperless operation, with increasing amounts of online submission and marking. With colleagues in E-Learning Environments, she is also leading a ‘Digital Department’ project, funded by the Joint Infrastructure Committee (JISC), which aims to develop the digital literacy of teaching administrators. “It’s increasingly recognised that they are really important in helping in innovation and sharing it across UCL.” As well as auditing current practice and knowledge, the project is developing cohorts of staff who achieve ‘CMALT’, Certified Membership of the Association for Learning Technology. Stefanie is involved in other wider teaching administrator initiatives. As well as helping to develop a handbook and wiki to help staff navigate internal systems, she is also chair of the organising committee of annual teaching administrator conferences. “They’re a fantastic opportunity for people to come together from across UCL.” Within her own department, she is closely involved in multiple undergraduate and postgraduate courses, and often the first point of contact with UCL. First impressions matter, and she aims to build on positive initial impressions and develop relationships with prospective students through to the time they start their studies. Indeed, new students often feel most comfortable talking to teaching administrators, so pastoral care is yet another part of the expanding job description.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

As a teaching fellow, Charmian Dawson has one distinct advantage over her colleagues: she actually took the courses she now teaches on. Having first undertaken a summer project then become a member of staff, she has been able to build on her interests in biochemistry and programming to develop a range of multimedia tools to support teaching and learning. Multimedia applications are an ideal way to show dynamic biological processes, and provide opportunities for interactivity and more active student engagement. Yet when she investigated what already existed, Charmian was disappointed. “Almost without exception, an animation described as interactive was one where you could press forward and back.” Having taught herself Flash programming, Charmian has developed a range of interactive tools for microbiology, molecular biology and metabolism. An interactive version of the electron transport chain illustrates what she is trying to achieve. Students have to move the electron carriers and chemical entities themselves: “They actually do it rather just watching it happen.” She has also applied the approach to improve preparation for practical work – particularly a complex five-part lab experiment carried out in year 2. “I did this practical myself. We often struggled to understand how the different steps went together – what it was we actually doing. We’re adding one clear liquid to another clear liquid. The aim of the animation was to help them put everything together and understand what was happening at different points.” Students have responded positively to the innovations, confirmed in end-of-year surveys: “The feedback was overwhelmingly positive.” Her latest project is an ambitious attempt to encourage greater reflection and self-assessment in first-year students. Unusually for online tools, students provide freeform answers to questions. They are then provided with a marking scheme and are asked to assess how well they covered each point. They also have to highlight the precise parts of their answer addressing each point, to help ensure they are realistic in their assessments. Encouraging such thinking skills should benefit the students further down the line: “If we can get them to think like that in the first year, perhaps by the third year they’ll be much more analytical.” Although an experiment, it may yield additional useful information. “It’s going to be voluntary so I’ll be able to compare the ones who did it with the ones who didn’t.” And, she adds, it has another distinct advantage: “If it works it could be applied to a lot of other topics.”

UCL’s distinctive portico.

Such experience, leading to recognition as an Associate Fellow of the Academy, can provide an important early grounding in the key principles of teaching. PhD students and others develop an electronic portfolio of work, which is submitted to the HEA for accreditation. More experienced staff can similarly apply to be recognised as Fellows or Senior Fellows of the Academy. Numerous other training courses are available through CALT, as well as one-off workshops and conferences. Online access is also provided to a wide range of resources to support teaching in higher education, developed through the ‘CPD4HE’ project. These cover a multitude of topics, from curriculum design to assessment and feedback. Another valuable resource is UCL’s Teaching and Learning Portal (www.ucl. ac.uk/teaching-learning/ default). As well as a convenient online home for strategy and other documents relating to

Mike Rowson, recipient of a student teaching award in 2013.

education across UCL, the site also provides a constant stream of news and features on innovative teaching practices and other activities relevant to teaching. A development pathway Internal recognition and promotion within the School has primarily been based on contributions to research outputs and grant income. Education research is, however, a relatively small academic discipline which does not generate the highprofile outputs of biomedical science. Moreover, some teachers my want to excel at the practice of teaching rather than as an academic discipline. How best to recognise contributions to teaching, both quantity and quality, is an issue under active consideration. For teaching fellows, who spend essentially all their time on teaching (although they have time ring-fenced for associated research activities), a career pathway does exist. Clear criteria exist for teaching fellows to be promoted to

senior teaching fellow and principal teaching fellow. It is possible to be promoted to professor level on the basis of sustained excellence in teaching activities. One example is Professor Susan Cunningham, who was promoted to a Chair in 2011 as a consequence of her leadership in teaching innovation within UCL Eastman Dental Institute. Non-academic staff Non-academic staff play a critical role in the smooth operations of large educational establishments. Increasingly, administrators may play a greater role in educational delivery, particularly in facilitating the use of new technologies.

