Education
UCL SCHOOL OF LIFE AND MEDICAL SCIENCES
Creating knowledge, achieving impact
5
PREFACE
UCL’s School of Life and Medical
Sciences encompasses arguably the
greatest concentration of biomedical
science and population health expertise
in Europe. Yet, in part because of UCL’s
size and organisational complexity, the
scale
of the School’s achievements is
not always apparent. This publication,
one
of six, seeks to address this,
with a particular focus on our work
in education.
Our recent reorganisation, with the
creation of four new Faculties, has
been designed to create a more
coherent structure and a platform
for the development of a Facultyled strategy for the School. The
restructuring has also placed great
emphasis on cross-Faculty interactions
and interdisciplinary research –
and indeed on interactions with
UCL departments outside the School.
Such interdisciplinary endeavour is
promoted through ‘Domains’, inclusive
strategically led fluid networks,
which encompass education as well
as different areas of research. This
approach allows us to connect all
our activities, promoting collaboration
and the sharing of expertise, platforms
and resources.
The School is commited to the
tripartite mission. We recognise that
education, research and enterprise
are interdependent and the pursuit of
excellence applies to all three. We seek
an optimal student experience through
a genuine research-informed approach
to education, and the fostering of values
that define all of our activities. Our other
core principles – pursuit of excellence,
academic freedom and accountability,
interdisciplinarity, and partnership –
all have important implications for
the nature of the education offered
by the School.
These principles will guide us
through what will undoubtedly be
an exciting period of change. Our
medical undergraduate and pharmacy
degrees have recently been radically
overhauled to provide an education
more suitable to the challenges doctors
and pharmacists will face in the future.
As well as reflecting a more patientoriented approach to healthcare, our
courses provide a strong emphasis
on developing fitness to practise and
embedding intellectual and other
skills enabling students not just to
be effective doctors but also able to
manage and drive forward change
in health systems.
A strong feature of our education is its
intimate connection with world-leading
research. As well as responding to
the most exciting developments in
science, we are constantly developing
new courses to meet society’s and
learners’ needs, taking advantage
of the unrivalled intellectual expertise
within the School.
Across all areas of education, we aim
to develop individuals and their skills as
well as transfer knowledge. These skills
are not restricted to those associated
with a life in science or medicine,
but prepare students for any kind of
workplace and enhance employability.
New technologies are providing
opportunities to enhance the learning
experience and to widen participation.
Perhaps most significantly, we
increasingly see the School not as the
institution in which a student studied
for a degree but as a lifelong partner in
intellectual and personal development,
of knowledge, skills and character.
With such ambitious aims and the
speed of change, this publication can
provide only a snapshot of current
work and an indication of future travel.
Nevertheless, I hope it provides a
flavour of the range of innovative
education activities being undertaken,
and a sense of the passion for
education shared by staff across
the School.
Sir John Tooke
Vice-Provost (Health) and
Head of the UCL School of Life
and Medical Sciences.
1
Basic Life Sciences:
‘Discovery’ research, from
molecules to ecosystems.
2
Translation and
Experimental Medicine:
Driving translation to
benefit patients’ health
and well-being.
3
Neuroscience and
Mental Health:
The science of the brain
and nervous system,
from synapse to social
interactions.
4
Population Health:
Protecting and improving
the health of populations,
UK and globally.
5
Education: Innovative
practice across the
educational life course.
6
Enterprise: Capitalising
on intellectual assets
to change the world.
CONTENTS
Overview: A passion for education
2
Developing a distinctive high-quality education across the entire
educational life course.
Section 1: The right education
4
Matching the content of courses to the needs of learners at different
stages of their educational journey.
Feature: The educational life course
14
Section 2: The educational experience
16
Combining multiple approaches, and exploiting new technology,
to enhance the learning experience.
Section 3: Cycles of improvement
24
Using evaluation, research and reflection to maintain teaching
at the highest possible standards.
Feature: Skills for life
30
Section 4: Teaching with a passion
32
Recognising and supporting teachers with a passion for inspiring
the next generation.
Feature: Reaching out
38
Section 5: A global view
40
Providing learners with a global perspective on their knowledge.
UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences, UCL Learning
and Teaching Strategy and key links
46
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
1
A PASSION FOR EDUCATION
The UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences aims to offer a distinctive
high-quality education across the entire educational life course.
UCL graduates: beneficiaries of a special education.
Dorsal view of the zebrafish brain.
The UCL School of Life
and Medical Sciences
has a genuine passion for
education. It is committed
to providing learners of all
ages with an exceptional
education that builds
knowledge but also
develops people.
and, at its medical school,
of a ‘UCL doctor’. As well
as a sound foundation of
knowledge, they should have
well-developed enquiry and
critical thinking skills, and a
broader perspective of their
social responsibilities locally
and globally.
As one of the world’s leading
centres of research, the
School is ideally placed
to deliver a ‘researchembedded’ education
– with education provided
by leading individuals in
their fields with a deep
understanding of their
subjects and able to infuse
their teaching with their own
discoveries. Students benefit
from exposure to the exciting
environment of world-leading
research, the very latest
thinking and emerging
trends.
A key aspect of this
wider perspective is
internationalism. UCL is
‘London’s Global University’,
and the School is highly
cosmopolitan, with around
one in three undergraduates
coming from overseas.
UCL has strong links to
other institutions throughout
the world, encouraging
dialogue and exchange.
It has established Global
Health as one of its ‘Grand
Challenges’, a commitment to
use its intellectual firepower
to tackle the most important
social issues of the day.
The School is engaged in
multiple activities to develop
education internationally, and
through UCL Medical School
Education Consultancy is
providing major input into
medical education systems.
Naturally, the School aims
to promote academic
excellence. Entry standards
are high and students are
expected to work hard and
achieve good grades. But
expectations go beyond
academic achievement.
The School has a specific
vision of a ‘UCL student’
2
The School educates
people from all over the
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
world, but also ensures
that every student receives
an education embedded
in a global context. In the
highly networked, globalised
world of the 21st century,
a balanced education
needs to provide students
with a strong international
perspective. Modern doctors
need to be aware of cultural
issues as much as the
function of the liver, whether
or not they end up working
outside the UK.
This breadth extends to
the content of courses.
The School provides
multiple opportunities for
interdisciplinary study,
including the innovative
Human Sciences BSc,
Arts and Sciences BASc
– a UK first – and a new
BSc in Applied Medical
Science. The modularity of
postgraduate programmes is
also permitting more flexible
combinations of subjects to
be taken. And teaching of
generic ‘transferable skills’
is fundamental to all courses
at all levels, reflecting the
commitment to develop
people not just their
knowledge.
Education at all ages
A further profound shift is
seen in the extended and
diverse ‘educational life
course’. An individual’s
contact with a university
has traditionally been
restricted to the years of
an undergraduate degree.
Increasingly, though,
universities are contributing
to the development of
individuals’ knowledge
and skills at other points in
their life, through master’slevel study or continuing
professional development.
In some professions,
particularly medicine
and dentistry, continuing
professional development
is a formal requirement.
For many others, further
study is essential for
career progression.
The demands of modern
working lives again call for
greater flexibility in how this
education is delivered, with
more emphasis on modular
courses and suites of
modules tailored to individual
needs, as well as distance
learning components to
complement face-to-face
teaching (blended learning).
SCHOOL EDUCATION DOMAIN
The School has established a cross-cutting education
domain to identify, develop and disseminate innovative
educational practice.
The education domain provides a cross-Faculty forum to discuss
educational practice across undergraduate, postgraduate and
continuing professional development. It aims to nurture educational
leadership across the School, identifying and encouraging the
take up of good practice.
It draws on experienced teachers across all Faculties as well
as representatives from UCL’s E-Learning Environment team
and Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching.
It is currently focusing on two areas: the student experience
(including e-learning) and educational leadership, which will
consider issues such as how to recognise both the quantity and
quality of staff contributions to teaching. Future priority topics
will include assessment and feedback.
Discussion is at the heart of modern education.
These shifts also reflect an
important trend for university
teaching to be responsive to
the needs of both learners
and employers – the NHS,
for example. This threeway partnership should be
mutually beneficial, with
learners developing the
knowledge and acquiring
the skills that enable them to
thrive and in turn advance the
organisations in which they
end up working. One aim of
recent reorganisations of the
UCL medical and pharmacy
curricula has been to ensure
that graduates are equipped
to face the changing and
challenging needs of
modern health services.
Teaching methods
Lectures have been the
mainstay of university
teaching for hundreds of
years. While they can be an
effective way of transferring
information from teacher
to learner, they are by no
means the sole method of
teaching. Furthermore, new
technologies are having
a profound impact on the
learning experience.
Lectures are complemented
by small-group learning,
promoting discussion and
collaborative problem solving
– enhancing learning skills
beyond simple accumulation
of information. Lectures are
routinely captured on video
and made available, with
associated presentations,
on the School’s virtual
learning environment
(Moodle). Some lecturers
have already begun ‘lecture
flipping’, where students
watch a lecture in advance of
a class and come together to
discuss and raise questions.
With online quizzes and
assessment, personal
voting systems (‘clickers’),
multimedia teaching
aids, podcasts and other
innovations, new technology
will undoubtedly continue to
have a major impact on the
learning experience. One
challenge will be to ensure
that innovations are rooted
in a strong pedagogical
framework and are rigorously
evaluated, to promote
innovation with a purpose
rather than for its own sake.
These trends have similarly
profound implications for
learning spaces. Lecture
halls are being adapted for
video capture and clickers.
The role of libraries is being
reassessed, with so much
information now accessible
virtually. And spaces are
being created for students to
work collaboratively in ways
that suit them.
Perhaps most profoundly,
new technologies are
opening up new methods
for learning outside a
university’s own physical
After a UCL degree, graduates join the UCL alumni community.
space – distance learning
or e-learning. The School
has ambitious plans to make
more high-quality content
available online, particularly
to support continuing
professional development,
while maintaining instructor
contact and academic rigour.
All change
This document is intended
to give a flavour of how the
School is responding to a
variety of transformational
shifts. These span local
changes in healthcare
systems through global social
and political upheaval, to
technological advances that
make the world of knowledge
available near-instantly on a
smartphone or tablet.
Curricula and teaching
approaches will continue
to evolve to reflect these
changes, to ensure that
the School continues
to deliver an education
of the highest possible
standard. Underpinning
all developments is a
commitment to develop
and enhance the School’s
teaching capacity, and a
recognition that it is people
who ultimately deliver an
excellent education. As well
as continuing to emphasise
the value of teaching,
the School is committed
to developing teaching
skills and recognising the
contributions of those who
excel in teaching.
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
3
SECTION 1
THE RIGHT EDUCATION
The content of courses reflects the needs of learners
at different stages of their educational journey.
4
Julia Harris, a student on the four-year PhD programme in neuroscience.
With teaching time inevitably
finite, curriculum planners
must consider carefully
what to include in courses.
What is essential content
for undergraduates, or for
medical students? What
knowledge and skills do
trainee doctors need?
What are the continuing
professional development
needs of doctors and other
healthcare workers?
Education is not solely
about information transfer,
of course. Other critical
questions need to be
considered. What should
the balance be between
information transfer and
skills development? And
how does an institution cope
with the constant advance
of knowledge? These and
other key questions guide
the development of the
School’s courses.
The School has the distinct
advantage that teaching
can draw upon researchers
who are world leaders in
their fields. With deep insight
into their subjects, they are
ideally placed to describe
key principles and emerging
trends, and to convey a
A high quality education must not only be
academically rigorous but also rooted in real
world challenges and opportunities. It must also
develop thinking and learning skills, and nurture
problem-solving abilities.
sense of excitement at the
forefront of knowledge.
Such are the benefits of
a ‘research-embedded’
education, which ensures
that students learn from the
leaders in their fields, and
have unique insight into
emerging areas of science
and medicine.
A UCL education is intended
to provide an outstanding
preparation for a successful
and fulfilling professional life.
Education must therefore
meet learners’ needs, as well
as those of employers and
society more generally. A
high quality education must
not only be academically
rigorous but also rooted
in real world challenges
and opportunities. It must
also develop thinking and
learning skills, and nurture
problem-solving abilities.
Learning is now rarely
complete at the end of
undergraduate study.
Health professionals face
additional specialist training,
and are expected to continue
developing their knowledge
and skills throughout their
career. Postgraduate study
is an increasingly important
way of developing specialist
skills and knowledge, either
immediately after graduation
or later in a career. Further
training and continuing
professional development
(CPD) is an integral part of
professional life for doctors
and dentists, and a passport
to new opportunities for
others.
In recognition of this shifting
landscape, the School is
responding to the longterm needs of different
professional groups.
Periods of intensive tuition
are increasingly being
supplemented by longerterm relationships spanning
entire professional lives.
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
5
The organisation of the MBBS medical degree launched in 2012.
The right curriculum:
Tailored choice for
undergraduates
The School offers a wide
range of degrees, including
both three-year BSc
and four-year MSci and
MRes degrees. Subject
focus can be narrow,
as in Pharmacology or
Neuroscience courses,
or broad, such as Natural
Sciences and Human
Sciences courses spanning
multiple disciplines.
The innovative
interdisciplinary Human
Sciences degree covers
all aspects of the human
condition, from archaeology
to neuropharmacology. The
course was inspired by the
great zoologist, J Z Young,
whose vision was to create a
cohort of scientifically literate
graduates with a broad
perspective and wide range
of skills, able to take on
leadership roles in key social
institutions.
The introduction of a new
Arts and Sciences (BASc)
6
degree, launched in
September 2012, reflects
the growing demand for an
interdisciplinary course of
study spanning science,
engineering and the
humanities (see page 7).
The most pressing
challenges humanity
faces today cannot be
readily categorised as
‘technological’ or ‘social’ but
are complex multifactorial
issues. There is an urgent
need for individuals with
intellectual fluency in
multiple disciplines, with an
understanding of different
ways of thinking, of different
vocabularies, and different
cultures.
The innovative BASc
course is based around
four pathways – cultures,
health and environment,
sciences and engineering,
and societies – from which
students choose one major
and one minor. All students
take seven core courses,
spanning topics such as
quantitative methods and
the knowledge economy.
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
The programme draws upon
UCL’s great strengths across
multiple domains, providing
unparalleled breadth, depth
and intellectual rigour.
The School continues to
develop its portfolio of
undergraduate courses, to
ensure it meets the changing
face of work in healthcare
and other fields. For example,
a new undergraduate
course in Applied Medical
Sciences, based at the Royal
Free Hospital campus, is
being launched in 2014.
This aims to fuse science
with medicine and train
a new generation to lead
clinical science. In addition,
a BSc in Population Health
Sciences is being developed
to meet growing needs for
interdisciplinary biomedical
and social scientists. A
new four-year Biological
Sciences programme is also
planned, with an extended
individual research project
and a strong focus on
teaching based on research
problems. Students will
exit with a BSc after three
years or a master’s-level
qualification after year 4.
Reflecting the School’s
world-class research base
in neuroscience, a new
MRes in Brain Sciences will
provide an integrated view
of molecular and systemslevel neuroscience.
The changing face of
medicine has led to a major
revision of UCL’s MBBS
medical degree, relaunched
in September 2012. An
important driver has been the
General Medical Council’s
landmark ‘Tomorrow’s
Doctors’ report, published
in 2009, which outlined the
changing expectations of
medical professionals in
a more patient-oriented
health service. In fact,
reconfiguration had begun
earlier, with the start of a
review of course provision in
2007. The ‘bottom-up’ review
assimilated input from some
400 teachers, administrators
and students, with the latter
sitting on every decisionmaking body (see page 7).
Medical students James Watson and Gareth Chan.
Carl Gombrich, Programme Director of the BASc degree.
THE DOCTORS OF TOMORROW
CROSSING BORDERS
Current medical students have made important
contributions to a course designed to develop the next
generation of doctors.
The new Arts and Sciences (BASc) degree makes a virtue
of breadth, says Programme Director Carl Gombrich.
Introduced in 2012, UCL Medical School’s new MBBS was based
on intensive scrutiny of what was needed to prepare students
for medical practice in the future. The Medical School has wellestablished methods for gathering input from its students, and built
on these links to ensure that the student voice was heard during
the re-engineering of the course.
Student representatives play an important role as a conduit
between teachers and learners. As well as sitting on committees
devoted to each year of the MBBS curriculum, they also represent
students on meetings with module organisers, discussing course
content and student feedback.
Many of these committees formed the basis of working groups
which examined how particular modules should be organised, while
others were established from scratch. According to Gareth Chan,
President of the Students Union in 2012, the student voice is taken
seriously. “What we say in meetings is really taken on board.
We’re not there as a token box-ticking exercise.”
As a fifth year now, he can appreciate how the course has
changed: “When I was in my first year, it was very science heavy,
very theory-heavy. Now there’s a lot more clinical exposure –
getting into hospitals, getting into GPs, learning basic clinical skills.
That can only be setting us in good stead.”
