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Award recognition for innovation in engaging students

15 December 2022

 

A Teesside University team has won a prestigious Pearson HE Innovate Award for an imaginative project which encourages students’ creativity.

Dr Helen Tidy and Dr Mark Butler
Dr Helen Tidy and Dr Mark Butler

The HE Innovate 2022 awards recognise and reward innovative learning and teaching in higher education.

Teesside University won the accolade for Most Innovative Approach To Engaging Students Using EdTech, for a project which uses electronic storytelling to enhance assessments.

Dr Helen Tidy, Principal Lecturer (Learning and Teaching); Dr Mark Butler, Senior Lecturer in Crime Scene Science; and Dr Tom Gibbons, Senior Lecturer in Sport & Exercise (Sport Studies), from the University’s School of Health & Life Sciences, collaborated on the project using Adobe Creative Cloud Express to support learner engagement.

The project was designed to support STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) students by allowing them to be more creative with the presentation of their assessment work, using an innovative digital technological approach.

Dr Butler said: “Our project used electronic storytelling to enhance assessments, giving students an alternative to a word-processed document or a series of presentation slides to evidence their learning.

“While reflecting on our own practice and student feedback, we realised two things. The first was overloading students with information relating to what they needed to pass the module and how they would be assessed. Secondly, we realised we also needed to build in creativity, a vital skill needed by many STEM employers.

“We underwent training with the help of Adobe, and we then made interactive web pages using the Adobe Creative Cloud Express platform. The students had everything that they needed to succeed all in one place, from built in videos explaining the marking criteria, to examples of what a good one looks like.

“Students were trained to use the software, before they themselves used Creative Cloud Express to make their own assessments which they uploaded to our virtual learning environment Blackboard Ultra.”

Our project used electronic storytelling to enhance assessments

Dr Mark Butler

Dr Gibbons added: “This project shows that we can foster a more creative approach within STEM subjects using digital capabilities to enable students to showcase their creative personalities in preparation for the job market, alongside digital upskilling.

“Our students said it was fun, creative, supportive and easy to understand. Many also strongly agreed that they felt more creative while producing their assessment.

“This project serves to show that we can foster a more creative approach within STEM subjects using digital capabilities to enable students to showcase their creative personalities in preparation for the job market alongside digital upskilling of graduates.”

Teesside University was the first European higher education institution to become an Adobe Creative Campus in recognition of its commitment to promoting digital literacy across all courses and areas of study.

As an Adobe Creative Campus, students and staff have access to Adobe’s industry-leading creative and design tools and digital learning resources as part of the University’s Future Facing Learning initiative, which works to enhance digital skills and improve employability across Team Teesside and beyond.

Dan Ramsden, of HE Innovate, said of Teesside University’s submission: “There was strong competition for this award which is testament to the work you’ve done. Your project was a wonderful example of introducing creativity into STEM subjects and is food for thought for how others could incorporate it into their modules.”


In the News

Give recognition for innovation in student engagement
Latestfinance.news, Web, 15/12/2022
A team from Teesside University has won a prestigious Pearson HE Innovate Award for an imaginative project that stimulates student creativity.

 
 
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