A network of teaching administrators has been established across UCL to share learning and experience, with a particular focus on the dissemination of new technology. One option is to apply for ‘CMALT’, Certified Membership of the Association for Learning Technologies. Through the Digital Department project funded by the Joint Information Systems Committee and the Association of University Administrators, and coordinated by Stefanie Anyadi and others (see page 36), a first cohort of teaching administrators gained their accreditation in January 2013.

Teaching administrators are of importance as they are often the first point of contact with prospective students. As well as organising all the practical aspects of courses, they can also be valuable contact points with students and routes by which new teaching innovations can be brought into departments.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Researchers in the UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences are active contributors to ‘informal education’, while young people are the target of initiatives to widen participation.

REACHING OUT

Professor Steve Jones.

As well as being a route to a valuable qualification and onto a career ladder, education can also be intellectually fulfilling and sometimes simply undertaken for its own sake. Researchers across the School undertake a diversity of outreach activities to satisfy the intellectually curious. Public lectures have long been a core activity of universities, and the School’s researchers are regular contributors to UCL series such as the popular ‘lunch hour lectures’. The lectures can now also be watched online, and sometimes expand into special wholeday events, as on world TB day. UCL also has a unique range of museums and collections, including the popular Grant Museum of Zoology. The Museum also offers a programme of education activities for school students. The School is also home to some of the most acclaimed popularisers of science. Over many years Professor Steve Jones has written some of the finest popular

Dr Petra Boynton.

science books on genetics, ecology and evolution, from Language of the Genes – winner of the Aventis Book prize – through Almost Like a Whale: The Origin of Species Updated to The Serpent’s Promise: The Bible Retold as Science, published in 2013. He delivered the 1991 BBC Reith Lectures, was awarded Royal Society Michael Faraday Prize in 1996, and has been a tireless communicator and advocate of science on radio, television and in person for more than 20 years. Other notable UCL authors include Professor Chris McManus who has combined his teaching at UCL Medical School with popular writing, including Right Hand, Left Hand, a wide-ranging and entertaining journey through the history and science of laterality. Professor Nick Lane has received plaudits for his works including Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life and Life Ascending: The Ten Great Inventions of Evolution – winner of the Royal Society Book Prize in 2010.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Professor David Colquhoun.

Many other individuals across the School have made important contributions to science communication. One of the most notable is Dr Kevin Fong, a lecturer in physiology who has made numerous appearances on television and radio and was the Wellcome Trust’s first Engagement Fellow. Professor Mark Lythgoe combines running the UCL Centre for Advanced Biomedical Imaging with a wide range of public engagement activities, including a successful stint as Director of the Cheltenham Science Festival. For many years, Professor David Colquhoun’s blog, DC’s Improbable Science, has been a scourge of woolly thinking. Neuroscience provides rich opportunities to engage the public in science. Given UCL’s world-leading position in neuroscience research, it is no surprise that neuroscientists are involved in numerous public-oriented activities. One of the many researchers contributing to public engagement is Professor Sophie Scott,

winner of a Provost’s Award for Public Engagement in 2013, for a wide range of activities from science and art projects to stand up comedy. Professor Beau Lotto combines research on perception, including mindbending visual illusions, with a wide-ranging programme of public outreach. These are undertaken under the banner of the Lottolab Studio, which has its own space at the Science Museum. Professor Lotto is one of several UCL researchers to have delivered prestigious TED talks. UCL researchers are frequently called upon to comment on stories in national and international media. Dr Petra Boynton, a senior lecturer in UCL Medical School, has filled a very particular niche as an expert commentator on matters of sexual health. Once described as the UK’s first ‘evidence-based’ agony aunt, Dr Boynton has her hands full dispelling some of the myths and misrepresentations in sex and relationships, ensuring that debates are informed

