Dr Roger Carpenter, University Lecturer in Cambridge's Department of Physiology, and Director of Studies in Medicine at Gonville & Caius College, was recently awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ILT).

Dr Roger Carpenter, University Lecturer in Cambridge's Department of Physiology, and Director of Studies in Medicine at Gonville & Caius College, was recently awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ILT).

Worth £50,000, Dr Carpenter's Fellowship is one of only 20 awarded by the ILT to recognise and reward individual academics who have demonstrated excellence in teaching and learning support.

Jointly funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Department for Higher and Further Education, Training and Employment in Northern Ireland, the ILT-coordinated National Teaching Fellowship Scheme forms part of a general effort to raise national recognition for the value of excellent teaching in higher education.

Dr Carpenter was selected from among 95 university teachers nominated for the award by higher education institutions throughout England and Northern Ireland. Each eligible institution was allowed to select only one candidate as its nominee for the award.

Criteria for selection for the Fellowships included demonstrated ability to inspire students and to enable them to achieve specific learning outcomes, to influence and inspire colleagues in their own teaching, and the potential to have a positive influence on the wider national community of teachers in higher education.

Dr Carpenter's students have praised him for his lecturing style, as well as for his ability to make unusually good use of computer-based interactive learning materials in his teaching of physiology. His textbook, Neurophysiology, includes a computer package of 50 interactive simulations, experiments, quizzes and demonstrations that enable students to explore their understanding of how the brain works.

He believes that it is important for teachers to be passionate about teaching, and to communicate their passion for a subject to their students - and that this can still be compatible with using computer-aided learning.

"Much computer-aided learning is unsatisfying," points out Dr Carpenter, "and students often feel that they exhaust its potential very quickly. The secret is to provide a rich and deep computer environment that the user can learn from by exploration and play."

Commenting on his reaction on learning that he had been awarded one of the Fellowships, Dr Carpenter said that he was "Amazed, and a bit embarrassed, because I'm conscious of so many others here who really are outstanding teachers... and of course extremely pleased, partly because it provides national recognition for university teaching - something that universities themselves can sometimes seem not to value highly enough - and partly because it enables me to get on with a particularly exciting and worthwhile project."

The project, funded by the Fellowship, is aimed at filling in the gaps in the interface between school and university teaching, particularly addressing the problems of first-year medical students who arrive at university with a very diverse range of background knowledge. Dr Carpenter will be putting his experience of creating teaching software to use by designing a wide range of small teaching modules - each covering a specific topic that individual students may not have done at their own school, but will require for their university course.

These modules will then be made available over the Internet, so that students can download them individually, at school or at home in the period before going to university. The hope is that they will also be generally useful for science teaching in secondary schools, medical schools and universities.

Further information:
Ten other members of staff from the University were recently recognised for their excellence in teaching at the university's own annual Pilkington Teaching Prizes.

These are awarded by the Trustees of the Cambridge Foundation to candidates nominated by their academic schools.


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