Learning and pedagogy

Flippedclassroom

We will introduce new methods to create an active learning and teaching environment across all taught programmes, moving away from primarily lecture-based classroom sessions and towards more interactive teaching

Funding Opportunities for Learning and Teaching Innovation

Investment

All departments will be invited to bid for funding to transform their teaching methods. Staff support and additional resource will be available to support the change process and to employ additional discipline specialists where necessary. Funding will also be available to build capacity in evaluation and educational research. We will adapt the physical spaces on campus to facilitate the creation of interactive environments, and to support an inclusive scholarly community.

An interactive teaching and learning environment has at its heart active students who are partners in shaping and enhancing their own education. We will support the creation of interactive environments across taught programmes, enhancing classroom sessions with teaching that is challenging and rewarding, encouraging students to go beyond the retention of information through the investigation and development of concepts.

Strategic approach

Students will be supported to become active learners. We will continue to prize deep disciplinary knowledge, but we will facilitate this through an emphasis on inquiry and discovery, analysis, evaluation and reflection. We will use the existing literature on higher education and will build on the many examples of good practice presently available at Imperial. Our success will depend on the creation of world class learning spaces, the use of high quality data and the implementation of research evidence to inform decision making and evaluate education.

  • Interactive classrooms and laboratories: increased use of techniques to make learning more engaging, challenging, authentic and satisfying and the use of more open-ended enquiry-based labs, allowing students to engage in their own experimental design
  • Engagement with research: undergraduate students will undertake research as part of their degree, engaging  in discovery, supervised by an active researcher
  • Supporting our educators: staff will be given time and space to review and innovate their curricula and pedagogy; learning technologists and specialist faculty-based staff will support and facilitate innovation in teaching
  • Supporting our students: students will be supported to learn interactively