by reliable research rather than dogma or prejudice. She is an active blogger, Tweeter and has her own advice column in the Daily Telegraph. As well as activities that reflect the sharing of specialist knowledge, the School’s public engagement activities also encompass projects that invite discussion and debate, listening as well as talking. Such work is supported by UCL’s Public Engagement Unit, which provides various forms of support as well as organising its own projects and events – including the monthly variety night, ‘BrightClub’. One of the most important roles of public engagement is to ensure that public views are reflected in research. The Eastman Dental Institute, for example, has sought public input into the dental issues seen as most important to patients. Notably, the Deafness Cognition and Language (DCAL) research centre maintains strong links with the deaf community, to ensure its needs are reflected in the centre’s research.

OPENING EYES The School’s outreach activities encourage school students from disadvantaged backgrounds to aspire to a UCL education. Throughout its history, UCL has sought to ensure equality of opportunity for all, whatever their background. All should have the opportunity to study, if they have the intellectual capacity. A major challenge, however, is that students from disadvantaged backgrounds may have the capacity to thrive at university but, for a variety of reasons, may not consider themselves suitable for UCL. The School’s outreach activities aim to dispel this view. One successful recent initiative was based on a non-residential summer school for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, run by a team from the Faculty of Life Sciences in July 2012. For a week, students heard talks and took part in practicals to gain a sense of life as a

student. They also undertook group work and other activities to boost their skills. Perhaps most importantly, they learned that lecturers are ‘real people’ and that they had much in common with students. The work put into organising the summer school laid the foundation for a similar event, this time residential, sponsored by the Sutton Trust, for 40 students from London and the South East. As a result, several students applied to study at UCL. Following the success of the new venture, two similar events were held in 2013. UCL Medical School’s ‘Target Medicine’ has the similar aim of widening participation. It is based on the idea that students themselves are the best ambassadors, and they play an active role in encouraging school students to consider medicine as a career.

medical school, to help them through the application process. Students also take part in outreach activities, often to younger age groups to encourage them to think about medicine and to guide them in their choice of subjects so they are not inadvertently excluded from the medicine career path. The Medical School also organises an annual residential summer school for local year 11 students from state schools. These activities form part of a UCL-wide initiative, UCL Outreach, which runs many activities for students and teachers with the aim of widening participation.

Target Medicine includes a mentoring scheme, with teams of medical students paired up with groups of local state school pupils considering applying to

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

SECTION 5

A GLOBAL VIEW As part of ‘London’s Global University’, the School’s education activities are set in a global context. The aim is to provide learners with a global perspective on their knowledge.

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

One in three UCL students comes from outside the UK.

Today’s students will enter a world more highly connected than ever before. They are likely to encounter a diversity of people, cultures and ideas, and their careers may take them outside their home countries. In today’s global village, a parochial education is no longer adequate. Situated in the heart of one of the world’s most cosmopolitan cities, UCL prides itself on its internationalism. The number of overseas students at UCL – around a third of undergraduates, from 140 different countries – is one obvious measure of this cosmopolitanism, bringing together students of widely differing backgrounds. Great efforts are made to welcome students from other countries and to make sure their transition to study in the UK is successful. Specific support is available across the university to support international students, coordinated by an International Student Support team. For new overseas students, an International Students’

The School aims to provide learners with a sense of global context, to appreciate how their new knowledge relates to the wider world, and how they can become responsible global citizens.

Orientation Programme provides an introduction to UCL, its teaching and to London more generally. Students can also take a foundation year, a University Preparatory Certificate for Science and Engineering, to prepare for science courses. The impact of cultural differences is not easy to predict, and can raise issues for both staff and students. The newly established UCL Cultural Consultancy can help students and staff deal with issues arising from differing cultural norms (see page 43). It has also launched a research project to gather more information about culturally related issues experienced by students and staff, to feed into the development of policy and practical training and support for staff. But internationalism goes far beyond simply accepting students from different

countries. The UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences is plugged into numerous international networks that open up new opportunities for exchange and mutual learning. Above all, it aims to provide learners with a sense of global context, to appreciate how their new knowledge relates to the wider world, and how they can become responsible global citizens. Integrating international perspectives Some courses are by their nature international in focus. UCL was the first medical school to offer an intercalated degree in international health, an innovation later replicated by other UK medical schools. Now known as the Integrated BSc in Global Health, the course is highly interdisciplinary, covering economic, social, cultural