Nevertheless, he suggests, it has maintained its academic rigour,
expecting students to develop strong scientific skills. “Personally,
I find it useful knowing why things happen rather than just that
things do happen.”
Some of the working groups looked at how the course should
be taught, with student representative James Watson involved in
a group examining e-learning. The Medical School was keen to
move towards a ‘paper-lite’ curriculum, which was not welcomed
by all: “It caused a lot of contention among the students. But that’s
why you have the working groups so you can sit down and talk
it through.”
Bar a few teething issues, mainly related to the transitional
period, he is positive about the changes and the way they were
introduced. “They did really listen to us,” he suggests. And the
new structure he believes is more geared towards learning to be
a doctor. Care of the elderly, for example, has been moved from
early to later in the course, when students may be better able to
learn more nuanced doctoring skills. “Future years will be more
capable and understanding of what is required in elderly care,”
he suggests, “which is very important given what is happening
with demographics in the country.”
As befits someone with degrees in maths, physics and philosophy,
Carl Gombrich is an advocate of broadly based, interdisciplinary
programmes of undergraduate study. We have a peculiar ‘hourglass’
approach to our educational life, he suggests, starting broad
but narrowing and specialising for undergraduate studies, then
expanding again as we enter the ‘real world’. The news BASc aims
to avoid this constriction, developing well-rounded graduates
whose expertise spans multiple disciplines and ways of thinking –
something employers have long been clamouring for.
“I simply describe it as an interdisciplinary liberal arts degree,”
he says when pushed to define the new BASc, which took on its
first cohort of students in 2012. “Once you start to say to students
you can take a broad range, but it must be coherent, then the
interdisciplinary links start to suggest themselves.”
Students spend half their time on core modules, introducing
key principles such as the nature of knowledge and research
methodologies, and half on a major and minor pathway drawn from
four themes – ‘cultures’, ‘health and environment’, ‘sciences and
engineering’, and ‘societies’. By starting with a core module on
the nature of knowledge, students immediately come to appreciate
the value of different perspectives, of different ways of looking at
issues. “It’s a sophisticated, high-level take on where we are with
knowledge,” says Mr Gombrich.
It is followed by two further core modules in methodology,
addressing how knowledge is acquired and verified, by quantitative
and qualitative methods, and when and how such methods are
applied. These modules also provide students with sufficient
knowledge and techniques to begin their own research as early
as possible.
With input from multiple UCL departments spanning every faculty,
the course is ambitious in its breadth. It is challenging but entirely
feasible for students to gain a sound understanding of specialist
areas, without acquiring the depth of knowledge a professional
would require. For example, UCL Engineering has written bespoke
modules that reflect important aspects of contemporary careers in
engineering. “These courses contain rigorous aspects of project
management, data analysis and design, but they are not necessarily
aimed at those interested in obtaining chartered engineer status.
Although some of our students may seek such status at postgraduate
level, BASc students taking these modules are more likely to be
interested in careers where it is important to understand engineering
principles and limitations.”
Furthermore, he points out, some key ideas span disciplines,
such as the ‘super-concepts’ – systems, complexity, evolution
and entropy – proposed by Sir Alan Wilson, who teaches on the
course. In one exercise, students were challenged to apply one
of these super-concepts to a discipline they were studying in their
chosen pathways. The results, says Mr Gombrich, were remarkably
impressive for first-year students, who tackled subjects such as
entropy in music and evolution in the development of literature.
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
7
Not all science students want to remain in science after graduation.
Stem cells, a hot topic in science and medicine.
USING SCIENCE OUTSIDE SCIENCE
ENHANCING TRANSLATION
Not everyone who takes a science degree wants to pursue
a career in practical science. A new third-year module
opens up a wealth of opportunities for Biosciences
students who want to use their science without actually
doing science.
Master’s students have the opportunity to learn directly
from world leaders in some of the most exciting areas
of translational science.
By the time they get to their third year, most students will have
decided whether they are cut out for a life in practical science.
Inevitably, there will be some who decide that their future lies outside
the lab, but many will also want to put their scientific knowledge and
skills to good use in their careers. The Introduction to Biosciences in
Business and Media module aims to raise awareness of some of the
career opportunities available outside science, and to develop some
of the transferable skills that will be beneficial in those careers – or,
indeed, the world of work more generally.
The module was initially planned as an alternative to a practical
project, tied to literature-based study. However, with keen interest
from students doing the practical course, it was elevated to standalone module status.
Teaching centres on four key themes: intellectual property,
business development, communication and funding of science.
The latter may seem of limited interest, but many features of funding,
such as writing effective project proposals, carry over into other
walks of life.
Teaching on the course is highly interactive, especially tutorials
and discussions. The course is also unusual in its extensive use of
external speakers. Students have benefited from input from a patent
attorney, a former UCL academic who has developed a successful
publishing business, and members of the business development
team at UCL Business.
The tasks students have undertaken have been similarly
innovative, including a Dragon’s Den-style pitch based on a
simple business idea. The nature of this work has also allowed for
more unusual types of assessment – of students’ Dragon’s Den
presentations, for example, or their critical assessments of a patent.
The communications theme has been similarly diverse, including
a workshop on presentation skills at the Royal Academy of Dramatic
Art (RADA) covering use of the voice and body. Students also had
the opportunity to hear from scientists who have developed careers
in science communication, for example, with the Naked Scientists
and as a science editor at Nature.
With so many external contributors, the course is not easy to
organise. But following mainly positive feedback in its first year,
it is retaining its place in the third-year curriculum.
The School’s research is world-class in many areas. Its researchers
are carrying out research, and translating that research into clinical
practice, in ways that few other centres can match. Master’s
programmes aim to transfer some of that knowledge and expertise
to wider audiences.
The School was one of Europe’s first centres to carry out gene
therapy trials, to correct inherited immunodeficiencies. Recent follow
up of these patients has shown that they are doing remarkably well.
In addition, new gene-based therapies are showing encouraging
results for treatment of Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Cell-based
therapies are already in use for haematological cancers, and exciting
possibilities are being tested to combine genetic manipulation of
cells to enhance therapeutic success.
These exciting developments are at the heart of the School’s
MSc in Cell and Gene Therapy – the UK’s only master’s course in
this area. Drawing in particular on research being carried out at
the UCL Institute of Child Health in partnership with Great Ormond
Street Hospital, the course is a unique opportunity for researchers,
clinicians and other healthcare professionals to gain insight into the
principles and potential of one of medicine’s most promising areas,
from individuals at the forefront of translation.
Similarly, the School’s MSc in Nanotechnology and Regenerative
Medicine draws heavily on its pioneering research in stem
cell treatments. UCL researchers have played key roles in
the development of replacement trachea based on artificial
biocompatible materials seeded with patients’ own stem cells.
The course is notable for its interdisciplinarity, spanning materials
science and nanotechnology, stem cell biology and surgery (see
page 11).
Another area of growing medical importance is the trend towards
personalised medicine. UCL’s breadth in expertise puts it in a
unique position to offer courses in this area, including an MSc in
Pharmacogenetics and Stratified Medicine, which draws upon
expertise across multiple departments, including the UCL School
of Pharmacy.
The course is suitable for both researchers and clinicians, in
academia and industry, and covers the principles behind individual
variation in responses to drugs and how a better understanding of
such responses is likely to have a profound impact on healthcare.
It is also an excellent foundation for entrepreneurs looking to drive
forward innovation in medical practice.
www.ucl.ac.uk/cell-gene-therapy
www.ucl.ac.uk/surgicalscience/prospective_students/programmes/msc_
nanotechnology_and_regenerative_medicine
www.ucl.ac.uk/ugi/education/mscphx
8
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
Surgery is one career route available to UCL medical graduates.
Course redevelopment
has reflected the Medical
School’s vision of a
distinctive ‘UCL doctor’
– highly knowledgeable
and skilled but also with a
broad perspective, a flexible
and adaptable approach,
and robust scientific and
intellectual skills. A UCL
doctor will also have highly
developed interpersonal
sensitivity, consistent
with daily contact with a
vulnerable and culturally
diverse group of people.
as ‘patient pathways’ –
the routes patients take
through the health service
– rather than traditional
clinical disciplines learnt
independently of one
another. It also reflects
the key strengths of UCL
Partners, an Academic
Health Sciences Centre,
such as mental health, social
determinants of health,
and life-course-based
approaches, which form
vertically oriented themes
spanning all years of study.
The new course is based
on six years of tuition, the
third of which is devoted
to in-depth scientific study
leading to an integrated BSc.
Years 4 and 5 see a strong
focus on clinical practice,
and in particular ‘life course’
perspectives. Fifth-year
modules cover child and
family health, women’s and
men’s health, and ageing
and end-of-life care. The final
year aims to nurture students’
professionalism and their
fitness to practise.
A major redevelopment has
also been completed of the
four-year undergraduate
Master of Pharmacy
(MPharm) degree offered
by the UCL School of
Pharmacy. As well as the
scientific fundamentals of
biology and chemistry, and
of drug action, the course
also provides an introduction
to pharmacy practice. It also
covers important emerging
themes in pharmacy,
including patient safety,
behavioural medicine and
paediatric prescribing.
Course organisation is
influenced by the growing
emphasis on current health
service practice, such
Indeed, a key aim has been
to ensure information is
provided in an integrated
way, so that students can
easily see the connections
between what they learn
and how their knowledge
will be applied practically.
There is also a strong
focus on interprofessional
learning, and appreciating
how the work of pharmacists
integrates with that of
doctors, nurses and other
healthcare professionals.
After a further year’s preregistration training, MPharm
graduates are in a position to
take General Pharmaceutical
Council exams and become
fully qualified registered
pharmacists.
Postgraduate study:
towards lifelong learning
The view of an
undergraduate degree as
the culmination of formal
study is gradually being
eroded. Four-year courses
leading to an MSci or an
MRes – particularly suitable
for those considering a
research career – are
increasingly popular. The
School offers MRes degrees
in Biomedicine, Clinical
Drug Development, Drug
Design, and in Biosciences,
the latter providing a route to
specialisation in a wide range
of areas, from ageing to
stem cell biology. New MRes
courses are now available
in the emerging fields
of synthetic biology and
biodiversity, evolution and
conservation. MSci courses
enable students to study
subjects in greater depth
and are particularly useful in
areas spanning disciplines,
such as medicinal chemistry
and medical physics.
Many master’s are built
around emerging fields in
science and clinical practice.
They offer access to the very
latest thinking and practical
application, in areas such
as nanotechnology and
regenerative medicine (see
page 11) and cell and gene
therapy (see page 8), where
the School hosts worldleading research groups and
has close links to specialist
hospitals. Further courses
are planned in a range
of other areas, including
sensory neuroscience,
translational neuroscience,
neuromuscular disease, and
mental health sciences.
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
9
Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, former four-year PhD student.
Master’s-level education has
been an area of considerable
growth, in part because
master’s qualifications
increasingly facilitate entry
to many professions. The
School has an extensive
portfolio of master’s courses,
many tied to the professional
development needs of
particular professional
groups. A wide array of
options are available, for
example, for speech and
language therapists and for
psychologists, in the latter
case extending to doctoratelevel qualifications.
Dental education is another
area of highly successful
CPD. Dental CPD is provided
through the UCL Eastman
Dental Institute – the UK’s
largest provider of CPD for
dentists and dental support
staff. The Institute also offers
full-time (and some parttime) master’s programmes,
a clinical doctorate in
paediatric dentistry, flexible
learning certificate and
diploma programmes
as well as short courses
associated with professional
accreditation.
10
The CPD programme is
highly flexible and attuned
to the specific needs of
dental practitioners, each
course tying in with one
or more recognised CPD
priorities (professionalism,
clinical skills, management
and leadership, and
communication).
Dental CPD can draw upon
excellent teaching staff and
superb facilities, enabling
practitioners to develop their
skills in hands-on fashion.
Training is flexibly delivered,
emphasises student-centred
learning and includes
distance learning elements
(corecpd.com, dcpbites.
com; problems in British
Dental Journal). It is highly
effective at enhancing
career prospects.
From modules to MSc
More generally, thanks to
‘modularisation’ of courses,
more flexible master’s and
CPD programmes are being
offered. Learners are able
to select from a suite of
modules and acquire credits
towards a certificate, diploma
or full master’s qualification
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
Professor Alex Seifalian, founder of the regenerative medicine MSc.
– or, indeed, simply take an
individual module in which
they have an interest.
The Health and Medical
Sciences Master’s illustrates
how this model works.
Launched in September
2012, it provides access
to more than 30 modules,
which hospital doctors,
GPs, nurses, managers
and other health service
professionals can assemble
into a personalised learning
package. Additional modules
are constantly being added
to the module library.
Similarly, through the MSc
in Health Informatics
offered by the UCL Centre
for Health Informatics
and Multiprofessional
Education (CHIME),
clinicians, informaticians
and managers, or others,
can study for a certificate,
diploma or master’s, through
blended learning, drawing
on a dozen taught modules.
Furthermore, modules
can be taken individually
to support CPD.
This model also underpins
a major new initiative in
postgraduate medical
training. Working with UCLP,
the School has developed
a training programme
designed to bring academic
rigour to the postgraduate
training of doctors and other
healthcare professionals.
The programme is
specifically targeted at the
potential health service
leaders of the future, who
are prepared to commit to
the additional rigour of the
UCLP programme in order
to gain advanced knowledge
and skills from a worldrecognised academic centre.
The master’s revamp
provides a foundation for a
more integrated approach
to CPD, with the potential for
professionals from a wide
range of medical, public
health, research and allied
professions to continue
developing their professional
knowledge and skills.
The vision is for learners
to see UCL not so much
as the institution where they
studied initially but as a body
with which they remain in
regular contact, drawing
on its expertise to help them
develop their knowledge,
skills and careers.
Sahana Gopal, student on the regenerative medicine MSc.
Ian MacDonald, course tutor.
(RE)BUILDING THE FUTURE
FIRST-CLASS PERFORMANCE
The School’s MSc in Nanotechnology and Regenerative
Medicine is an ideal introduction to an interdisciplinary field
with the potential to transform medical practice.
One of its more unusual courses, UCL’s MSc in
Performing Arts Medicine fills an important niche.
Surgical transplantation of artificial organs has been one of the most
dramatic medical advances of the past decade. This pioneering
work is a prime example of the value of interdisciplinary research –
bringing together advances in surgery, stem cell biology and materials
science. Working with world-leading teams, students on the MSc in
Nanotechnology and Regenerative Medicine are well placed to be at
the forefront of this new wave of medical innovation.
Josephine Wong came to the course after a neuroscience degree.
“Initially I was interested in stem cell research. I looked into what was
available and there were only two courses that offered interdisciplinary
research, so it was quite an easy choice.” However, through her
practical project, she became intrigued by the potential of tissue
engineering. “We get to choose our own projects. I thought this sounded
really interesting so I gave it a try.” She is now continuing her work on
collagen scaffolds in a PhD supervised by Professor Robert Brown.
For Tanel Ozdemir, a library project in the final year of his degree
in anatomy and human biology proved the turning point. “I became
fascinated by the whole area of regenerative medicine.” The importance
of nanotechnology, however, was a revelation. “After I started
researching the course I realised it was a major field. The more I looked
into it, the more interested I became.”
Sahana Gopal also found herself moving in a new direction, after
a degree in human genetics. Her interests lay in surgery and medical
applications, and she recognised that the course provided a way into
one of the most exciting areas of medical science. “The course gives
you a really good edge because it’s a rapidly growing field.”
After narrowly focused degrees, the interdisciplinary nature of the
course has made a refreshing change. So too has been the wide
mix of students, some from medical backgrounds, others from the
physical sciences. And all of the students appreciate the close contact
with leaders in an exciting new field: “It’s a very small group so the
lectures and the seminars are very interactive, no one is afraid to ask
questions,” says Sahana. “Teaching is very personal,” adds Tanel. “You
can build real rapport with your lecturers.”
Moreover, says Sahana, the course administrators go to great
lengths to involve students, encouraging them to attend seminars
and conferences and join relevant societies – ideal preparation for a
future career in the field. “They make us a part of everything. It’s great
for networking.”
‘Cello scrotum’ may have been exposed as a fake, but musicians
and other performers are placed at a risk of multiple conditions
because of their artistic endeavours – some serious enough to
end careers. To promote specialist treatment of these conditions,
UCL teamed up with the Royal College of Music, the British
Association of Performing Arts Medicine (BAPAM) and Trinity
Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance to develop the MSc –
the first of its kind in the world.
Trish Halliwell, a GP from Norfolk, has been taking the
course for both personal and professional reasons. She plays
the violin and piano, and her daughter is attempting to carve a
career as a professional flautist. Trish heard about the course
through BAPAM, and it immediately struck a chord. “I’ve seen
my daughter and her colleagues have lots of problems. I thought
maybe I could do something to help. And it’s something that
I’ve always missed, the performing arts. This seemed ideal as
it combines the medicine with the performing.”
