Where did you go and what did you do?
My placement was at the University of Sheffield in the Biosciences teaching department with Dr Laura Corns. During my time on placement, I had the opportunity to engage with a variety of activities related to teaching and curriculum design. I first began by conducting a comprehensive review of the 1st year Neuroscience module. This review involved completing the modules lectures and making note of each topic’s relative difficulty and any concepts that were particularly challenging. I also conducted a survey of the previous year 1 Neuroscience cohort, where they rated the difficulty of each topic on a scale of 1-5. Finally, several volunteers from the previous cohort participated in a focus group where they gave more detailed thoughts on the module. All of this was combined into a report that was then presented to the ‘Introduction to Neuroscience’ lecturers. This report included a list of the most difficult topics, an analysis of the effectiveness of the current timeline of lectures, statistical analysis of the survey responses to quantify student ratings and highlight correlations between topics and a thematic analysis of focus group responses to identify recurring issues students had. All of this feedback was used to help inform the design of a supporting module handbook. This handbook is going to be an open educational resource that takes a more interactive approach to the module content. I identified Pressbooks as a good site to use and created an example chapter on one of the topics within the module, using Inkscape and H5P to create interactive resources. I also had the opportunity to work on the development of the Biosciences Year 2 curriculum which is currently undergoing an overhaul. This mostly involved meetings with all the teaching staff where changes were discussed and each topic lead then had the opportunity to work with relevant staff to decide on content to include and general learning outcomes they wanted the module to meet. Finally, I was able to deliver some of the ‘Introduction to Neuroscience’ lectures this year and received feedback from staff and students.
What made you want to do that particular PIPS?
I am in the final year of my PhD, and I am currently trying to determine where I want to go with my career from here. Academia is one of the options I am considering over others, but I had limited teaching experience at the higher education level and limited understanding of what the lecturer aspect of the role might look like. This placement provided me with the opportunity to deliver lectures, participate in the curriculum design process and talk with a variety of staff with many different job roles within the department. I also want to apply for the FHEA fellowship level and this placement would give me a much better chance to produce a successful application utilising the experience I would gain. All of these factors made this an excellent choice for my PIPS
What skills have you gained from your PIPS?
This placement was excellent for learning a wide variety of different skills; a lot of these skills relate to designing curriculum at many different levels. In meetings with all the teaching staff I got to learn how learning outcomes for modules are determined, how assessment types for different modules are allocated and had the opportunity to give my own ideas on these things and on what potential content should be included in 2nd year Neuroscience. I was also tasked with making a supporting resource for the 1st year module and quickly decided I wanted it to be quite interactive to complement what students would learn in lectures. With advice from staff, I decided to make it an open educational resource (OER) which, when finished, would be available for use by other universities or anyone interested in learning more about neuroscience. This allowed me to learn how these resources are made which included creating my own interactive figures/tasks. To do this I utilised Inkscape for creation of vector images and H5P to create interactive elements, two software’s I was previously unfamiliar with.
It also challenged me to take concepts that can be quite complex and turn them into tasks that would be far more approachable to students with a variety of learning styles who may be struggling with the content. I also learned how to make surveys and handle the data, both from a confidentiality and statistical standpoint. I was already familiar with statistical analysis, but it was interesting to handle data dthat is completely different to what I typically use. I also had to write an ethics application for the survey and the focus group and learned how to recruit participants and draft appropriate questions. The focus group also included a subsequent thematic analysis of the transcript, another task I had never done before. This qualitative analysis was very different to what I typically do in my PhD, so it was really interesting to learn some of the skills more commonly used in educational research. Finally, I learned how individual lectures are designed to incorporate the learning objectives/outcomes of the module. This also included delivering several lectures to a large cohort. Overall, I learned a variety of skills that I feel really capture a lot of the responsibilities a university lecturer may have.
What has been the impact (or likely future impact) of your PIPS?
The most obvious impact is the way the placement has given me confidence on my career progression. I thoroughly enjoyed a lot of the different aspects of this placement, but this is especially true for delivering lectures to students and helping to design future curriculum with other members of staff. This has emphasised to me that I would like to continue on the academia route if possible, or in higher education in general as I found the whole experience really rewarding. Additionally, a portion of this placement also included working from home and this placement has really helped me improve my productivity outside of the lab, which I have previously struggled with. Finally, I have contributed to creating an OER that many people will hopefully eventually use and credit me for. This is an excellent asset to have on my CV and is especially useful if I want to apply for teaching jobs in the future. I will also use this as one of my case studies when I write my FHEA application, so the whole placement has been extremely beneficial for my career and for the number of new skills I have learned.
How would you sum up your PIPS experience?
My experience really solidified my career goals and helped me identify the options I have if I want to work in higher education. It also gave me the opportunity to learn a wide variety of skills that will be useful for many different jobs I may pursue in the future. Finally, I had a great time interacting with students and staff and an excellent supervisor that really helped me enjoy my PIPS.
What advice would you give to other PGRs about PIPS?
Consider what you would like to get out of your PIPS before you decide what you actually want to do for your placement. Once you have that, pick something you think you will enjoy and that will give you a good variety of skills for the career options you want to pursue. Most importantly, organise your PIPS as soon as possible so you don’t have that stress later on in your PhD.