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

UCL students at the start of their studies.

and political influences on health, as well as traditional causes of disease and treatment, and draws upon academic expertise across multiple UCL Schools. Medical students can also take a second-year optional module, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Global Health, and a fifth-year module in Global Health. More advanced knowledge can be gained on the highly respected and popular MSc in Global Health and Development. Again based on interdisciplinary principles, the course brings together individuals with backgrounds in medicine, science, public health, policy and international development (see page 44). A long-standing MSc in International Child Health is similarly interdisciplinary, but with a focus on paediatric health and welfare. The MSc in Clinical Pharmacy, International Practice and Policy, offered by UCL School of Pharmacy, is specifically aimed at overseas students who want to develop their skills in clinical pharmacy and contribute to the

development of pharmacy education and practice in their home countries (see page 43). More generally, there is a growing awareness of the need for an international perspective even among those who are not specialising in global health. Medical students will become doctors in a world where work opportunities are increasingly international. Even if they stay in the UK, their work will be influenced by global trends, from migration to emerging infections. Their practice will need to be informed by a sound understanding of the rich diversity of patients’ cultural and social backgrounds. To address this challenge, global health is part of the vertical ‘spine’ on social determinants of health in the new UCL Medical School undergraduate curriculum. Students in all six years will therefore be exposed to key principles and international perspectives on health. UCL has also been a key partner in the ‘Students as Global Citizens’

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Doctors need to be aware of many cultural sensitivities.

project, funded by the UK Department for International Development, alongside the Institute of Education, the Royal Veterinary College and the London Development Centre. The project aimed to integrate global health and development issues, and interdisciplinary perspectives, into undergraduate teaching in medicine, pharmacy and veterinary medicine. As well as fostering an appreciation of the increasingly international context of medicine and allied subjects, the project also sought to raise awareness of the diversity of career opportunities. More generally, tutors on all courses are encouraged to consider how to integrate international perspectives into their teaching. In modules on infectious disease, for example, this might include a focus on infections of the developing world; in neurology and neuroscience, it might encompass contrasting attitudes to ageing and dementia in different cultures.

Exchange and interaction Teaching is one area that has benefited from the Yale UCL Collaborative, which aims to bring the best of two of the world’s leading academic institutions together to tackle pressing globally significant issues. The collaboration includes scope for exchange of graduate students, splitsite PhD study, opportunities for early-career US clinicians to work within UCL partner hospitals, and a senior scientist lecture series, through which visiting Yale researchers give public lectures and presentations to students. The School also runs an innovative Dual Master’s in Brain and Mind Sciences, in partnership with the Université Pierre et Marie Curie and the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. The two-year master’s programme enables students to experience three of Europe’s leading centres of neuroscience. Several undergraduate courses have now introduced options for international study.

Dr Caroline Selai and Dr Sushrut Jadhav.

Barbra Katusiime outside the UCL School of Pharmacy.

BUILDING BRIDGES

NEXT STEPS IN PHARMACY

UCL’s Cultural Consultation Service offers advice and support to students and staff alike.

The MSc in Clinical Pharmacy, International Practice and Policy is intense and demanding – but enables students to make major contributions to the development of pharmacy in their home countries.

UCL’s cosmopolitan nature is one of its strengths and defining features, with students arriving from all over the world to study for undergraduate or postgraduate qualifications, or to undertake research. Yet coming to live in a new country, with its distinct mix of culture and traditions, can present challenges, while staff need to be aware of a diversity of cultural issues if they are to be effective teachers or supervisors. UCL’s Cultural Consultation Service, led by Dr Caroline Selai and Dr Sushrut Jadhav, offers a confidential and wide-ranging service both to prepare students and staff and to help resolve issues as smoothly as possible when they do arise. Drawing on expertise from a several academic disciplines and linked to a larger consortium of cross-cultural clinical services, the service is the first of its kind within a university or higher educational institute. For young people living abroad for the first time, some social conventions can be a real challenge. One student with a strong religious background sought advice on going to the pub, as her family would be unlikely to approve yet she also wanted to fit in. Another new student struggled with learning methods – having been taught to accept information from authority figures, he was surprised to be expected to question and challenge received wisdom. Staff may also find themselves in awkward situations. One lecturer contacted the service after experiencing difficulties with the father of a student. The father was constantly making phone calls to check on his daughter’s progress and providing gifts that the lecturer felt uneasy about accepting. Staff have also wanted advice on supporting international students who do not find it easy to participate in interactive group seminar discussions. Students or staff can make contact with the service through its website, and all approaches are confidential. Dr Selai and Dr Jadhav aim to bring their experience and mediatory skills to bear to resolve issues, and such is UCL’s diversity that they can draw upon a wealth of cultural expertise across UCL to support their work. The service also offers consultancy services to external organisations. Since its launch in November 2011, the service has received 39 consultations, ranging from individual staff and students to organisational consultations – both internal UCL departments and external. As well as this reactive work, the service also aims to prevent issues arising, running seminars and workshops on academic and cultural issues at UCL, in London and the UK more generally. Dr Selai and Dr Jadhav are also leading a research project to identify cultural issues that impact on teaching and learning. The results will feed into UCL policy making, as well as practical workshops for staff and guidance to students.