She is taking the course part-time, one day a week for two
years, and to date has been very impressed. “It’s brilliant,
I love it. I’ve found being back in the learning environment really
stimulating.” Although opportunities to apply her new knowledge
in general practice may be limited, she hopes ultimately to be
able to put it to practical use.
Michael Durtnall, Chairman of Sayer Back Pain Clinics, is also
taking the course part-time: “After my very musical and artistic
children had finished university, I decided it was my moment
to look at postgraduate education again.”
The course was precisely what he was looking for: “When
I saw the listing, I was electrified. This was exactly the course
for me, as I always especially enjoyed treating dancers and
musicians, and I wanted an in-depth but broad course on
treatment of performers which included research.”
He has found the practical aspects of the course particularly
useful. “I think the real gem of this MSc is the hands-on nature of
the teaching. You have one of the world’s leading hand surgeons,
Mr Ian Winspur, precisely demonstrating on your own hand how
to properly examine various hand and wrist conditions, and
osteopath Jenny Morton teaching with experience of musical
theatre as a singer, dancer and performer herself.”
For his research project, he is measuring leg-length
differences in musicians and dancers using novel methods
that avoid the use of X-rays. He is also studying musicians and
dancers at Central Ballet School, Ballet Rambert as well as
musicians at the Royal Academy of Music. He has enjoyed
the experience so much that he is now applying to do a PhD:
“The research bug has certainly bitten.”
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
11
CPD is central to dentists’ professional life.
Julia Harris with course director Professor David Attwell.
DEVELOPING DENTISTS
A TRANSITION TO RESEARCH
The flexible continuing professional development offered
by the UCL Eastman Institute can enhance intellectual
as well as practical dental skills.
A four-year PhD is a valuable learning experience
on the journey towards a research career.
For dentists, continuing professional development (CPD) is not just
beneficial but mandatory – the General Dental Council insists on 250
hours of CPD over a five-year cycle. The UCL Eastman Institute caters to
these requirements through a varied and extensive programme of CPD,
all designed to be intellectually stimulating as well as practically useful.
At the heart of the programme are a range of MSc and MClinDent
programmes, some parts of which can be taken as standalone
certificates or diplomas. Short courses, from single days to intensive
five-day hands on courses, are also offered – in practical areas of
dentistry, from paediatric dentistry to sedation, but also in finance and
practice management. Other courses are suitable for those preparing
for professional exams.
Postgraduate study can obviously be used to update and enhance
practical skills. But for Nicholas Socrates, a dental practitioner based
in Aylesbury who studied for an MSc in Restorative Dental Practice
at the UCL Eastman Dental Institute, the experience can be far more
profound: “It’s made me think about dentistry in a completely different
way,” he says. “The treatment I’m doing now is completely different
from what I was doing ten years ago.”
For Mr Socrates, the Eastman course was a striking contrast with
one on a similar topic he was taking at a different centre: “That was
one dentist saying this is my way, this is the only way, this is how you
do things. I went down to the Eastman and it was completely different.”
The Eastman course involved far more discussion around possible
approaches, with views solicited about treatment options. The result
was a more stimulating course, but also one that has encouraged
him to take a more reflective approach in his own practice, where he
receives complex referrals from other local practices.
Like most of the Eastman courses, his MSc involved a mix of distance
learning and practical work and discussion at the Institute. Mr Socrates
also appreciates the benefits of a challenging research project, painful
though it was at the time. “When you’re reading through journals, you
have far more understanding – you can pull things apart more easily!”
12
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL has been at the forefront of four-year PhDs, through
programmes such as CoMPLEX (Centre for Mathematics and
Physics in the Life Sciences and Experimental Biology) and the
Wellcome Trust Four-Year PhD Programme in Neuroscience.
Launched in 1996, this pioneering and highly competitive
programme – just six students are admitted from more than
400 applications – was one of the UK’s first four-year PhDs in the
life sciences and is an excellent preparation for life in research.
An early beneficiary was Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore,
who completed her PhD in 2000 and recently secured a
prestigious Royal Society University Research Fellowship at UCL.
“The advantage of a four-year course is that you can get a taster
of working in different labs during your first year,” she suggests.
As well as some formal tuition – particularly valuable for those
with little or no grounding in neuroscience – students spend
three-month rotations in different labs. “That’s really useful.
A lot of people come out of their undergraduate degrees not
really knowing what they want to do their PhDs in. In a three-year
course, you just have to go straight into the lab and get stuck in.
It’s much more risky.”
Furthermore, the rotations provide a very broad foundation.
“You get a lot of training in different skills, in different lab
techniques and gain experience of different areas of
neuroscience. That broader experience definitely comes in
handy later.”
Someone hoping to follow in Professor Blakemore’s footsteps
is Julia Harris, currently in her fourth year on the Neuroscience
programme, supervised in her PhD project by course director
Professor David Attwell. As well as the practical experience
gained during her early lab rotations, she has appreciated the
course’s attention to a research career: “The emphasis is on
teaching you to become a scientist,” she says.
“It’s a completely different approach from being an
undergraduate,” she adds. There is a strong emphasis on
skills development: “It’s about how to go about designing
an experiment, completing an experiment, writing it up and
presenting it – developing the skills to independently do every
step of the process that a mature scientist would do.”
As she nears the end of her course, she is keen to continue
in research and build on the foundation provided by her PhD:
“I think it’s prepared me excellently.”
The UCL Eastman Dental Institute runs an extensive skills development programme for qualified dentists.
Skills development
Personal development is
central to the UCL learning
experience. Students finish
their undergraduate studies
not just with a bank of new
knowledge, but as more
mature individuals with
an enhanced social and
international perspective,
and with a wide range of
skills that enhance their
employability (see page 30).
These efforts are reflected
in the consistently high
numbers of self-employed
UCL graduates and their
excellent employment
prospects after graduation.
This commitment to skills
and personal development
extends beyond
undergraduate study. It also
applies to master’s-level
education and, with the trend
towards lifelong learning,
it is also integrated into
the growing range of CPD
opportunities provided by
the School.
The long-term aim is for
students to see UCL as
lifelong partners in their
personal and professional
development. One way
in which such long-term
relationships are fostered
is through UCL’s Alumni
Relations, which maintains
contact with some 150,000
former UCL students. As
well as a way of maintaining
contact with peers, it also
provides access to extensive
networking and mentoring
opportunities.
Education for research –
and beyond
A PhD is the usual stepping
stone from undergraduate
study to a research career,
and is a critical period for
the development of new
skills. For four-year PhD
programmes, the transition
from undergraduate to
postgraduate study is
less marked, with a first
year including periods
of formal tuition – though
with greater emphasis on
independent learning and
critical appraisal – alongside
research projects.
UCL was one of the first UK
institutions to introduce a
four-year PhD programme,
the interdisciplinary
CoMPLEX (Centre for
Mathematics and Physics
in the Life Sciences and
Experimental Biology)
programme designed
to enhance connections
between the mathematical,
computing and physical
sciences and biology. UCL
also hosts four-year PhD
programmes in numerous
basic, translational and
clinical areas.
Supervisors naturally play an
important role in developing
PhD students’ skills. Such
work is supplemented by
an extensive programme of
support provided by UCL’s
Graduate School. Catering
to both master’s and PhD
students, the Graduate
School has a strong focus on
the generic and transferable
skills that will be important
in a research career as well
as in the wider world. An
extensive portfolio of courses
covers topics ranging from
practical presentation skills
to development of leadership
abilities and entrepreneurship
(see page 30).
Clinical academic career
development is particularly
challenging as individuals
have to coordinate clinical
training with academic
training. Clinical academics
are likely to be particularly
important in translational
studies yet are also in short
supply. The School has
established an Academic
Careers Office to provide
support and careers advice
for this critical group.
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
13
The School is building educational relationships
that last a lifetime.
THE EDUCATIONAL
LIFE COURSE
BASIC SCIENCE
CAREER PATHWAYS
MEDICAL CAREER
PATHWAYS
UNDERGRADUATE
MEDICAL
BSc, MSc, BASc
MBBS
MEDICAL
MEDICAL
MASTER’S
Integrated BSc
MEDICAL
PHD/POSTDOCS:
RESEARCH
TRAINING
MEDICAL
Foundation Year 1
Foundation Year 2
MODULES
RESEARCH OR
OTHER CAREER
Flexible, blended
learning
Potential for
certificate,
diploma or
master’s
qualifications
MEDICAL
Postgraduate medical
speciality training
Certificate, diploma
or master’s
MEDICAL CAREER
CPD
14
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
CPD
Education increasingly spans an entire career.
Following undergraduate studies, professional
groups such as doctors, dentists and
pharmacists face further years of professional
training. Basic scientists may go on to study
for a master’s-­level qualification and a PhD,
particularly if they are intending to develop
a career in research.
The need to maintain a knowledge base
and develop new skills is leading to a greater
emphasis on further professional development,
with ‘continuing professional development’ (CPD)
firmly embedded within the medical and dental
career pathway and of growing importance in
pharmacy and in research and science- and
health-­related professions.
This emphasis on CPD is providing opportunities
to repurpose master’s-­level modules so that they
can be taken in flexible ways in mid-­career to
boost skills and knowledge.
DENTAL CAREER
PATHWAYS
PHARMACY CAREER
PATHWAYS
DENTAL
PHARMACY
Undergraduate dental
training
MPharm
DENTAL
TRAINING
YEAR
Foundation year
MASTER’S
MASTER’S
Postgraduate dental
training
Certificate, diploma
or master’s
OTHER CPD
SUPPORT
MODULES
OTHER CPD
SUPPORT
PHARMACY
CAREER
DENTAL
CAREER
CPD
CPD
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
15
SECTION 2
THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERIENCE
As well as content, education also depends on how it
is delivered. The School is combining multiple approaches
to enhance the learning experience, and drawing on exciting
opportunities offered by new technology.
16
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
Voting can make lectures a more interactive experience.
Lectures and demonstrations
have formed the heart of
university education for many
decades. While large-group
teaching has its place,
particularly for courses
with large numbers of
students, the School is also
adopting numerous ways to
supplement such teaching
– and improve student
satisfaction and attainment.
be practically applied, not
simply learnt in order to pass
an exam. These changes
also encourage teachers
to consider scope for new
forms of assessment.
Teachers now need to
consider where learning
should take place – is the
lecture theatre truly the
best place to learn in the
21st century? They also
need to think about how
engaged students are in their
own learning, and how an
enhanced experience during
teaching can benefit their
learning. More sophisticated
forms of learning, such as
enquiry- or problem-based
learning, put the onus on
students to think about
what information they need
and how they can access
it. Contextual learning can
help students appreciate
how their knowledge can
Above all, teachers
increasingly need to think
about how new technologies
can enhance teaching. In
recent years, the availability
of information has been
transformed. The sum of
world knowledge is now
available at the click of a
button. Information can be
stored and shared digitally
with unparalleled ease. New
opportunities abound, from
multimedia learning aids to
remote access to content.
The role of technology in
teaching and learning is a
highly dynamic field, and
the School is taking the first
steps on what may well be
a transformational journey.
More sophisticated forms of learning, such as
enquiry- or problem-based learning, put the onus
on students to think about what information
they need and how they can access it.
Embedded education
For courses leading to a
well-established workplace
– such as medicine or
pharmacy – learning is
increasingly integrated
into places of practice.
Redevelopment of UCL
Medical School’s MBBS
course has significantly
increased the extent of early
patient contact and exposure
to practical medicine.
UCL has the advantage
of multiple clinical sites
to draw upon, including
world-leading centres
such as University College
London Hospital, the
Royal Free Hospital, Great
Ormond Street Hospital and
Moorfields Eye Hospital,
as well as a network of
other hospitals, clinics and
general practices. Students
on the new MBBS have
increased exposure to
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
17
‘Clickers’ have been installed in several UCL lecture theatres.
Trends in headwear – an evolutionary meme?
CLICK TO GO
FLIPPING MARVELLOUS
‘Clickers’, personal voting devices, open up multiple
avenues for more engaging teaching.
‘Lecture flipping’ has proved an ideal way to discuss
evolutionary concepts.
It is easy to see students as passive participants in learning
forums, particularly in large-group sessions. However, ‘clickers’,
or personal response devices, are being used in a range of
enterprising ways to create a more engaging learning experience.
One convert is Dr Hans van de Koot. “They’re terrific. I use them
in all my classes.” They can be used at the start of lectures to judge
how much students already now, but also to assess progress.
“At various points in the lecture, at natural breaks between
subjects, I use it to see how much they’ve understood of the
lecture,” says Dr van de Koot. “Sometimes it’s difficult to know!”
They can also profoundly change the dynamics of a class,
with students discussing why answers are right or wrong. “They
engage with the material a lot more than they otherwise would.
I love them, and the students love them too.”
Another advocate is Dr Yogini Jani, who has integrated clickers
into a ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire’ style quiz. She teaches
final-year medical students about safe prescribing and use of
medicines, which can seem remote given they are not legally
allowed to prescribe until they have qualified: “Standing there
talking in front of them is one option,” she says, “but, let’s face it,
it would be really boring.”
Instead, to get across ten key messages, she uses the popular
quiz format. “It was a novel way of getting a message across and
making it slightly fun, holding their attention.” The questions tackle
some of the key issues around use of particular drugs, as well as
practical issues – such as doctors’ notoriously poor handwriting:
“We’ve got examples, unfortunately, where things are written
very ambiguously. So we put that up and say ‘OK, tell us what
you think this medicine should be’.” Typically, half the students get
the answer wrong – vividly illustrating the importance of clarity.
Students enjoy the teaching, says Dr Jani, and clearly engage
more: “You can see them looking round the room thinking
‘who voted that?’ That makes it quite interesting!” She has also
introduced clickers in other teaching, finding it a helpful way of
recapping on learning.
Although the game’s famous ‘lifelines’ are mentioned, students
do not have the option to ‘phone a friend’ – though Dr Jani would
have no problems with them doing so, as accessing reliable
information is central to good prescribing behaviour. “The
practice we want to instill is ‘don’t guess’. This is somebody’s life.
If they look up the information that’s great, as long as they get
the answer right in the end.”
From the days of Socrates, dialogue has been a valuable way to
engage students in learning, at least in small groups. With new
technologies, there may be less need for educators to convey
information that students can easily access for themselves, freeing
up contact time for more engaging discussion and debate. Dr Richard
Goldstein has used the ‘lecture flipping’ approach for precisely
these ends.
A researcher at the MRC National Institute for Medical Research
with an honorary position at UCL, Dr Goldstein’s interests lie in
evolutionary biology. When the BASc was canvassing for ideas for
courses, he put in a proposal, convinced that evolutionary theory
was an ideal basis for an interdisciplinary course. “Evolution is a
lens that can be used to look at a wide range of phenomena,” he
says. “When you think where we are, why we are, where we came
from, what is our place in the universe, you can see all of that in
an evolutionary context.”
His proposal was accepted and a second year module is being
run on ‘Evolution and the Human Condition’. But course director Carl
Gombrich also suggested that Dr Goldstein contribute to a first-year
module on ‘super-concepts’, which includes evolution. And he also
suggested that Dr Goldstein try the lecture-flipping approach –
where lecturers record a presentation that students watch before
a class. An innovation introduced by Dr Goldstein has been to get
students to submit questions in advance. These are then voted on
by fellow students, and lecturers address the most popular.
“I was a little bit sceptical at the beginning,” says Dr Goldstein.
“In a normal lecture you get so much feedback from students –
confused faces, bored faces, attentive faces, whatever. So I was
not quite sure how it was going to work.” In fact, he says, it went
extremely well. “They came up with really wonderful questions that hit
the fundamental issues.” And the dynamic of the learning experience
changed completely. “Because it had started out as a dialogue,
the dialogue continued. So it was very good at breaking down the
boundary between lecturer and class.”
As well as core evolutionary principles, the lectures covered how
they could be applied to other situations in human biology, such as
the puzzling ubiquity of art, to the transmission of ideas – from religion
to trends in baseball cap wearing. Potentially both the topic and the
nature of the students contributed to the success of the experiment:
“BASc students are really involved and thirsty, curious for new ways
of combining things. So this group was particularly well suited for
such a method.” Nevertheless, he adds, flipping may be an excellent
way to cover ‘hot’ areas of science: “It clears space for people to
investigate and pursue ideas.”
18
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
patients, beginning in year
1 and particularly in years
5 and 6. Unusually, they
will have the opportunity to
follow individual patients for
extended periods, gaining
greater insight into patients’
journeys through the
healthcare system. And their
final year will emphasise not
cramming for final exams
but preparation for practice.
To mirror these changes,
the course has a greater
emphasis on workplacebased assessments.
From the start of their
studies, students will use
an ‘e-portfolio’ system, to
match the technology they
will be using when they
qualify. The e-portfolio
captures all documentation
recording their learning,
including workplace-based
assessments. To make the
transition to foundation years
as smooth as possible, the
e-portfolio has been adapted
from a currently used system.
