All-staff briefing: stories of innovative teaching

Our latest all-staff talk celebrated innovations in teaching, featuring the development of virtual field classes during the pandemic and the development of immersive teaching experiences in our campus museums.

Vice-Chancellor Robert Van de Noort was joined by Museums Studies Programme Director Dr Rhi Smith and Dr Mike Simmonds who is Senior Project Manager in the School of Archaeology, Geography and Environmental Sciences. Both Rhi and Mike have been nominated for this year’s Times Higher Education Awards, for ‘Most innovative teacher of the year’ and ‘Technological or digital innovation of the year’ respectively.

Introducing the session Robert said the session was a chance to celebrate excellence in our education, one of the key parts of our strategy. He said, “We hope by showcasing some of our best work in education we can make colleagues think about how they can best work together for our students.”

Rhi gave a behind the scenes view of life at the Museum of English Rural Life as she explained innovations she had brought to teaching Museums Studies; taking full advantage of our three campus museums and extensive collections to move beyond just lectures and essays.  

In his presentation Mike explained how he developed virtual field classes in spring 2020 in response to the pandemic. Using digital tools such as Google Street View and ArcGIS Story Maps, he was able to replicate field classes and allow students to explore the areas virtually at their own pace.  

You can also access the recording on Microsoft Stream. 

<!--[if !vml]-->

Upcoming talks  

All colleagues will be sent an Outlook Calendar invite ahead of the session. If you have any queries, please contact communications@reading.ac.uk. 

<!--[if !vml]-->

Previous talks 

• Update on USS pension reform (Tuesday 19 October)
• Strategic Foundations Programme update (Wednesday 6 October) 
• 2021/22 academic year – what to expect (Wednesday 8 September) 
• Path to our centenary (Wednesday 22 September) 
• You can view our all-staff briefings from last academic year through Microsoft Streams.