The one-year full-time MSc is intended to provide qualified pharmacists with additional experience of clinical aspects of pharmacy, and to give students insight into international standards and practice. It attracts students from every continent, including many developing countries. Barbra Katusiime, for example, began the course two years after completing her pharmacy degree at Makerere University, Uganda. Since graduation, she has been combining clinical practice with teaching at Mbarara University of Science and Technology in Uganda. Like all the people on the course, she is keen to build on past education: “We are all pharmacists and most of us are already working, so we are more interested in the hands-on practice, and less of theory, which the programme is currently offering.” Although she acknowledges that the course is demanding, it meets her needs precisely: “The experience is good, because we meet health professionals who are already in clinical practice and they share their experience with us. We are not only taught in class – we go to the NHS hospitals and we see what actually goes on in the real world.” In the long term she hopes to use her new knowledge and skills back in Uganda: “I hope I will be in leadership positions, and be able to transfer the knowledge I have acquired and experience to improve the healthcare and educational sectors in Uganda.” One person who has achieved significant impact on her return is Tijana Kova˘cevi´c, who is based at the University Hospital in Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and also affiliated to the School of Pharmacy at the University of Belgrade: “As soon as I got back to my home institution, in October 2010, I started an initiative to implement some new things I learned in the UK, for which I had full support of the hospital director.” While all the course was useful, she too points to the practical experience in hospital settings as being particularly useful. It has enabled her to act as a clinical mentor for students at the University of Belgrade attending postgraduate course in clinical pharmacy, for whom she has organised a clinical placement modelled on that she had experienced in London. “It was a great opportunity to transfer the knowledge I gained to my future colleagues,” she says. “All in all, the MSc in clinical pharmacy truly changed my professional life.”

www.ucl.ac.uk/ccs

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

The MSc provides an interdisciplinary view of global health.

THE BIGGER PICTURE The MSc in Global Health and Development recognises that health is inextricably linked to a raft of social issues. The health of populations is inevitably wrapped up in a host of social influences. In resource-poor countries, these issues are further complicated by those associated with development. The School’s MSc in Global Health and Development is notable for the way it situates health in a social context, providing a uniquely wellrounded view of the factors affecting health in developing countries. Sam Beckwith came to the course after a life science degree. While many colleagues opted for PhD research, he wanted something more applied. After looking at the possibility of a public health master’s, he plumped for Global Health and Development – a decision he does not regret: “I really enjoyed it, and realised it was what I was looking for all along.” For Sam, the course was a revelation. “It really opened my mind. I went in with quite a narrow view of what I thought development was, what global health was. The course really opened my mind to what a broad field this really is, all the different actors that working in it, all the debates that have been rumbling on for years but are constantly evolving.” He now works in Bangladesh, on a UK Government-funded initiative to boost sustainable economic development – aided, he believes, by his master’s: “I got the impression that the course is viewed pretty positively because it is so interdisciplinary and broad.” Many students come from overseas. Stephanie Montero, for example, took the course after her medical studies in Mexico. “During the last year of medical school, when I did my community service in a small, rural and poor town in Mexico, and while working for a local NGO, I realised how important it was to improve the conditions in which people live for them to be healthy. The interdisciplinary approach to health of the course, rather than just the clinical approach which was what I experienced at Medical School, was what attracted me.” The course lived up to her expectations: “Being an interdisciplinary, and a very analytical and critical course, it provided me with a broad and integral definition of health and of all the different factors that may determine health in a population.” She also appreciated the chance to learn from fellow students from diverse backgrounds. She is now working for her local state Ministry of Sustainable Development, aiming to engage citizens in decision-making processes. Although better health is not the main objective, it is something she believes will naturally flow from her work: “By empowering citizens you may ensure the balance of power of different actors and their influence in politics, and so achieve a healthier environment for all.”