UCL Medical School is
also leading attempts to
standardise the e-portfolio
across UK medical schools
and to develop enhanced
versions. The e-portfolio
system is also used on
a range of UCL master’s
courses.
Workplace-based learning
is also central to pharmacy
education. Most students
on the four-year MPharm
undergraduate degree will
end up working in either
community or hospital
pharmacies. The UCL
School of Pharmacy has
established close links with
regional bodies to ensure
that both undergraduate and
postgraduate training reflects
the real-life work of qualified
pharmacists.
These close links enable
undergraduates to
undertake much of their
training in NHS facilities. To
provide a realistic learning
environment, the School
has established a ‘teaching
pharmacy’ in which students
can practise dispensing
medicines.
The integration between
academia and practice has
led to a profound change in
postgraduate training. The
UCL School of Pharmacy has
played a leading role in the
establishment of Europe’s
largest foundation training
programme, incorporating
nine universities and more
than 70 NHS trusts across
the south and east of
England (see page 22).
The initiative, soon to be
replicated nationally, is
helping to ensure that the
skills of the UK pharmacy
workforce meet NHS needs.
Realistic settings are also
crucial to the Eastman Dental
Institute’s CPD learning
environment for dentists.
By providing access to the
very latest equipment, the
Institute ensures that clients
can develop skills at the
forefront of dental technology
and introduce them into their
own practices.
Methods for learning
Traditional lectures
are increasingly being
augmented by small-group
work and forms of selfdirected study. One striking
application in medical
education is the ‘OSCE’,
or objective structured
clinical examination – a form
of role-playing in which
students examine an actor
simulating a particular
condition. OSCEs are
valuable in testing a wide
range of clinical skills, from
physical manipulation to
patient communication.
Being highly structured and
objective, they are amenable
to assessment. Students
generally work their way
through a series of ‘stations’,
each individually assessed.
The emphasis on application
of knowledge in reallife settings, rather than
regurgitation of facts in
examinations, also lies at the
heart of ‘case of the month’
assessments (see page 21).
Each case is based on a
carefully designed scenario,
which final-year students
work their way through
online. Many of the cases
are generated by foundationyear trainees, helping to
develop their teaching skills.
Students undoubtedly find
the cases challenging,
but they are excellent
preparation for clinical
practice. Having been
pioneered for years 5 and 6,
they are now being rolled out
to year 4 students.
Small-group and other
innovative teaching
approaches are also being
adopted outside medicine.
With UCL’s extensive
museum collections to draw
upon, object-based learning
is one area of growing
importance (see page 23).
Assessment is also an area
where new approaches can
be tried. Students are being
encouraged to evaluate their
peers (see page 26), while
a journal club module on the
Neuroscience MSc course
is assessed by providing
students with a paper in
advance of an exam then
testing their understanding
of the paper and ability
to assess it critically.
Support infrastructure
Technology is now integral
to the learning experience
across the School. The
core learning technology
infrastructure is provided
by Moodle, an open-source
platform widely used in
education. Moodle provides
a virtual learning environment
for students and teachers,
with several add-on tools
to support more interactive
learning.
Moodle provides a
convenient system by which
course materials can be
shared. A more imaginative
use is the recording and
posting of lectures and
associated presentations,
through the ‘Lecturecast’
facility. This is particularly
useful for students who
may have missed a lecture
and for learners whose first
language is not English, who
can easily return to parts of
a lecture to recap or check
their understanding. UCL is
installing video equipment
across its lecture spaces to
ensure that all presentations
are recorded.
More innovative still is
to use Lecturecast and
Moodle facilities to rethink
approaches to teaching.
Several teachers are
experimenting with ‘lectureflipping’, whereby lectures
are recorded and shared
in advance on Moodle, with
teaching time devoted to
discussion and follow-up of
any points of uncertainty.
Students also have the
opportunity to submit
questions in advance of a
class. In the BASc course,
students rank the questions
and the ‘hottest topics’
form the basis of classroom
discussions (see page 18).
Moodle offers other
opportunities to enhance
learning experiences. With
the near-ubiquity of MP3
players, some lecturers have
turned to podcasting as a
way to provide additional
information or as aids to
revision. Podcast production
by students has also been
introduced on some courses,
enabling students to
develop skills in new ways
of communicating.
Among the plug-ins
available for Moodle is
‘Turnitin’, which provides
a way to detect plagiarism
in student submissions. It
provides a valuable way
to educate students about
attribution and encourage
self-monitoring as they draw
on online sources. Through
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
19
Professor Elizabeth Shephard (right) with Charmian Dawson and Dr Amanda Cain.
another popular third-party
plug-in, Peerwise, students
are developing their own
questions to test the learning
of their peers (see page 29).
Other technological
innovations are increasingly
being used to provide a
more engaging learning
experience. Among the
most popular are ‘personal
response devices’ – more
colloquially known as
‘clickers’ – which allow
students to provide feedback
during classes. Each student
can respond to questions,
with answers being
displayed to the whole class.
Clickers are being used in
many novel ways (see page
18). Some teachers test
students’ levels of knowledge
at the beginning of lectures,
or to assess students’
understanding part-way
through classes. The results
can also be used to stimulate
further discussion. If two
conflicting answers are
popular, for example,
classes can discuss their
relative merits.
Clickers are very popular
with students. Their
anonymity can be a benefit,
enabling everyone to
contribute equally. Clickers
can be hired for use in
classes and have also
been permanently installed
in some lecture halls and
classrooms.
20
Involving students in the
development of teaching
aids has been a key principle
of Professor Elizabeth
Shephard, winner of multiple
UCL teaching awards, and
her teaching team. Teaching
fellow Charmian Dawson, for
example, was herself a UCL
student who first got involved
in teaching during a summer
project. An enthusiasm for
animation led her to begin
developing genuinely
interactive learning tools
(see page 36). Such
teaching aids have helped
students get to grips with
dynamic biochemical
processes, but are also
useful preparation and
support for practical classes.
Similarly, providing students
with video cameras led
to some highly innovative
materials to help develop
numeracy skills – with
plasticine figures being used
to explain logs and other
areas of mathematics
(see page 21).
Professor Shephard’s group
also makes use of online
quizzes and assessments.
A further advantage is that
all data on performance are
captured, so it becomes
possible to analyse trends
in performance and links
between use of particular
tools and scores in
assessments.
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
Animated figures help to clarify mathematical concepts.
New technology is not
always the answer, however.
One of the most successful
projects was a revamp of
the post-exam week, when
first-year students were
given the opportunity to
interview lecturers about
their research and develop
poster presentations –
an experience enjoyed by
both students and staff
(see page 22).
Distance learning
Moodle is also forming the
core of a major development
in distance learning, which
will have a particular focus
on training and CPD for
doctors and other healthcare
professionals. Through
the ‘UCL eXtend’ initiative,
the School is developing a
suite of distance learning
materials drawing upon its
many areas of excellence in
research, clinical practice
and education.
UCL eXtend is a UCL-wide
programme which will
ultimately provide access to
a great diversity of courses,
in scope as well as subject
area. Courses will range from
short ‘tasters’ to advanced
specialist training. Some will
be free and others will attract
a charge.
For the School, the platform
will support specialist training
of medical graduates, as
well as CPD opportunities
for consultants and other
healthcare professionals
to develop their expertise
and employability. Areas of
focus will include knowledge
updating and the translation
of scientific advances in
clinical care, through best
current clinical practice, and
development of personal and
leadership skills.
An important challenge is
to ensure that the rigour of
distance-learning courses
is maintained, and to find
ways to achieve suitable
student–tutor interactions
– a far greater challenge
than simply making material
available online. The MSc
in Global Health and
Development (see page 44),
for example, is piloting a
distance-learning module in
health economics, attempting
to develop opportunities
for online student–student
and student–teacher
interactions, such as virtual
journal club sessions. Future
developments are likely to
include a greater emphasis
on blended learning, where
online access is combined
with periods of direct contact.
Dr Amanda Cain, with plasticine figures.
‘Case of the month’ tests patient-oriented skills.
A WAY WITH FIGURES
DR FINLAY’S E-CASE BOOK
Tasked with finding a way to boost numeracy skills, a
group of creative students came up with a novel solution –
stop-motion animation of plasticine figures.
The ‘case of the month’ learning tool challenges medical
students to think like a doctor.
“Getting former students involved in creating resources for
incoming students is a good idea,” says Senior Teaching Fellow
Dr Amanda Cain. “We have indications of areas of weakness in
our students, but they have a slightly different idea of ways we can
support them better.”
The summer break is a good time to put this principle into
action. And in 2011, Dr Cain thought film-making might be a way to
generate such new teaching aids. “Video is a resource we haven’t
made much use of as yet, so we thought let’s see what we can
come up with.”
A small teaching grant provided funds to employ students over
summer, and equip them with a couple of video cameras. “And we
let them loose really.”
Beyond a broad remit to develop something to support the
numeracy skills required for practicals – a perennial issue for
students – the students had complete creative freedom. “We had no
preconceived ideas that they might come up with animations,” says
Dr Cain. “That was something far harder than we thought they’d do.”
The new resources are an engaging guide to some simple
mathematical concepts, such as logs. “Some of the maths is quite
simple, that’s not really the problem; it’s how they apply the maths
to the scientific problem.” Dr Cain believes they may be enough
to ease students into the right mindset, and can develop their
understanding further through a range of other tools, including
worked examples and online quizzes. What is important is to have
a range of approaches suitable for different types of learner.
Dr Cain is a part of a team that has introduced a range of
innovations to teaching and assessment (see page 20), often
drawing on input from students. This has extended to experiments
with peer assessment by students, as a way of improving note
taking in lectures.
“Peer assessment is one of those things that students don’t like
and don’t see the point of initially,” says Dr Cain. “All staff think it’s
a great idea!”
Nevertheless, there is good evidence that it improves attainment.
“There’s always a few grumbles. But we can justify exactly why
they’re doing it. We think it’s actually giving them additional skills in
the note taking and the assessment. If they can see the criteria that
work has been marked against, it gives them a better idea of what
it was they should have put in their own work.”
The sixth year of the MBBS medical degree is focused on preparing
students for medical practice. Of profound importance is clinical
decision making, which depends not just on the accumulation of
knowledge but on the proficient application of that knowledge.
Learning and assessment is therefore strongly based on ‘every
day’ situations faced by doctors – and the ‘case of the month’ is
an important way such skills are developed.
Tests of ‘situational judgements’ are becoming more popular in
medical education. Broadly speaking, they ask a would-be doctor
‘what would you do when…’ for a typical clinical situation.
The case of the month tool brings this approach into the world of
virtual learning. Through Moodle, medical students are presented
with a clinical scenario and must choose what to do and explain
their answers. The scenario gradually unfolds over a series of
sessions. At the end, students receive individualised feedback on
the answers – a highly labour-intensive process but thought to be
worthwhile given the high value of the exercise.
The cases are typically written by junior doctors and closely map
to real clinical experience. They are also being used to target areas
that trainee doctors feel least confident about – such as prescribing
and use of the British National Formulary. The case is extremely
detailed, and it would be very difficult to create a similar learning
experience through lectures or seminars.
Medical students complete six cases of the month during their
final year. The approach is now also being adopted for fourth-year
students, to provide an early experience of developing clinical
decision-making skills. The scenarios will not be so involved,
however, and more use is likely to be made of ‘single best answer’
questions so assessment and feedback is manageable.
Medical student James Watson, who was involved in the
redevelopment of the MBBS course, has also worked extensively
on the case of the month tool. He acknowledges that they are timeconsuming to develop, and to assess, but suggests they are well
worth the effort: “They are extremely informative and they are bang
on the sorts of things that inevitably will come up in your practical
exams or written exams – and more importantly, the things you’ll
actually see when you qualify.”
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
21
Exposure to the workplace is central to pharmacy education.
Post-exam week provided students with insight into research.
DEVELOPING THE PHARMACY WORKFORCE
THE SCIENTIFIC LIFE FOR ME
A pioneering partnership between NHS employers and the
higher education sector is ensuring that post-registration
pharmacists have access to professional development
foundation training tailored to their workplace roles.
Free time after exams provided an opportunity for firstyear students to discover more about their lecturers’
research interests and career paths.
Some 20 per cent of graduate pharmacists go on to work within
the NHS-managed sector, where they have a critical role to play
in promoting the optimal and safe use of medicines. Ensuring the
competency of healthcare professionals in the NHS has become a
major issue in recent years, and pharmacy is no exception. Thanks to
an innovative programme heavily dependent on the work of Professor
Ian Bates and colleagues at the UCL School of Pharmacy, a model
approach to professional development has been established across
the south and east of England.
The Joint Programmes Board is responsible for the training of
pharmacists during their early years of practice. It covers London,
eastern and southeastern England – in total, some 40 per cent of the
patient population of England. It is based on a unique partnership
between nine higher education institutions, including UCL School
of Pharmacy, and a host of regional NHS Trusts and employers.
The roots of the initiative lie in groundbreaking research carried out
a decade ago, which highlighted the lack of any clear development
plans for the NHS pharmacy workforce. There was little or no
emphasis on professional competencies, and no mechanism for
ensuring that professional development was linked to NHS needs.
In response, Professor Bates and colleagues developed a series
of practitioner development frameworks – a General Level Framework
for early career pharmacists and an Advanced Level Framework
for later-stage professionals. These frameworks were rigorously
evaluated through a range of research methodologies.
At the same time, dialogue with health service bodies enabled
Professor Bates and colleagues to bring together multiple NHS
bodies and develop a training programme meeting the needs
of the wider NHS.
As well as delivering a workplace-based training programme
tailored to employer needs, this close integration between the NHS
and education has delivered other benefits. For example, students
spend more time in workplace learning, easing their transition
into work.
The approach has proved highly influential, and has been used as
a model for national programmes. The competency-based approach
has also been highly influential in the development of global
frameworks to develop the international pharmacy workforce.
22
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
For biochemistry students, the week after exams has traditionally
been spent on transferable skills – using databases, writing a CV
and so on – and preparation for year 2. After the stress of exams,
however, students can be excused for being less than enthusiastic
participants. A range of innovative new exercises – including
interviewing their lecturers about their research and producing
poster presentations on one of their papers – has proved a much
more engaging way to develop key skills and learning.
Teaching fellow Charmian Dawson, who came up with the
idea, was struck by the impact on students: “Some of them were
almost tearful they were so inspired by the researcher they had
spoken to.” Notably, it helped to break down barriers. “They see
a gap between themselves and the lecturers. They were a little
bit intimidated previously. They really appreciated the opportunity
to sit and talk to somebody they’d seen as very high up.”
Dr Chris Taylorson, one of those interviewed, highlights another
advantage: “Not only do they find out what we’re doing researchwise, what areas we’re interested in and how we go about doing
it, they’re also learning how we got into these things in the first
place.”
Students were given guidance on questions to ask, and were
encouraged to explore the implications of research. “It stretches
their mind into thinking a little bit left field,” says Dr Taylorson,
“to where things can go and possibilities for the future.”
Dr Andrew Martin also highlights how the exercise helped
students see their teachers as ‘real people’: “Students have the
chance to find out about the people who teach them and the kind
of research that goes on. Apart from the research project, they
don’t really know what we do.”
For those interested in a research career, he suggests, the
work was particularly beneficial “Overall it was a useful exercise.
If they want to stay in research, they can find out what is involved.”
Such sentiments are echoed by students who took part. “It was
really inspiring,” says Casey Kiew, who is keen on developing
a career in research. Her group won the award for best poster:
“That was rewarding as well”.
Jwalin Patel makes a similar point: “I want to become a
researcher, so it was nice knowing what he was doing on a daily
basis and how he got where he is.” As class rep, he also saw
a marked change in his fellow students: “Before we started the
programme, no one was looking forward to it. Everyone was
just numbed by the exams. But once they entered, many people
thought it was really helpful.”
Objects from the Grant Museum.
Practising doctors contribute hugely to a medical education.
AN OBJECT LESSON
DOCTORS WITH DISTINCTION
Objects can play a valuable role in all kinds of teaching.
Experienced doctors in district hospitals make an
invaluable contribution to medical teaching.
For some subjects, objects would seem to be essential to teaching
– it is hard to imagine geology or zoology being taught satisfactorily
without physical specimens. But Dr Helen Chatterjee in UCL’s
Museums and Collections believes objects have much greater
potential to support learning and teaching.
UCL is fortunate to have multiple collections of objects to
draw upon. It is home to the Grant Museum of Zoology, which
houses some 60,000 specimens, as well as the Petrie Museum of
Egyptology and the UCL Art Museum, which includes the drawings
collection of the Slade School of Art. Many departments have their
own collections – indeed, the number of objects in UCL collections
is thought to exceed a third of a million.
Following a PhD on the phylogeny and biogeography of gibbons,
and time spent as a curator at the Grant Museum, Dr Chatterjee
now combines research in primatology with a position as Deputy
Director of UCL’s Museums and Collections. One of her key aims
is to enhance the use of UCL’s objects in teaching.
