MHS Teaching and Learning

This has been a couple of weeks of meetings, most have been very important and I will update on the results of the relevant ones that I have attended.

We held a meeting of the Faculty undergraduate review implementation group and worked on implementing the review.  The most important matter was discussing the introduction of academic advisors and we are producing a document for the Schools to provide detailed guidance on what an academic advisor should do. We also asked the Schools to let us know any training needs that they had for advisors, so that we could look at the possibility of providing training sessions.  A major matter was the approval on the implementation plan, This was agreed and when it has been circulated to Heads of School, I shall post it on this blog.  We also discussed communication within Schools at length and decided to recommend to all the Schools that they should give considerable thought to the introduction of a School weekly update that is circulated to staff and students, the creation of a School Blog and podcast. All these methods have been shown to be great ways to disseminate School specific information to both staff and students.  These methods have been used extensively by the Dental School and Pharmacy are leading the way by working on a blog.

Faculty learning and teaching committee was the next meeting. This is concerned with the strategic and operational aspects of teaching across the Faculty. The major item of discussion was improving our National Student Survey results and all Schools has submitted an action plan for improvement. We are going to combine these up  into a single document and circulate this for action in all Schools. Again, I shall put this on the blog when it has been seen by the Heads of School.

I then attended a meeting of the University undergraduate review implementation group and we were brought up to date with developments across the University, there was discussion on the Manchester Medal for our best students and we need to develop a method for the Faculty on how we are going to identify our nominations for this award.  

I also attended a meeting of the steering group that will help prepare the bid for the Manchester Academic Health Science Centre.  My role is to provide input on the teaching aspect of the proposed Centre. We are working to a tight deadline and the initial phase of the bid will involve submission of information on our teaching performance and vision.  It is great to be involved in such an important bid and again this provides us with an opportunity to make real changes to our teaching.  One of the main themes of the Centres is to ensure that all health care professionals learn, practice and research together, and this fits with our overall undergraduate teaching strategy.

So while, some people are famously quoted as saying “meetings are indispensable when you don’t want to do anything”. This has not been the case for me over the last 10 days, there are several important actions that have been agreed and I will circulate the results of these decision on the blog over the next couple of weeks,