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

Pharmacies are critical to the safe use of medicines.

DEVELOPING THE GLOBAL PHARMACY WORKFORCE The UCL School of Pharmacy is playing a lead role in establishing standards and developing the global pharmacy workforce. Pharmacy is a discipline undergoing considerable change, with an increasingly important role to play in the optimal use of medicines. The UCL School of Pharmacy is an internationally recognised beacon of excellence, and through extensive international networks it is playing a critical role in the dissemination of good practice and enhanced pharmacy education. Pharmacists have a critical role to play in the supply and safe use of medicines to a country’s population. This calls for a skilled workforce deployed in ways that reflect healthcare needs. The degree to which such infrastructures exist, however, varies widely across the world. A global voice for pharmacy is provided by FIP, the International Pharmaceutical Federation, the Collaborating Centre for which is based at the UCL School of Pharmacy; FIP brings together more than 124 national member organisations and represents a community of some three million pharmacists and pharmaceutical scientists worldwide. In 2007, with the WHO and UNESCO, FIP established a Pharmacy Education Taskforce, led by Professor Ian Bates, which brought together institutions, agencies and individuals with the common aim of developing pharmacy education worldwide. One of its priorities was to develop a Global Competency Framework, a core set of skills and behaviours underpinning practitioner competence. This framework drew heavily on a similar model successfully implemented in the UK and in Europe. The Taskforce is now a permanent structure within FIP and has since undertaken a comprehensive assessment of the global pharmacy workforce. With information from 90 countries, the 2012 FIP Global Pharmacy Workforce Report is helping countries benchmark their pharmacy workforce and identify development needs. An important contribution to pharmacy workforce development is made by the FPI–UNESCO UNITWIN programme, based at the FIP Collaborating Centre at the UCL School of Pharmacy and led by Professor Bates. Established in 2009 through a formal agreement with UNESCO, UNITWIN has brokered partnerships spanning more than 20 universities in 14 countries. The UNITWIN programme now provides an umbrella for FIP’s Education directorate, which is building capacity to enhance the training and skills development of the global pharmacy workforce. Initiatives have included Pharmapedia, a free, wiki-based information source, the content of which is validated by staff at the UCL School of Pharmacy. The School has also worked closely with Monash University in Australia on a webbased platform for education (SABER, www.saber.monash.edu) – which includes simulations of high-cost medicines manufacturing and production facilities.

Master’s students gain hands-on experience of pharmacy practice.

In Biological Sciences, for example, MSci degree students have the option to spend their third year abroad. Students have ventured as far afield as the California Institute of Technology and centres in Australia and New Zealand. The new BASc degree also offers the option of fouryear study with one year overseas. More generally, UCL’s Study Abroad initiative provides unrivalled opportunities for students to spend time learning in different countries and different cultures. UCL has exchange agreements with more than 250 institutions in 40 countries, including nearly 50 of the world’s top 100 ranked universities. UCL is also part of the Santander Universities initiative, linking together some 1000 universities in 17 countries. As well as students, teachers also have the opportunity to develop their skills and experience internationally, through International Teaching Excellence

Bursaries. Introduced in 2012, the bursaries enable teaching staff to spend short periods overseas. The funds can also be used to host short visits by overseas teachers at UCL. International capacity building One of the School’s important aims is to support the development of education activities in other parts of the world. As one of the world’s leading medical schools, UCL Medical School is an unrivalled position to offer advice and support to places looking to establish or enhance medical training systems – support now available through UCL Medical School Education Consultancy. Consultancy services have been provided in a range of less-developed countries. For example, Medical School staff worked with teams from Libya, to develop their education delivery skills, and have adapted the teaching training course material

for use in a maternal care centre in Bangladesh, which covers a population of some 2 million people. Staff have also been involved in charitably funded initiatives to develop multimedia teaching resources in ophthalmology for use in sub-Saharan Africa. Moreover, as one of the world’s leading centres of medical education – ranked in the top 10 globally – UCL Medical School is well placed to advise on all aspects of medical teaching. It is involved in partnerships to boost the quality of medical teaching in a range of institutions in the Middle East, east Europe and elsewhere. It has developed the concept of a ‘flat-pack’ medical school, to help countries establish new medical training institutions tailored to local needs. Discussions are currently being held with several countries.