In zoology, for example, she has overseen the development
of a virtual learning tool, VERB (virtual educational resource for
the biosciences), to expand students’ exposure to zoological
specimens outside the classroom. ‘Zoomoodle’, as it is also known,
contains a series of web books with text and visual imagery to
promote learning of animal diversity in an evolutionary context.
It has proven popular with students and is being rolled out more
widely across UK academia in partnership with the University
of Reading.
A completely different use of objects has been adopted in a
project for medical students run in collaboration with UCLH’s arts
curator. In one elective module, second-year students developed
‘memory boxes’ – small collections of objects used to engage
with hospital patients. The project helped students develop their
communication and empathy skills, at a time when they had had
little previous contact with patients. Its evaluation also provided
a good introduction to the planning of research.
Some objects have intrinsic explanatory value, but they can
also have the power to inspire, provoke and excite. Objectbased learning can provide multiple benefits, from, for example,
experiential or group-based learning. Object-based learning has
been integrated into the new arts and sciences BASc, and Dr
Chatterjee and her team are now reaching out to other departments
and staff involved in teaching to see how their students might also
benefit from the power of touch.
As well as UCLH in Central London, UCL medical students also
undergo clinical training at nearby district general hospitals,
including Luton and Dunstable and North Middlesex University
Hospitals. Two recent winners of Excellence in Medical Education
Awards, Dr Parthipan Pillai and Dr John Firth, illustrate the kind
of impact teachers at such centres can make.
In 2012, Dr Pillai, lead undergraduate tutor at Luton and
Dunstable, received a special award for his ‘exceptional
commitment to excellence in clinical teaching’. He has been
involved in UCL teaching for more than a decade, and regularly
picks up awards from students.
As well as organising all the teaching at Luton and Dunstable,
Dr Pillai is also directly involved in teaching, and in assessing the
hospital’s teachers. He has also introduced teaching innovations,
such as a focus on patient safety. “Even though we’re always thinking
about it, we’re never been taught about it as a medical student.”
His passion for teaching grew from an early appreciation of
his own mentors. “I had some very good teachers in my early life.
I enjoyed being a good student and it helped me become a good
teacher.” But what makes a good teacher? “A good teacher should
understand the students, come down to the medical student’s level
and teach them what they are wanting at that level. I still remember
bad teachers and good teachers – how bad teachers demoralised
me and destroyed my confidence, and how good teachers brought
me up.”
His dedication is striking in an era when hospitals are dominated
by targets and the demands of clinical work threaten to sideline
teaching. The awards, he suggests offer some recompense: “I’m
going home late, but at least I’ve been appreciated by the students
and the university.”
John Firth received a special award for enhancing science in
medical education. A consultant histopathologist, he has raised
the profile of a potentially neglected subject, pathology. He has
rescued surgical resections and other clinical samples, and
even museum exhibits, enabling students to gain real hands-on
experience – something no lecture could provide.
“If you don’t know your pathology, you’re not going to be a very
good surgeon,” he suggests. Physical assessment can provide vital
information in areas such as colon and rectal cancer and obstetrics
and gynaecology. His demonstrations, in the now rarely used
post-mortem room, with students gloved up and gowned, receive
uniformly high marks in student feedback.
Students may be exposed to surgery, he says, “But the last thing
they see is the resection going into formalin.” Actually physically
examining the material provides a whole new level of insight:
“It’s a very good learning tool.”
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
23
SECTION 3
CYCLES OF
IMPROVEMENT
A constant commitment to evaluation,
research and reflection is required to maintain
teaching at the highest possible standards.
24
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
Feedback from students is essential in course development.
Teaching is an activity that
requires preparation, skill in
delivery and a commitment
to constant reflection and
reinvention. Not only does
knowledge advance, but new
teaching methodologies and
technologies are constantly
being developed. Good
teachers therefore need to
be reflective practitioners,
open to new opportunities
and innovations, constantly
seeking feedback and areas
to improve, and willing to try
new things.
Results from the annual
National Student Survey
provide an objective view
of students’ impressions
of their courses, and paint
a positive overall picture
of education across the
School. The Medical School’s
MBBS degree achieved
an outstanding 93 per cent
overall satisfaction score.
Several of the School’s
courses achieved greater
than 90 per cent student
satisfaction, including
Biochemistry, Human
Sciences, Neuroscience
and Psychology.
Everyone knows how inspiring a good teacher
can be. Whatever their background, all staff
will benefit from a sound understanding of
educational theory and how students learn,
alongside practical advice to enhance their
teaching.
As would be expected,
formal quality assurance
systems are in place to audit
and promote high standards
in teaching. Through an
Internal Quality Review
process introduced in 1992,
departments are subject
to five-yearly reviews and
development planning.
Important though such
exercises are, they reflect
only one aspect of a
commitment to excellence
and continuous improvement.
Further essential information
comes directly from
students themselves,
who have abundant
opportunities to provide
feedback on modules,
courses and individual
teachers – feedback that
receives genuine close
attention. Classes also have
representatives to maintain
communication between
teachers and learners.
Promoting good
educational practice
Everyone knows how
inspiring a good teacher
can be. Whatever their
background, all staff will
benefit from a sound
understanding of educational
theory and how students
learn, alongside practical
advice to enhance their
teaching.
Many individuals across
the School have established
innovative and successful
teaching practice. Valuable
central support is provided
by the UCL Centre for the
Advancement of Learning
and Teaching (CALT), which
operates across the whole
of UCL but has two teaching
fellows dedicated to work
with the School of Life and
Medical Sciences.
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
25
Dr Richard Milne.
Dr Katherine Woolf.
PEER PRESSURE
TACKLING THE ATTAINMENT GAP
Disappointed with the quality of essays he was
assessing, Dr Richard Milne decided they could
benefit from pre-submission review – by the students
themselves.
Research is getting to the roots of the ethnic attainment gap
in medicine.
For several years Dr Richard Milne has been teaching secondyear undergraduates about infectious organisms. Assessment
has been through an essay, with generally unsatisfactory results:
“I’ve been repeatedly disappointed at the standard of the essays
that have been submitted.”
“They’ve been poor at two levels. They’ve been badly written
– it’s as if no one proof-reads anymore. But they’re also bad on
a higher level, in that there was no evidence that anyone was
actually thinking about the subject and assimilating the content
from the different lectures and producing a coherent stream
of ideas.”
In his own work, he realised, he relied on others to help shape
important documents. “It struck me that I would never send
any document out, be it something for publication or a grant
application, without showing it to people and getting comments
from my colleagues. So I thought why not do that with the
students?”
In 2012, that is precisely what he did. The 70 students taking
the course were paired up and exchanged draft versions of
their essays, providing feedback and discussing each other’s
efforts face to face in a lecture session. His aim was to improve
the quality of the essays, but equally importantly to develop
transferable skills, helping students develop, review and revise
documents, and also provide constructive feedback.
“I was uncertain whether they would play the game and
participate,” says Dr Milne, “and actually they did, by and large.”
An evaluation, coordinated by CALT, suggested that students
appreciated the new approach. One commented: “Reviewing
the essay brought up questions which I then had to look up –
thus helping me find areas of the module I hadn’t realised I’d
misunderstood.”
And, Dr Milne discovered, the experiment had a positive impact,
with marks improving across the board. “The most pleasing output
was the increase in first class level results,” he adds. “Last year 10
per cent of students were at this level, this year it was 25 per cent.”
Dr Milne has previously tried other novel approaches to
broaden students’ skills base. For a third-year module, he asked
students to prepare short presentations on papers, but with larger
class sizes this became impractical. Instead, he switched it to an
‘elevator pitch’, with students having just four minutes to convey
the key points of their chosen paper. “Of course they all raise up
their hands in horror at that. But actually they do an exceptionally
good job.”
Dr Milne is careful to outline very clearly the rationale for new
approaches and the likely advantages, and achieves good buy-in
as a result. “I increasingly think they’ll do anything as long as
they’re given clear guidelines, clear support and clear deadlines.”
In 1995 a startling news story pointed out that all students failing their
final clinical exams in Manchester had Asian surnames. The research
of Dr Katherine Woolf and colleagues has revealed that ethnic
differences in performance are ubiquitous in UK medical schools, and
has challenged some conventional explanations for why they exist.
To gain a more complete picture, Dr Woolf and colleagues
combined data on 23 studies that had examined ethnic differences
in the academic performance of UK-trained medical students and
doctors, covering more than 24,000 individuals. The clear finding
was that members of minority ethnic groups fared worse across the
board, in undergraduate and postgraduate assessments, and in all
forms of assessment (face-to-face clinical assessment and machinemarked work). While not huge, the attainment gap was certainly
significant – the odds of a minority ethnic candidate failing an exam,
for example, were 2.9 times those of a white candidate.
Qualitative research with UCL medical students and teachers
provided evidence that stereotyping of minority ethnic (particularly
Asian) students did exist among teachers and even students
themselves. Perhaps, then, under-performance was a consequence
of ‘stereotype threat’ – a negative feedback loop in which students
subconsciously conform to a stereotype associated with the group
they identify with.
In the USA, simple interventions, promoting more positive mental
attitudes, have been found to have a marked impact on academic
achievement. When a similar intervention was tested in UCL medical
students, however, the results were unexpected. The performance of
minority ethnic students given the intervention did indeed match that
of white students – but only because the white students did worse
than expected.
The qualitative study shone light on common conceptions about
certain groups – for example, the stereotype that Asian students are
pushed into medicine and are therefore less motivated; however,
studies of two cohorts of UCL medical students conducted in
2006 and 2007 by Dr Woolf during her PhD found no evidence
that motivation, personality, study habit or socioeconomic factors
accounted for the ethnic differences in performance.
On the other hand, the qualitative results led Dr Woolf in intriguing
new directions. Students from white and minority ethnic groups
described how they tended to coalesce into cliques. Dr Woolf has
therefore begun to examine student social networks – discovering
that the performance of individuals are associated with those of
others within their social group.
Woolf K, McManus IC, Potts HW, Dacre J. The mediators of minority ethnic
underperformance in final medical school examinations. Br J Educ Psychol.
2013;83(Pt 1):135–59.
Woolf K, Potts HW, Patel S, McManus IC. The hidden medical school:
a longitudinal study of how social networks form, and how they relate to
academic performance. Med Teach. 2012;34(7):577–86.
Woolf K, Potts HW, McManus IC. Ethnicity and academic performance in UK
trained doctors and medical students: systematic review and meta-analysis.
BMJ. 2011;342:d901.
26
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
New spaces are being introduced for students to work together.
As a mark of the status attached to medical
education research, it is being entered as
a separate category in the 2014 Research
Excellence Framework.
CALT is a centre of
pedagogical expertise
providing intellectual
and practical support to
enhance the quality of
teaching and students’
learning experience.
As well as working to
embed UCL’s teaching
and learning strategy,
CALT aims to support the
professional development
of staff engaged in teaching
and promote a culture of
evidence-based teaching –
the use of practices backed
up by sound educational
theory and supporting
evidence.
In practical terms its work
encompasses workshops
and conferences to
promote skills development,
advice and consultancy
to individuals or groups
keen to enhance particular
areas, planning and support
for education research
projects, and development
of resources to support
effective teaching. CALT
has helped departments
to organise awaydays to
discuss student-focused
teaching. It also provides
resources and support to
enhance approaches to
the peer observation of
teaching, where colleagues
sit in on lectures and provide
constructive feedback to
each other.
One-off support has included
input into a project being
led by ophthalmologist
Dr Ian Murdoch, who has
been working to develop
the ophthalmological skills
base in West Africa. CALT
has fed into course design
and approaches to ‘train the
trainers’. Ophthalmologists
are desperately needed in
the region, where thousands
of people could potentially
regain or retain their sight.
CALT has also helped Dr
Richard Milne introduce and
evaluate a pilot project in
which students review each
other’s work (see page 26).
In many areas, CALT
works closely with UCL’s
E-Learning Environments
team, to promote the use
of new technologies in
education. During the first
half of 2013, for example,
a programme of lunchtime
seminars, ‘Summits and
Horizons’, was organised
Museum objects have formed part of the ZooMoodle project.
for staff, with internal and
external staff, to discuss
various innovative uses of
new technology – in areas
such as feedback and
distance learning.
CALT also runs an annual
teaching and learning
conference. A joint event
was organised in 2013 with
E-Learning Environments and
UCL Careers on ‘Embedding
skills and employability in
the curriculum’.
Significant funding is
available for lecturers or
departments that want to
explore new approaches in
their teaching. This includes
Teaching Innovation Grants
of up to £5000, used to
develop the successful
‘ZooMoodle’ application (see
page 23) and to facilitate the
introduction of Peerwise (see
page 29). Specific E-learning
Development Grants are also
provided for technological
innovations. Projects include
a systematic evaluation so
learning can be gained from
each project and used to
inform future developments.
Support for use of new
technologies is provided by
the E-Learning Environments
team. As well as providing
support for the main
e-learning tools, the team
also works to identify
new opportunities to use
technology to improve
teaching and learning.
‘E-Learning Facilitators’
(ELFs) work with E-Learning
Champions in UCL Schools
to drive forward the use
of new technologies.
Education research
One aim of CALT is to ensure
that education activities are
as far as possible evidence
based and backed up by
sound educational research.
Such research is particularly
well established in medical
education, an area in which
the School has a strong
tradition.
One of the most significant
areas of work is around
the revalidation of doctors.
UCL Medical School holds
a contract from the General
Medical Council (GMC)
to assess the competence
and ‘fitness to practise’ of all
doctors whose performance
has been questioned and
have been referred to the
GMC. Such work requires
a rigorous assessment of
professional skills across a
wide range of disciplines.
A bank of assessment tools
have been developed for
this purpose, the validation
of which has itself generated
useful data.
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
27
Dr Deborah Gill, Deputy Director of the Medical School with responsibility for undergraduate programmes.
Other nationally important
research has been
carried out on the use
of psychometric testing
to guide selection into
foundation-year placements.
By adapting well-validated
methods used in the retail
sector and other parts of
industry, Medical School
researchers have been able
to develop assessments
to profile candidates and
establish their suitability
for particular roles.
Preliminary work has begun
to establish whether some
form of profiling might
also be feasible to guide
entry onto medical school
undergraduate courses.
Other work has examined
the suitability of computerdelivered clinical problem
solving tests and so-called
‘situational judgement
tests’ to contribute to the
selection process for
specialist training. This work
contributed to the national
situational judgement tests
rolled out nationally in 2012.
28
Equality has long been
a foundation of UCL’s
education. Important
research carried out by
Dr Katherine Woolf and
colleagues has looked at
striking ethnic differences
in achievement (see page
26). As at other UK medical
schools, black and minority
ethnic students at UCL
Medical School fare less
well than might be expected.
This inequality in attainment
is also seen in other subjects.
Its causes are not obvious,
and are likely to be complex.
Dr Woolf is a member of a
UCL’s Race Equality Group.
The group aims to ensure
equality of opportunity for
students from all ethnic
backgrounds, but also works
to tackle the related issue
of under-representation
of ethnic minority groups
among academic staff.
One innovative projected
supported by the group
will see a group of students
learn film-making skills
and produce short films
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
highlighting the experience
of ethnic minority students
across UCL.
Large medical education
research projects and
programmes are funded
by external grants. But
small grants are also made
available internally to support
innovation and research.
The Targeted Education
Development and Innovation
(TEDI) fund has supported
numerous staff initiatives,
as well as work by students
(see page 29).
The Medical School also
supports medical education
research in other ways. It
organises a high-profile
annual Medical Education
Conference, which in 2012
covered teaching, learning
and assessment in the
workplace, as well as a
seminar series. With the
Royal College of Physicians,
it also runs a highly
successful master’s course
in Medical Education, which
has expanded significantly in
recent years.
As a mark of the status
attached to medical
education research, it
is being entered as a
separate category in the
2014 Research Excellence
Framework. The Medical
School is also in discussion
with the nearby Institute
of Education, with a view
to closer collaboration.
There are potentially fruitful
opportunities for crossfertilisation between the
Institute of Education’s
pedagogical expertise and
the Medical School’s work
in clinical education.
The Peerwise system is being used by several UCL groups.
Medical student Alex Nesbitt has led education research projects.
QUESTION TIME
CONSTRUCTIVE FEEDBACK
Use of the ‘Peerwise’ system has enabled the School’s
linguistics students to develop their own questions on
course content.
Alex Nesbitt and fellow medical students have found out
for themselves what their peers think about the quality of
feedback they receive.
An excellent way to judge whether you have understood a topic
is to try to teach it to someone else. This principle underpins the
Peerwise system, which provides the tools to enable students to
develop their own questions for their peers. One area where it has
been successfully integrated into teaching has been on the School’s
Introduction to Phonetics and Phonology course.
Peerwise has been developed by a team at the University
of Auckland, New Zealand. Through a simple web interface, it
enables individuals and groups to put together questions, multiple
choice or freeform. The idea is that students develop questions,
a range of plausible answers (for multiple choice questions) and
an explanation of why the right answer is correct. Their peers then
complete the questions and can feedback their own comments on
the quality of the questions.