capacity building. The UCL School of Pharmacy, for example, has been involved in a project funded by the UK Department for International Development to help re-establish the academic pharmacy infrastructure in Iraq. It has also worked closely with centres in Egypt and Indonesia on developing academic pharmacy systems. The UCL School of Pharmacy is also home to the Collaborating Centre of FIP, the International Pharmaceutical Federation, which links together more than 120 bodies representing a global community of some 2 million pharmacists. In 2012, FIP’s Pharmacy Education Taskforce published a landmark Global Pharmacy Workforce Report and is coordinating multiple activities to develop pharmacy skills internationally (see page 44).

Other parts of the School have also been involved in significant education

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

UCL SCHOOL OF LIFE AND MEDICAL SCIENCES Faculty of Brain Sciences

Faculty of Life Sciences

Faculty of Medical Sciences

UCL Institute of Neurology

Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit

UCL Cancer Institute

UCL Institute of Ophthalmology

UCL Division of Biosciences

UCL Ear Institute

UCL School of Pharmacy

UCL Division of Psychology and Language Sciences (including UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience)

UCL MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology

UCL Mental Health Sciences Unit

UCL Eastman Dental Institute UCL Division of Infection and Immunity UCL Division of Medicine (including the Wolfson Institute of Biomedical Research and UCL Institute of Hepatology) UCL Division of Surgery and Interventional Science UCL Medical School

Faculty of Population Health Sciences UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care UCL Institute of Child Health UCL Institute for Women’s Health UCL Institute of Cardiovascular Science UCL Institute for Global Health UCL Institute of Clinical Trials and Methodology

UCL in London

Partners

Staff in the UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences occupy a range of buildings on UCL’s central Bloomsbury Campus, at the nearby Royal Free Hospital and Whittington Hospital/Archway Campus sites, and other central London locations.

UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences works closely with a range of local, national and international partners. Of particular significance are its close links to local NHS bodies, collectively forming UCL Partners, one of just five UK Academic Health Science Centres. These links underpin UCL’s NIHR Biomedical Research Centres at UCLH, the UCL Institute of Child Health (with Great Ormond Street Hospital) and the UCL Institute of Ophthalmology (with Moorfields Eye Hospital).

1 UCL Main Campus 2 UCL Hospital 3 Great Ormond Street Hospital and UCL Institute of Child Health 4 Moorfields Eye Hospital and UCL Institute of Ophthalmology 5 Royal Free Hospital and UCL School of Medicine 6 Whittington Hospital and Archway Campus

With the MRC, Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research UK, UCL is also a founding partner of the Francis Crick Institute, led by Professor Sir Paul Nurse, which is due to open in 2015. UCL also establishes wider partnerships in the UK, for example with Imperial College to set up the London Centre for Nanotechnology, and with Imperial, King’s College London, the MRC and GlaxoSmithKline on the ‘Imanova’ clinical imaging initiative.

6 5

2 1 4 3

The School has also developed ties with nearby academic centres, including the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Birkbeck College. As well as many joint research initiatives, the institutions also liaise at a strategic level.

London

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

As well as numerous international research collaborations, UCL has developed a strategic alliance with Yale University, the Yale–UCL Collaborative, to promote cross-fertilisation and joint ventures across education, research and application.

UCL Learning and Teaching Strategy

Key links

UCL’s Learning and Teaching Strategy 2010–15 incorporates the following strategic priorities:

UCL education: www.ucl.ac.uk/studying-at-ucl/

• Internationalisation of the curriculum UCL prides itself on being London’s international university and teaches a global curriculum, rather than a UK- or EU-centric one. Whatever their discipline or level of study, students gain an international perspective on their subject, its application and themselves as global citizens. • Education for global citizenship As well as encouraging intellectual growth UCL shapes students’ personal and social development. A UCL ‘education for global citizenship’ enables students to respond to the intellectual, social and personal challenges that they will encounter throughout their future lives and careers. • Key skills Personal tutors play an active part in helping students to assess where they need to develop, planning how to acquire the skills needed and exploring how they can best present themselves to others.

UCL Teaching and Learning Portal: www.ucl.ac.uk/teaching-learning/default UCL undergraduate perspective: www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/undergraduatestudy/entry-2014 UCL graduate perspective: www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/graduate-study/ entry2013 UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences: www.ucl.ac.uk/slms UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences Education Domain: www.ucl.ac.uk/slms/education/education-domain UCL Medical School: www.ucl.ac.uk/medicalschool UCL Medical School Education Consultancy: www.ucl.ac.uk/medicalschool/education-consultancy UCL Eastman Dental School: www.ucl.ac.uk/eastman

• Tools and technologies New learning technologies can bring innovation, increased efficiency and enjoyment to the way we teach and learn. UCL embraces new learning technologies and actively incorporates them into its methods of teaching and assessment. Key principles are outlined in UCL’s E-Learning Strategy, outlining its priorities and aims for 2012–15. • Employability UCL students develop skills and experiences both inside and outside the classroom, ensuring they are highly employable when they graduate. This is achieved through experiential learning, work experience, and opportunities to volunteer, create new businesses and develop leadership qualities. The objectives of the Learning and Teaching Strategy 2010–15 provide benefits to teaching staff as well as students. Incorporating an outward-facing curriculum means that staff are always up-to-date with current issues, are exposed to an international network of key contacts, and carry out research into areas that deal with larger problems facing our world. Encouraging students from multiple cultures and societies strengthens the intellectual environment, improving the quality of students and maintaining UCL’s global profile as a world-class university. Copies of UCL’s Learning and Teaching Strategy 2010–15 can be downloaded from: www.ucl.ac.uk/teaching-learning/strategic_priorities

EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences

CREDITS Cover, contents, pp. 2, 3 (lower), 4, 8 (left), 9, 35, 37, 38, 39, 42, 47, IBC: UCL collections; pp. 3 (upper), 5, 7 (left and right), 10 (left and right), 11 (left and right), 12 (right), 16, 17, 18 (left), 20, 21 (left), 22 (left), 23 (left), 24, 25, 26 (left and right), 27 (left and right), 28, 29, 32, 33, 34 (left), 36 (left and right), 37 (right), 43 (left and right), 45: David Bishop, UCL; p. 8 (right): Juergen Berger/Science Photo Library; p. 12 (left), p. 13: UCL Eastman Dental Institute; p. 18 (right): iStock.com/quavondo; p. 21 (right): iStock.com/ monkeybusinessimages; p. 22 (right): nolinger/Wikimedia Commons; p. 23 (right): iStock.com/webphotographeer; p. 30: iStock.com/track5; p. 34 (right): iStock.com/fmajor; p. 35 (left): Chassenet/BSIP/Science Photo Library; p. 40: Wellcome Images; p. 42 (right): iStock.com/Leontura; p. 44 (left): iStock.com/ eyecrave ; p. 44 (right): iStock.com/brytta. Text: Ian Jones, Jinja Publishing Ltd Design: Jag Matharu, Thin Air Productions Ltd © UCL. Text may not be reproduced without permission. The UCL ‘dome’ logo and the letters ‘UCL’ are the registered trademarks of UCL and may not be used without permission. TAP1974/05-08-14/V1K

About UCL UCL is one of the world’s top universities. Based in the heart of London it is a modern, outward-looking institution. At its establishment in 1826 UCL was radical and responsive to the needs of society, and this ethos – that excellence should go hand-in-hand with enriching society – continues today. UCL’s excellence extends across all academic disciplines; from one of Europe’s largest and most productive hubs for biomedical science interacting with several leading London hospitals, to world-renowned centres for architecture (UCL Bartlett) and fine art (UCL Slade School). UCL is in practice a university in its own right, although constitutionally a college within the federal University of London. With an annual turnover exceeding £800 million, it is financially and managerially independent of the University of London. UCL’s staff and former students have included 21 Nobel prizewinners. It is a truly international community: more than one-third of our student body – around 25,000 strong – come from nearly 140 countries and nearly one-third of staff are from outside the UK.

www.ucl.ac.uk UCL Gower Street London WC1E 6BT Tel: +44 (0)20 7679 2000