As well as demanding a much deeper understanding of topics,
students are far more engaged in their own learning in the Peerwise
approach. Development of questions also provides an opportunity
for group working. And the fact that the Peerwise work also feeds
into students’ final assessment ensures they take it seriously.
The pilot was put together by a small team in the linguistics
department, including teaching administrator Stefanie Anyadi
(see page 36), Dr Hans van de Koot and module organiser
Dr Andrew Nevins, with input from Dr Rosalind Duhs in the
Centre for the Advancement of Learning and Teaching and Steve
Rowett in E-Learning Environments. A key role was played by the
modules’ three postgraduate teaching assistants, who provided
initial training to students as well as practical support when needed.
The project was supported by a small grant from UCL’s teaching
development fund.
The pilot proved extremely popular with the students and with the
teaching assistants, who have enjoyed mentoring students with the
new tool. Plans are afoot to extend use of the tool to other modules,
with the teaching assistants passing on their knowledge and skills
to other postgraduate students who will be involved in teaching.
Feedback is recognised to be a valuable aspect of the learning
experience. In medical education, it is a critical part of workplacebased assessments, where students’ performance is evaluated in
scenarios mimicking actual clinical practice. Senior doctors, however,
often question whether students actually gain much from such
feedback. On a sabbatical year in the students union, Alex Nesbitt
wondered whether this was really the case.
“Most universities get quite poor feedback ratings on the National
Student Survey. Although UCL got quite a good one, and the Medical
School got a really good one, I thought it would be interesting to have
a look specifically at the feedback medical students get to evaluate
how useful it is, how effective it is and how much developmental
value it has.”
With support from Dr Ann Griffin and Dr Alison Sturrock, Alex put
together a team to carry out two mini-projects on feedback. The first
explored students’ views of feedback and of a recently redesigned
feedback form. The second examined the quality of the written
feedback clinicians were providing.
Contrary to what consultants had assumed, a survey of UCL’s
medical students revealed that feedback was definitely seen as
useful. “We found that students valued the opportunity to get
personalised feedback from senior colleagues, consultants and
registrars on the wards. They wanted feedback in person when
they do the exercise. Students find workplace-based assessments
useful for their learning.” The survey also suggested areas where
improvements could be made: “We’ve come up with some tips for
students and consultants to make sure the transactional feedback
is as effective as possible.”
An analysis of the written feedback, however, was less positive.
“Written feedback was quite poor overall,” Alex suggests. Assessors
often recorded nothing or very generic comments, or suggested that
students should just keep practising: “We felt that was something
students would do anyway. It wasn’t very useful feedback.”
Alex and his team have prepared posters from the research
projects and presented their findings at medical education
conferences. They are also being written up for publication. It has
provided Alex with first-hand experience of education research, from
devising studies to dealing with referees’ comments on manuscripts.
He has appreciated the light-touch guidance provided by Dr Griffin
and Dr Sturrock: “They were very constructive in their criticism and
feedback but also let us develop the project ourselves.”
While Alex has returned to his own medical studies, the projects
have ignited an interest in education and education research.
“It’s definitely something I would like to pursue in the future.”
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
29
Personal development and enhancement of skills are central
to both undergraduate and postgraduate education.
SKILLS FOR LIFE
Alongside new knowledge,
the School places
great emphasis on the
broader development
of undergraduate and
postgraduate students. Core
teaching emphasises the
development of critical and
creative thinking, problem
solving and other learning
skills, and the sourcing and
appraisal of information.
A UCL education also
encourages students to
value learning throughout
life and to prioritise their
continuing professional
development whatever their
chosen career.
While not formally
assessed to the same
extent as knowledge, skills
30
development is core to an
undergraduate education. It
is monitored through UCL’s
online student information
system, Portico, and the
e-portfolio tool.
Many opportunities for
development of generic
skills, in areas such as
communication and teamworking, are built into
the teaching provided to
undergraduates. For the
commercially minded,
there is a strong emphasis
on the development of
entrepreneurial skills (see
box). Other services such
as UCL’s Careers Service
offer valuable assistance
for work experience and
placements, and guidance
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
on future career decisions.
UCL’s Alumni Relations
Office is also a useful source
of contacts and mentoring
opportunities. Voluntary work
also contributes to personal
development, and UCL
offers an active volunteering
service that is taken up by
many students.
promotes the professional
development of UK
postgraduate research staff.
It covers four domains:
Skills development is just as
critical during postgraduate
education. UCL Graduate
School has developed an
outstanding portfolio of
development opportunities,
ranging from half-day events
to in-depth residential
courses. The programme
draws upon the Researcher
Development Framework
developed by Vitae, which
• Communication, influence
and impact.
• Knowledge and intellectual
abilities
• Personal effectiveness
• Research organisation
and governance
The support offered to
PhD students is designed
to provide an excellent
preparation for a research
career. However, the
overwhelming majority of
students – some 97 per
cent – will not actually
end up in an academic
research career. Hence
THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT
UCL seeks to instill a spirit of entrepreneurship in its
students, and through UCL Advances it provides many
forms of support to enable students to develop their
entrepreneurial skills and business ideas.
Students have found acquiring entrepreneurial skills – leadership,
innovative thinking, creativity, and a can-do mentality – of value in a
variety of commercial environments, as well as when setting up their
own businesses.
To develop these skills and support UCL students’ entrepreneurial
ambitions, UCL Advances offers a multitude of training opportunities,
including workshops, an ‘Enterprise Bootcamp’ and short courses
in areas such as small business management. Students can also access
multiple opportunities for networking and obtain guidance from student
business advisers and mentors. These activities can draw upon UCL’s
extensive network of alumni, as well as local businesses. UCL Advances
already engages with 300 small companies and supports 50 companies,
and has plans to expand this to 125 by 2016.
Students can also gain workplace experience through paid internships
– funded by UCL Advances – with start-ups across London. Through
the scheme, students have gained a thorough overview of business
management and some have found permanent jobs.
In addition, UCL Advances also enables students to gain consultancy
experience. Groups of students are briefed on business and consultancy,
before undertaking consultancy projects with local start-ups.
For students who are keen to develop a business idea, funding in the
form of loans is available through the Bright Idea scheme, while UCL
Advances can also help budding entrepreneurs identify other potential
sources of seed funding and investment opportunities. Space is also
available in an incubator, ‘The Hatchery’, providing a base from which
students can develop a new business.
provision is also made for the
employability skills that will
be advantageous in other
career paths.
Some courses are aimed at
developing specific technical
skills, from bioinformatics
to confocal microscopy.
Others have more general
aims, to develop thinking
and intellectual skills.
As well as developing
expertise required for a PhD
and later research, many
courses focus on generic or
transferable skills, personal
effectiveness covering areas
such as time management
and project management,
while a suite of courses aims
to build communication and
interpersonal skills.
When they begin at UCL,
PhD students set up an
online Research Student Log
to document their work and
progress. The Log is an ideal
tool for identifying training
needs and discussing
development opportunities
with supervisors. Students
are expected to acquire a
minimum of 20 points for
development activities during
the year, which amounts to
10 days training per year
of their course.
before being allowed to take
on supervisory duties. A tier
system is used to recognise
the additional contributions
made by experienced
supervisors.
Although primarily aimed at
research students, courses
are also open to MRes
students and some to taught
graduate students. A further
development is the extension
of support to postdoctoral
scientists. Additional
personal development may
be valuable in the transitional
period as postdocs take
up new positions, while the
growth of lifelong learning
means that many junior
researchers are also keen
to develop new skills.
For those pursuing a
research career, a new
Academic Careers Office
has been established
to enthuse and develop
the
next generation of
innovative and inspiring
biomedical and clinical
academic scientists.
The Office is responsible
for initiatives such as the
‘Future Leaders’ programme,
which aims to develop
the leadership skills of
exceptional individuals,
profiling of academic role
models across the School,
and the ‘Future Fifty’
mentoring programme for
promising early-career
researchers.
Supervisors have an
important role to play in
guiding the development
of students, and receive
training to ensure they can
perform this role effectively.
All would-be supervisors
must complete a course and
demonstrate their aptitude
training cohorts. Finally,
in partnership with
the UCLH–UCL NIHR
Biomedical Research Centre,
pioneering initiatives are
encouraging nurses and
allied health professionals
into biomedical research.
Leadership and other
transferable skills are also
integral to the School’s
postgraduate medical
training and CPD provision.
Transferable skills
development will form an
important strand of the
online CPD opportunities
made available through
UCL eXtend.
The Office provides a single
point of contact for funders
in managing the School’s
large clinical and academic
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
31
SECTION 4
TEACHING WITH A PASSION
A UCL education depends on teachers with a passion
for inspiring the next generation, who are provided
with the support and resources they need to deliver
an outstanding educational experience.
32
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
Stefanie Anyadi, who leads a UCL-wide teaching administrator network.
The skill and enthusiasm of
teachers are an essential
part of education. Education
is central to the mission of
the UCL School of Life and
Medical Sciences, and it is
committed to developing the
teaching skills of its staff and
recognising those who excel
in teaching.
Most young academics can
expect to combine teaching
with research and other
academic duties. The School
prepares them for teaching
roles through courses run
by the Institute of Education,
leading to recognition
by the Higher Education
Academy. Some may go on
to specialise in teaching,
an option becoming more
possible through teaching
fellow posts which offer the
prospect of long-term career
progression.
Education across the School
is also notable for the
diversity of people involved
in teaching. As well as the
School’s own academic
staff, it can also call upon
researchers in institutions
such as the MRC National
Institute for Medical Research
and large numbers of clinical
Education is central to the mission of the UCL
School of Life and Medical Sciences, and it is
committed to developing the teaching skills
of its staff and recognising those who excel in
teaching.
specialists. With strong
importance attached to
interdisciplinarity, teachers
from other UCL schools or
from other professional fields
also contribute to teaching.
Recognising excellence
Excellent teaching across
UCL is recognised through
the Provost’s Teaching
Awards scheme. Launched
in 2007, the awards are
made annually to individuals
and teams that have made
“outstanding contributions to
the learning experiences and
success of our students”.
Special categories exist
for early-career staff and
for teaching support staff,
as well as for experienced
teaching professionals
and teams.
Previous winners have
included Dr Amanda Cain
(see page 21) in 2011, Dr
Helen Chatterjee (see page
23) and Charmian Dawson,
jointly with Professor
Elizabeth Shephard and
Dr Andrea Townsend
Nicholson. The latter group’s
work has encompassed the
development of innovative
multimedia learning aids
(see page 36) and a radical
rethink of a general skills
week after first-year exams
(see page 22).
Technological advances
also underpinned the award
made in 2012 to Dr William
Coppola. For more than
a decade, Dr Coppola
has been expanding the
e-learning infrastructure
within medical education,
helping to establish online
feedback systems for
students, leading on the
rollout of Lecturecast, and
helping to integrate the
new e-portfolio system.
Winners in 2013 included
Dr Richard Milne (see page
26), Stefanie Anyadi (see
page 36) and Mike Rowson,
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
33
Preparing for a life in teaching.
Clinical Teaching Fellows often combine teaching and practice.
A SOLID FOUNDATION
INTEGRATED TEACHING
Early-career academics have the chance to explore
the theoretical foundations and practice of teaching,
and gain formal accreditation.
Clinical teaching fellows bring direct experience of clinical
practice into the classroom.
Most UCL academics are expected to have some involvement in
teaching. To prepare them for teaching roles, the UCL Centre for
the Advancement of Learning and Teaching organises a foundation
course in conjunction with the Institute of Education, which can lead
to formal recognition by the UK Higher Education Academy.
Sabine Joseph, currently studying for a PhD in cognitive
neuroscience, has been exposed to a variety of teaching styles
– thanks to a liberal arts and science degree in Maastricht, The
Netherlands, and a Dual Master’s split between Paris and UCL.
“During my master’s, it was interesting that you could study similar
subjects in two different systems and everything is presented
so differently.”
Past experience, she suggests, is highly influential: “Everyone
came with a different perspective on teaching, people were quite
influenced by their own backgrounds. If you came from a teachercentred school you would now value those teacher-centred styles
of teaching more.” The course, she feels, was helpful in overcoming
such preconceptions: “We were confronted with other ways which
we were less familiar with. Everyone had to reflect on these different
teaching styles and build their own model of what they think is the
best way of teaching.”
Sabine has begun to apply some of her new skills, having helped
to organise and teach a class on neuroscience and the media for
master’s students. Ultimately she hopes to combine teaching with
research: “Just doing one or the other would be too one-sided.”
Neta Amior, in the third year of her PhD, sees teaching as a
natural complement to research: “I enjoy the concepts in science.
Research tends to involve repeating experiments, leaving less time
or need to think about such concepts. Teaching gets me thinking
about science again.”
She is also able to pass on some of her enthusiasm for science:
“It’s nice to see them learning about it, and being inspired about it.
That’s quite rewarding.”
The course, she suggests, has given her a much better
understanding of what teaching involves, and what the challenges
are likely to be. The emphasis on planning has made her more
prepared for a life in teaching. She was impressed with the rigour
of the course – earning the formal qualification was no box-ticking
exercise and will, she believes, significantly improve the quality of
her teaching.
After an MSc, Maha Abdollah is now studying for a PhD at the
UCL Cancer Institute. When she returns to Egypt, teaching is likely to
be an important part of her career – hence her interest in the course.
“It will be one of the main things I will be doing when I go back home,
so I thought it was a necessity.” She found it particularly helpful
to have discussions grounded in solid educational theory, which
helped to make sense of past experience. With a combination of
theory and practice, she has also been able to try things out and
get feedback. “I really enjoyed it,” she concludes.
34
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
Almost all doctors are engaged in education to some extent,
helping to develop the next generation of clinicians. Some can
become even more deeply involved by taking on Clinical Teaching
Fellowship positions – helping to develop their own skills as well
those of students.
UCL Medical School has around six to eight Clinical Teaching
Fellows at any one time, in full- or part-time positions lasting up to
two years. Typically, Fellows are at registrar level, training to be a
consultant in their area of speciality.
Before her UCL position, Dr Rosie Belcher had already spent
a period as an education fellow in an NHS trust. “That was very
coalface,” she says, her time spent almost exclusively on direct
teaching. Her part-time 18-month fellowship at UCL provided scope
for a more varied experience.
Although the UCL fellowship lengthened her training, Dr Belcher
believes it was helpful to maintain her practice. “It’s good also to
be in a clinical job. It gives you credibility with students that I’m
still doing clinical work, I’m still based in the reality that they’re
experiencing every day.”
Like all Clinical Teaching Fellows, Dr Belcher contributed to a
range of core activities, such as teaching on Training to Teach
courses, marking first-years’ work, assessing reflective essays and
developing scenarios for ‘case of the month’ (see page 21). Fellows
also have the opportunity to develop their own projects – in Dr
Belcher’s case, helping to implement a new e-portfolio system
which students use to record their progress and assessments.
The position also provided scope for research, enabling Dr
Belcher to explore issues around the e-portfolio. Not all doctors
are enamoured of the e-portfolio, and Dr Belcher was keen to know
whether the degree of engagement with the e-portfolio had any
bearing on exam performance, and whether negative attitudes had
filtered down to students.
Dr Belcher also helped to organise a conference for teaching
fellows, initially planned as a way for fellows to network and discuss
their experiences. “It was very popular,” says Dr Belcher. “People
who came were much more junior than we were expecting and asked
for tips for how to get into education, what they could do at their
level.” The following year’s conference was therefore given a stronger
careers slant.
Dr Belcher believes that the fellowship has also been beneficial
for her. The fellowships are, she suggests, tailored to individuals’
experience and interests. “They’re very much aimed at developing
people’s skills. I definitely feel I’ve learned a lot.”
Many clinicians contribute to medical training.
a Teaching Fellow in the
Institute of Global Health
who was also one of four
recipients of an ‘Outstanding
Teaching’ award in UCL
Union’s first Student Choice
Teaching Awards in 2013.
Two other teachers in
the School, Dr Alastair
McClelland and Dr Julie
Pitcher, picked up students’
awards for ‘Outstanding
Support for Teaching’.
The length, breadth and
complexity of medical
education naturally means
that large numbers of people
are involved in teaching
medical students. UCL
Medical School organises
a wide range of annual
awards for teaching, the
scope of which extends to
the many clinicians involved
in teaching medical trainees
at affiliated hospitals and
other sites. These include
the prestigious Excellence in
Medical Education Awards,
made annually to individuals
and groups making an
outstanding contribution
to undergraduate medical
education. Individual winners
in 2011/12 included Dr
Parthipan Pillai (Saad alDamluji Award) and Dr John
Firth (David Jordan Award),
featured on page 23.
Students in UCL’s main library.
UCL has established a Professional Development
Programme in Academic Practice, which is
mapped against the HEA’s national standard,
the UK Professional Standards Framework.
Each year, medical
students also provide
extensive feedback on their
teachers, providing a further
opportunity to recognise
those whose efforts have
been appreciated by their
students. Recognition is
also given to the vital work
of administrators, at UCL
and clinical sites. A new
certificate of merit scheme
is also being introduced for
foundation-year doctors who
make a major contribution to
medical student training.
Indeed, all kinds of people
are involved in medical
teaching, from newly
graduated foundation-year
doctors to experienced
consultants. UCL provides
numerous ways for trainees
doctors to become involved
in teaching and to enhance
their teaching skills.
This includes resource
documents such as
Guidance for Junior Doctors,
while practical guidance on
medical teaching is provided
through Training to Teach
courses.
The Medical School also
recruits Clinical Training
Fellows, who work parttime for two years or fulltime for a year (see page
35). Typically registrar
level, fellows undertake
a wide range of teaching
duties across all years of
undergraduate teaching, and
foundation year teaching,
and also manage their
own individual projects, in
education research or similar.
Fellows also contribute to
teaching courses and the
Target Medicine widening
participation initiative.
Clinical Training Fellows
have also been involved
in organising Trainees in
Medical Education (TiME)
conferences. Originally
planned as a forum for
those already involved in
teaching to discuss and
share good practice, the
conferences turned out
to be extremely popular
among students and trainees
keen to become more
involved in teaching. The
2013 conference, covering
transitions in medical
education and training, was
held in conjunction with the
Medical School’s popular
annual Medical Education
conference.
Developing teaching
skills and careers
For academic staff, the UK’s
Higher Education Academy
(HEA) is playing an important
role in promoting the practice
of teaching in universities
and other higher education
institutions. As well as
providing opportunities
for staff development and
networking, the HEA also
provides formal recognition
of high-quality teaching.
To guide teaching staff
development, UCL has
established a Professional
Development Programme in
Academic Practice, which is
mapped against the HEA’s
national standard, the UK
Professional Standards
Framework.
Early-career staff are
provided with opportunities
to undergo training and gain
HEA accreditation (see page
34), through a programme
organised by the Institute of
Education and UCL Centre
for the Advancement of
Learning and Teaching
(CALT).
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
35
Stefanie Anyadi (left).
Charmian Dawson.
THE PERSONAL TOUCH
EDUCATION IN ACTION
Teaching administrators can play multiple roles in
education, says Stefanie Anyadi, particularly catalysing
the uptake of new technologies.
Multimedia opens up multiple opportunities for a more
engaging education, says Charmian Dawson.
Academic staff are obviously critical to student education, but
behind the scenes teaching administrators provide essential
backup. As well as illustrating the vital role they can play, Stefanie
Anyadi is helping to develop teaching administrator functions
across UCL.
The teaching administrator role is evolving, often tailored to local
departmental needs and covers a range of job titles, says Stefanie.
“We deal with everything from admissions to support for lecturers,
examinations, pastoral issues, all kinds of things.”
Stefanie leads a support team within UCL’s Division of
Psychology and Language Sciences. She has also established
an extensive network of contacts across UCL, an important factor
in the dissemination of new technologies. “By sharing all these
new initiatives with other people, particularly with other teaching
administrators, we can then bring it to the academics. They’re so
busy with their research and teaching and supervision they often
don’t have time to be proactive about innovation. We can bring it
to them and provide the initial support to encourage them to take
the first steps and take it forward themselves.”
Good examples have been the ‘personal response systems’ – or
‘clickers’ (see page 18) – and the Peerwise project (see page 29).
Stefanie is also helping her department move towards paperless
operation, with increasing amounts of online submission and
marking. With colleagues in E-Learning Environments, she is
also leading a ‘Digital Department’ project, funded by the Joint
Infrastructure Committee (JISC), which aims to develop the digital
literacy of teaching administrators. “It’s increasingly recognised
that they are really important in helping in innovation and sharing it
across UCL.” As well as auditing current practice and knowledge,
the project is developing cohorts of staff who achieve ‘CMALT’,
Certified Membership of the Association for Learning Technology.
Stefanie is involved in other wider teaching administrator
initiatives. As well as helping to develop a handbook and wiki to help
staff navigate internal systems, she is also chair of the organising
committee of annual teaching administrator conferences. “They’re a
fantastic opportunity for people to come together from across UCL.”
Within her own department, she is closely involved in multiple
undergraduate and postgraduate courses, and often the first point
of contact with UCL. First impressions matter, and she aims to
build on positive initial impressions and develop relationships with
prospective students through to the time they start their studies.
Indeed, new students often feel most comfortable talking to teaching
administrators, so pastoral care is yet another part of the expanding
job description.
36
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
As a teaching fellow, Charmian Dawson has one distinct advantage
over her colleagues: she actually took the courses she now teaches
on. Having first undertaken a summer project then become a
member of staff, she has been able to build on her interests in
biochemistry and programming to develop a range of multimedia
tools to support teaching and learning.
Multimedia applications are an ideal way to show dynamic
biological processes, and provide opportunities for interactivity
and more active student engagement. Yet when she investigated
what already existed, Charmian was disappointed. “Almost without
exception, an animation described as interactive was one where
you could press forward and back.”
Having taught herself Flash programming, Charmian has
developed a range of interactive tools for microbiology, molecular
biology and metabolism. An interactive version of the electron
transport chain illustrates what she is trying to achieve. Students
have to move the electron carriers and chemical entities themselves:
“They actually do it rather just watching it happen.”
She has also applied the approach to improve preparation for
practical work – particularly a complex five-part lab experiment
carried out in year 2. “I did this practical myself. We often struggled
to understand how the different steps went together – what it was we
actually doing. We’re adding one clear liquid to another clear liquid.
The aim of the animation was to help them put everything together
and understand what was happening at different points.”
Students have responded positively to the innovations, confirmed
in end-of-year surveys: “The feedback was overwhelmingly positive.”
Her latest project is an ambitious attempt to encourage greater
reflection and self-assessment in first-year students. Unusually for
online tools, students provide freeform answers to questions. They
are then provided with a marking scheme and are asked to assess
how well they covered each point. They also have to highlight the
precise parts of their answer addressing each point, to help ensure
they are realistic in their assessments. Encouraging such thinking
skills should benefit the students further down the line: “If we can
get them to think like that in the first year, perhaps by the third year
they’ll be much more analytical.”
Although an experiment, it may yield additional useful information.
“It’s going to be voluntary so I’ll be able to compare the ones who
did it with the ones who didn’t.” And, she adds, it has another distinct
advantage: “If it works it could be applied to a lot of other topics.”
UCL’s distinctive portico.
Such experience, leading to
recognition as an Associate
Fellow of the Academy,
can provide an important
early grounding in the key
principles of teaching. PhD
students and others develop
an electronic portfolio of
work, which is submitted to
the HEA for accreditation.
More experienced staff
can similarly apply to be
recognised as Fellows
or Senior Fellows of the
Academy.
Numerous other training
courses are available through
CALT, as well as one-off
workshops and conferences.
Online access is also
provided to a wide range
of resources to support
teaching in higher education,
developed through the
‘CPD4HE’ project. These
cover a multitude of topics,
from curriculum design to
assessment and feedback.
Another valuable resource
is UCL’s Teaching and
Learning Portal (www.ucl.
ac.uk/teaching-learning/
default). As well as a
convenient online home
for strategy and other
documents relating to
Mike Rowson, recipient of a student teaching award in 2013.
education across UCL, the
site also provides a constant
stream of news and features
on innovative teaching
practices and other activities
relevant to teaching.
A development pathway
Internal recognition and
promotion within the School
has primarily been based
on contributions to research
outputs and grant income.
Education research is,
however, a relatively small
academic discipline which
does not generate the highprofile outputs of biomedical
science. Moreover, some
teachers my want to excel
at the practice of teaching
rather than as an academic
discipline. How best to
recognise contributions to
teaching, both quantity and
quality, is an issue under
active consideration.
For teaching fellows, who
spend essentially all their
time on teaching (although
they have time ring-fenced
for associated research
activities), a career
pathway does exist. Clear
criteria exist for teaching
fellows to be promoted to
senior teaching fellow and
principal teaching fellow. It is
possible to be promoted to
professor level on the basis
of sustained excellence
in teaching activities. One
example is Professor Susan
Cunningham, who was
promoted to a Chair in
2011 as a consequence of
her leadership in teaching
innovation within UCL
Eastman Dental Institute.
Non-academic staff
Non-academic staff
play a critical role in the
smooth operations of large
educational establishments.
Increasingly, administrators
may play a greater role
in educational delivery,
particularly in facilitating the
use of new technologies.
A network of teaching
administrators has been
established across UCL
to share learning and
experience, with a particular
focus on the dissemination of
new technology. One option
is to apply for ‘CMALT’,
Certified Membership of
the Association for Learning
Technologies. Through
the Digital Department
project funded by the
Joint Information Systems
Committee and the
Association of University
Administrators, and
coordinated by Stefanie
Anyadi and others (see
page 36), a first cohort of
teaching administrators
gained their accreditation
in January 2013.
Teaching administrators are
of importance as they are
often the first point of contact
with prospective students.
As well as organising all the
practical aspects of courses,
they can also be valuable
contact points with students
and routes by which new
teaching innovations can
be brought into departments.
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
37
Researchers in the UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
are active contributors to ‘informal education’, while young
people are the target of initiatives to widen participation.
REACHING OUT
Professor Steve Jones.
As well as being a route
to a valuable qualification
and onto a career ladder,
education can also be
intellectually fulfilling
and sometimes simply
undertaken for its own sake.
Researchers across the
School undertake a diversity
of outreach activities to
satisfy the intellectually
curious.
Public lectures have long
been a core activity of
universities, and the School’s
researchers are regular
contributors to UCL series
such as the popular ‘lunch
hour lectures’. The lectures
can now also be watched
online, and sometimes
expand into special wholeday events, as on world
TB day. UCL also has a
unique range of museums
and collections, including
the popular Grant Museum
of Zoology. The Museum
also offers a programme
of education activities for
school students.
The School is also home to
some of the most acclaimed
popularisers of science.
Over many years Professor
Steve Jones has written
some of the finest popular
38
Dr Petra Boynton.
science books on genetics,
ecology and evolution, from
Language of the Genes –
winner of the Aventis Book
prize – through Almost Like a
Whale: The Origin of Species
Updated to The Serpent’s
Promise: The Bible Retold as
Science, published in 2013.
He delivered the 1991 BBC
Reith Lectures, was awarded
Royal Society Michael
Faraday Prize in 1996,
and has been a tireless
communicator and advocate
of science on radio,
television and in person
for more than 20 years.
Other notable UCL authors
include Professor Chris
McManus who has
combined his teaching at
UCL Medical School with
popular writing, including
Right Hand, Left Hand,
a wide-ranging and
entertaining journey through
the history and science of
laterality. Professor Nick
Lane has received plaudits
for his works including Power,
Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria
and the Meaning of Life
and Life Ascending: The Ten
Great Inventions of Evolution
– winner of the Royal Society
Book Prize in 2010.
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
Professor David Colquhoun.
Many other individuals
across the School have
made important contributions
to science communication.
One of the most notable is
Dr Kevin Fong, a lecturer in
physiology who has made
numerous appearances
on television and radio and
was the Wellcome Trust’s
first Engagement Fellow.
Professor Mark Lythgoe
combines running the
UCL Centre for Advanced
Biomedical Imaging with
a wide range of public
engagement activities,
including a successful
stint as Director of the
Cheltenham Science Festival.
For many years, Professor
David Colquhoun’s blog,
DC’s Improbable Science,
has been a scourge of woolly
thinking.
Neuroscience provides rich
opportunities to engage the
public in science. Given
UCL’s world-leading position
in neuroscience research,
it is no surprise that
neuroscientists are involved
in numerous public-oriented
activities. One of the many
researchers contributing
to public engagement is
Professor Sophie Scott,
winner of a Provost’s Award
for Public Engagement in
2013, for a wide range of
activities from science and
art projects to stand up
comedy. Professor Beau
Lotto combines research on
perception, including mindbending visual illusions, with
a wide-ranging programme
of public outreach. These are
undertaken under the banner
of the Lottolab Studio, which
has its own space at the
Science Museum. Professor
Lotto is one of several
UCL researchers to have
delivered prestigious
TED talks.
UCL researchers are
frequently called upon
to comment on stories in
national and international
media. Dr Petra Boynton,
a senior lecturer in UCL
Medical School, has filled
a very particular niche as
an expert commentator on
matters of sexual health.
Once described as the
UK’s first ‘evidence-based’
agony aunt, Dr Boynton has
her hands full dispelling
some of the myths and
misrepresentations in sex
and relationships, ensuring
that debates are informed
by reliable research rather
than dogma or prejudice.
She is an active blogger,
Tweeter and has her own
advice column in the
Daily Telegraph.
As well as activities that
reflect the sharing of
specialist knowledge, the
School’s public engagement
activities also encompass
projects that invite discussion
and debate, listening as
well as talking. Such work is
supported by UCL’s Public
Engagement Unit, which
provides various forms of
support as well as organising
its own projects and events –
including the monthly variety
night, ‘BrightClub’.
One of the most important
roles of public engagement
is to ensure that public views
are reflected in research. The
Eastman Dental Institute, for
example, has sought public
input into the dental issues
seen as most important
to patients. Notably, the
Deafness Cognition and
Language (DCAL) research
centre maintains strong links
with the deaf community,
to ensure its needs are
reflected in the centre’s
research.
OPENING EYES
The School’s outreach
activities encourage
school students from
disadvantaged backgrounds
to aspire to a UCL
education.
Throughout its history,
UCL has sought to ensure
equality of opportunity for all,
whatever their background.
All should have the
opportunity to study, if they
have the intellectual capacity.
A major challenge, however,
is that students from
disadvantaged backgrounds
may have the capacity to
thrive at university but, for a
variety of reasons, may not
consider themselves suitable
for UCL. The School’s
outreach activities aim
to dispel this view.
One successful recent
initiative was based on a
non-residential summer
school for students
from disadvantaged
backgrounds, run by a team
from the Faculty of Life
Sciences in July 2012. For a
week, students heard talks
and took part in practicals
to gain a sense of life as a
student. They also undertook
group work and other
activities to boost their skills.
Perhaps most importantly,
they learned that lecturers
are ‘real people’ and that
they had much in common
with students.
The work put into organising
the summer school laid
the foundation for a similar
event, this time residential,
sponsored by the Sutton
Trust, for 40 students from
London and the South East.
As a result, several students
applied to study at UCL.
Following the success of
the new venture, two similar
events were held in 2013.
UCL Medical School’s
‘Target Medicine’ has the
similar aim of widening
participation. It is based
on the idea that students
themselves are the best
ambassadors, and they play
an active role in encouraging
school students to consider
medicine as a career.
medical school, to help
them through the application
process. Students also take
part in outreach activities,
often to younger age groups
to encourage them to think
about medicine and to
guide them in their choice
of subjects so they are not
inadvertently excluded
from the medicine career
path. The Medical School
also organises an annual
residential summer school
for local year 11 students
from state schools.
These activities form part of
a UCL-wide initiative, UCL
Outreach, which runs many
activities for students and
teachers with the aim of
widening participation.
Target Medicine includes
a mentoring scheme, with
teams of medical students
paired up with groups of
local state school pupils
considering applying to
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
39
SECTION 5
A GLOBAL VIEW
As part of ‘London’s Global University’,
the School’s education activities are set in a
global context. The aim is to provide learners
with a global perspective on their knowledge.
40
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
One in three UCL students comes from outside the UK.
Today’s students will enter a
world more highly connected
than ever before. They are
likely to encounter a diversity
of people, cultures and
ideas, and their careers may
take them outside their home
countries. In today’s global
village, a parochial education
is no longer adequate.
Situated in the heart of
one of the world’s most
cosmopolitan cities,
UCL prides itself on its
internationalism. The number
of overseas students at
UCL – around a third of
undergraduates, from 140
different countries – is one
obvious measure of this
cosmopolitanism, bringing
together students of widely
differing backgrounds. Great
efforts are made to welcome
students from other countries
and to make sure their
transition to study in the
UK is successful.
Specific support is available
across the university
to support international
students, coordinated by
an International Student
Support team. For new
overseas students, an
International Students’
The School aims to provide learners with a sense
of global context, to appreciate how their new
knowledge relates to the wider world, and how
they can become responsible global citizens.
Orientation Programme
provides an introduction
to UCL, its teaching and
to London more generally.
Students can also take a
foundation year, a University
Preparatory Certificate for
Science and Engineering, to
prepare for science courses.
The impact of cultural
differences is not easy to
predict, and can raise issues
for both staff and students.
The newly established UCL
Cultural Consultancy can
help students and staff deal
with issues arising from
differing cultural norms
(see page 43). It has also
launched a research project
to gather more information
about culturally related
issues experienced by
students and staff, to feed
into the development of
policy and practical training
and support for staff.
But internationalism goes far
beyond simply accepting
students from different
countries. The UCL School
of Life and Medical Sciences
is plugged into numerous
international networks that
open up new opportunities
for exchange and mutual
learning. Above all, it aims
to provide learners with a
sense of global context,
to appreciate how their
new knowledge relates
to the wider world, and
how they can become
responsible global citizens.
Integrating international
perspectives
Some courses are by
their nature international
in focus. UCL was the first
medical school to offer
an intercalated degree
in international health, an
innovation later replicated
by other UK medical
schools. Now known as the
Integrated BSc in Global
Health, the course is highly
interdisciplinary, covering
economic, social, cultural
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
41
UCL students at the start of their studies.
and political influences on
health, as well as traditional
causes of disease and
treatment, and draws upon
academic expertise across
multiple UCL Schools.
Medical students can also
take a second-year optional
module, The Hitchhiker’s
Guide to Global Health,
and a fifth-year module
in Global Health.
More advanced knowledge
can be gained on the highly
respected and popular
MSc in Global Health
and Development. Again
based on interdisciplinary
principles, the course brings
together individuals with
backgrounds in medicine,
science, public health,
policy and international
development (see page
44). A long-standing MSc in
International Child Health is
similarly interdisciplinary, but
with a focus on paediatric
health and welfare.
The MSc in Clinical
Pharmacy, International
Practice and Policy,
offered by UCL School of
Pharmacy, is specifically
aimed at overseas students
who want to develop their
skills in clinical pharmacy
and contribute to the
42
development of pharmacy
education and practice
in their home countries
(see page 43).
More generally, there is a
growing awareness of the
need for an international
perspective even among
those who are not
specialising in global
health. Medical students will
become doctors in a world
where work opportunities are
increasingly international.
Even if they stay in the UK,
their work will be influenced
by global trends, from
migration to emerging
infections. Their practice
will need to be informed
by a sound understanding
of the rich diversity of
patients’ cultural and social
backgrounds.
To address this challenge,
global health is part of the
vertical ‘spine’ on social
determinants of health in the
new UCL Medical School
undergraduate curriculum.
Students in all six years will
therefore be exposed to key
principles and international
perspectives on health.
UCL has also been a key
partner in the ‘Students
as Global Citizens’
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
Doctors need to be aware of many cultural sensitivities.
project, funded by the UK
Department for International
Development, alongside the
Institute of Education, the
Royal Veterinary College and
the London Development
Centre. The project aimed
to integrate global health
and development issues,
and interdisciplinary
perspectives, into
undergraduate teaching in
medicine, pharmacy and
veterinary medicine. As well
as fostering an appreciation
of the increasingly
international context
of medicine and allied
subjects, the project also
sought to raise awareness
of the diversity of career
opportunities.
More generally, tutors on all
courses are encouraged to
consider how to integrate
international perspectives
into their teaching. In
modules on infectious
disease, for example, this
might include a focus on
infections of the developing
world; in neurology and
neuroscience, it might
encompass contrasting
attitudes to ageing and
dementia in different
cultures.
Exchange and
interaction
Teaching is one area that has
benefited from the Yale UCL
Collaborative, which aims to
bring the best of two of the
world’s leading academic
institutions together to tackle
pressing globally significant
issues. The collaboration
includes scope for exchange
of graduate students, splitsite PhD study, opportunities
for early-career US clinicians
to work within UCL partner
hospitals, and a senior
scientist lecture series,
through which visiting Yale
researchers give public
lectures and presentations
to students.
The School also runs an
innovative Dual Master’s in
Brain and Mind Sciences,
in partnership with the
Université Pierre et Marie
Curie and the École
Normale Supérieure in
Paris. The two-year master’s
programme enables
students to experience three
of Europe’s leading centres
of neuroscience.
Several undergraduate
courses have now
introduced options for
international study.
Dr Caroline Selai and Dr Sushrut Jadhav.
Barbra Katusiime outside the UCL School of Pharmacy.
BUILDING BRIDGES
NEXT STEPS IN PHARMACY
UCL’s Cultural Consultation Service offers advice
and support to students and staff alike.
The MSc in Clinical Pharmacy, International Practice and
Policy is intense and demanding – but enables students to
make major contributions to the development of pharmacy
in their home countries.
UCL’s cosmopolitan nature is one of its strengths and defining
features, with students arriving from all over the world to study
for undergraduate or postgraduate qualifications, or to undertake
research. Yet coming to live in a new country, with its distinct mix
of culture and traditions, can present challenges, while staff need
to be aware of a diversity of cultural issues if they are to be effective
teachers or supervisors. UCL’s Cultural Consultation Service, led by
Dr Caroline Selai and Dr Sushrut Jadhav, offers a confidential and
wide-ranging service both to prepare students and staff and
to help resolve issues as smoothly as possible when they do arise.
Drawing on expertise from a several academic disciplines and
linked to a larger consortium of cross-cultural clinical services,
the service is the first of its kind within a university or higher
educational institute.
For young people living abroad for the first time, some social
conventions can be a real challenge. One student with a strong
religious background sought advice on going to the pub, as her
family would be unlikely to approve yet she also wanted to fit in.
Another new student struggled with learning methods – having been
taught to accept information from authority figures, he was surprised
to be expected to question and challenge received wisdom.
Staff may also find themselves in awkward situations. One
lecturer contacted the service after experiencing difficulties with
the father of a student. The father was constantly making phone
calls to check on his daughter’s progress and providing gifts that
the lecturer felt uneasy about accepting. Staff have also wanted
advice on supporting international students who do not find it easy
to participate in interactive group seminar discussions.
Students or staff can make contact with the service through its
website, and all approaches are confidential. Dr Selai and Dr Jadhav
aim to bring their experience and mediatory skills to bear to resolve
issues, and such is UCL’s diversity that they can draw upon a wealth
of cultural expertise across UCL to support their work. The service
also offers consultancy services to external organisations. Since its
launch in November 2011, the service has received 39 consultations,
ranging from individual staff and students to organisational
consultations – both internal UCL departments and external.
As well as this reactive work, the service also aims to prevent
issues arising, running seminars and workshops on academic
and cultural issues at UCL, in London and the UK more generally.
Dr Selai and Dr Jadhav are also leading a research project to
identify cultural issues that impact on teaching and learning.
The results will feed into UCL policy making, as well as practical
workshops for staff and guidance to students.
The one-year full-time MSc is intended to provide qualified
pharmacists with additional experience of clinical aspects of
pharmacy, and to give students insight into international standards
and practice. It attracts students from every continent, including
many developing countries.
Barbra Katusiime, for example, began the course two years after
completing her pharmacy degree at Makerere University, Uganda.
Since graduation, she has been combining clinical practice with
teaching at Mbarara University of Science and Technology in
Uganda. Like all the people on the course, she is keen to build on
past education: “We are all pharmacists and most of us are already
working, so we are more interested in the hands-on practice,
and less of theory, which the programme is currently offering.”
Although she acknowledges that the course is demanding,
it meets her needs precisely: “The experience is good, because
we meet health professionals who are already in clinical practice
and they share their experience with us. We are not only taught in
class – we go to the NHS hospitals and we see what actually goes
on in the real world.”
In the long term she hopes to use her new knowledge and skills
back in Uganda: “I hope I will be in leadership positions, and be
able to transfer the knowledge I have acquired and experience to
improve the healthcare and educational sectors in Uganda.”
One person who has achieved significant impact on her return is
Tijana Kovac̆ević, who is based at the University Hospital in Banja
Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and also affiliated to the School
of Pharmacy at the University of Belgrade: “As soon as I got back
to my home institution, in October 2010, I started an initiative to
implement some new things I learned in the UK, for which I had
full support of the hospital director.”
While all the course was useful, she too points to the practical
experience in hospital settings as being particularly useful. It has
enabled her to act as a clinical mentor for students at the University
of Belgrade attending postgraduate course in clinical pharmacy,
for whom she has organised a clinical placement modelled on
that she had experienced in London. “It was a great opportunity
to transfer the knowledge I gained to my future colleagues,” she
says. “All in all, the MSc in clinical pharmacy truly changed my
professional life.”
www.ucl.ac.uk/ccs
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
43
The MSc provides an interdisciplinary view of global health.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
The MSc in Global Health and Development recognises
that health is inextricably linked to a raft of social issues.
The health of populations is inevitably wrapped up in a host of
social influences. In resource-poor countries, these issues are
further complicated by those associated with development. The
School’s MSc in Global Health and Development is notable for the
way it situates health in a social context, providing a uniquely wellrounded view of the factors affecting health in developing countries.
Sam Beckwith came to the course after a life science degree.
While many colleagues opted for PhD research, he wanted
something more applied. After looking at the possibility of a public
health master’s, he plumped for Global Health and Development –
a decision he does not regret: “I really enjoyed it, and realised
it was what I was looking for all along.”
For Sam, the course was a revelation. “It really opened my mind.
I went in with quite a narrow view of what I thought development was,
what global health was. The course really opened my mind to what
a broad field this really is, all the different actors that working in it,
all the debates that have been rumbling on for years but are
constantly evolving.”
He now works in Bangladesh, on a UK Government-funded
initiative to boost sustainable economic development – aided, he
believes, by his master’s: “I got the impression that the course is
viewed pretty positively because it is so interdisciplinary and broad.”
Many students come from overseas. Stephanie Montero, for
example, took the course after her medical studies in Mexico.
“During the last year of medical school, when I did my community
service in a small, rural and poor town in Mexico, and while
working for a local NGO, I realised how important it was to improve
the conditions in which people live for them to be healthy. The
interdisciplinary approach to health of the course, rather than just the
clinical approach which was what I experienced at Medical School,
was what attracted me.”
The course lived up to her expectations: “Being an interdisciplinary, and a very analytical and critical course, it provided
me with a broad and integral definition of health and of all the
different factors that may determine health in a population.” She also
appreciated the chance to learn from fellow students from diverse
backgrounds.
She is now working for her local state Ministry of Sustainable
Development, aiming to engage citizens in decision-making
processes. Although better health is not the main objective,
it is something she believes will naturally flow from her work:
“By empowering citizens you may ensure the balance of power
of different actors and their influence in politics, and so achieve
a healthier environment for all.”
44
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
Pharmacies are critical to the safe use of medicines.
DEVELOPING THE GLOBAL PHARMACY
WORKFORCE
The UCL School of Pharmacy is playing a lead role
in establishing standards and developing the global
pharmacy workforce.
Pharmacy is a discipline undergoing considerable change, with an
increasingly important role to play in the optimal use of medicines.
The UCL School of Pharmacy is an internationally recognised
beacon of excellence, and through extensive international networks
it is playing a critical role in the dissemination of good practice and
enhanced pharmacy education.
Pharmacists have a critical role to play in the supply and safe
use of medicines to a country’s population. This calls for a skilled
workforce deployed in ways that reflect healthcare needs. The
degree to which such infrastructures exist, however, varies widely
across the world.
A global voice for pharmacy is provided by FIP, the International
Pharmaceutical Federation, the Collaborating Centre for which
is based at the UCL School of Pharmacy; FIP brings together
more than 124 national member organisations and represents a
community of some three million pharmacists and pharmaceutical
scientists worldwide.
In 2007, with the WHO and UNESCO, FIP established a Pharmacy
Education Taskforce, led by Professor Ian Bates, which brought
together institutions, agencies and individuals with the common
aim of developing pharmacy education worldwide. One of its
priorities was to develop a Global Competency Framework, a core
set of skills and behaviours underpinning practitioner competence.
This framework drew heavily on a similar model successfully
implemented in the UK and in Europe.
The Taskforce is now a permanent structure within FIP
and has since undertaken a comprehensive assessment of the
global pharmacy workforce. With information from 90 countries,
the 2012 FIP Global Pharmacy Workforce Report is helping
countries benchmark their pharmacy workforce and identify
development needs.
An important contribution to pharmacy workforce development
is made by the FPI–UNESCO UNITWIN programme, based at
the FIP Collaborating Centre at the UCL School of Pharmacy and
led by Professor Bates. Established in 2009 through a formal
agreement with UNESCO, UNITWIN has brokered partnerships
spanning more than 20 universities in 14 countries.
The UNITWIN programme now provides an umbrella for
FIP’s Education directorate, which is building capacity to enhance
the training and skills development of the global pharmacy
workforce. Initiatives have included Pharmapedia, a free,
wiki-based information source, the content of which is validated
by staff at the UCL School of Pharmacy. The School has also
worked closely with Monash University in Australia on a webbased platform for education (SABER, www.saber.monash.edu) –
which includes simulations of high-cost medicines manufacturing
and production facilities.
Master’s students gain hands-on experience of pharmacy practice.
In Biological Sciences,
for example, MSci degree
students have the option
to spend their third year
abroad. Students have
ventured as far afield as
the California Institute of
Technology and centres in
Australia and New Zealand.
The new BASc degree also
offers the option of fouryear study with one year
overseas.
More generally, UCL’s Study
Abroad initiative provides
unrivalled opportunities
for students to spend
time learning in different
countries and different
cultures. UCL has exchange
agreements with more
than 250 institutions in 40
countries, including nearly 50
of the world’s top 100 ranked
universities. UCL is also part
of the Santander Universities
initiative, linking together
some 1000 universities
in 17 countries.
As well as students, teachers
also have the opportunity
to develop their skills and
experience internationally,
through International
Teaching Excellence
Bursaries. Introduced in
2012, the bursaries enable
teaching staff to spend
short periods overseas.
The funds can also be
used to host short visits by
overseas teachers at UCL.
International capacity
building
One of the School’s
important aims is to
support the development of
education activities in other
parts of the world. As one of
the world’s leading medical
schools, UCL Medical
School is an unrivalled
position to offer advice and
support to places looking to
establish or enhance medical
training systems – support
now available through UCL
Medical School Education
Consultancy.
Consultancy services have
been provided in a range of
less-developed countries.
For example, Medical School
staff worked with teams
from Libya, to develop their
education delivery skills, and
have adapted the teaching
training course material
for use in a maternal care
centre in Bangladesh, which
covers a population of
some 2 million people. Staff
have also been involved in
charitably funded initiatives
to develop multimedia
teaching resources in
ophthalmology for use
in sub-Saharan Africa.
Moreover, as one of the
world’s leading centres of
medical education – ranked
in the top 10 globally –
UCL Medical School is
well placed to advise on all
aspects of medical teaching.
It is involved in partnerships
to boost the quality of
medical teaching in a range
of institutions in the Middle
East, east Europe and
elsewhere.
It has developed the concept
of a ‘flat-pack’ medical
school, to help countries
establish new medical
training institutions tailored
to local needs. Discussions
are currently being held
with several countries.
capacity building. The UCL
School of Pharmacy, for
example, has been involved
in a project funded by the
UK Department for
International Development
to help re-establish the
academic pharmacy
infrastructure in Iraq.
It has also worked closely
with centres in Egypt and
Indonesia on developing
academic pharmacy
systems.
The UCL School of
Pharmacy is also home to
the Collaborating Centre
of FIP, the International
Pharmaceutical Federation,
which links together more
than 120 bodies representing
a global community of
some 2 million pharmacists.
In 2012, FIP’s Pharmacy
Education Taskforce
published a landmark
Global Pharmacy Workforce
Report and is coordinating
multiple activities to
develop pharmacy skills
internationally (see page 44).
Other parts of the School
have also been involved
in significant education
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
45
UCL SCHOOL OF LIFE AND MEDICAL SCIENCES
Faculty of
Brain Sciences
Faculty of
Life Sciences
Faculty of
Medical Sciences
UCL Institute of
Neurology
Gatsby Computational
Neuroscience Unit
UCL Cancer Institute
UCL Institute of
Ophthalmology
UCL Division
of Biosciences
UCL Ear Institute
UCL School of Pharmacy
UCL Division of
Psychology and
Language Sciences
(including UCL Institute of
Cognitive Neuroscience)
UCL MRC Laboratory
for Molecular Cell
Biology
UCL Mental Health
Sciences Unit
UCL Eastman
Dental Institute
UCL Division of
Infection and Immunity
UCL Division of
Medicine (including
the Wolfson Institute of
Biomedical Research
and UCL Institute of
Hepatology)
UCL Division of Surgery
and Interventional
Science
UCL Medical School
Faculty of
Population Health
Sciences
UCL Institute of
Epidemiology and
Health Care
UCL Institute of
Child Health
UCL Institute for
Women’s Health
UCL Institute of
Cardiovascular Science
UCL Institute for
Global Health
UCL Institute of Clinical
Trials and Methodology
UCL in London
Partners
Staff in the UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
occupy a range of buildings on UCL’s central
Bloomsbury Campus, at the nearby Royal Free Hospital
and Whittington Hospital/Archway Campus sites,
and other central London locations.
UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences works closely
with a range of local, national and international partners.
Of particular significance are its close links to local NHS
bodies, collectively forming UCL Partners, one of just
five UK Academic Health Science Centres. These links
underpin UCL’s NIHR Biomedical Research Centres
at UCLH, the UCL Institute of Child Health (with Great
Ormond Street Hospital) and the UCL Institute
of Ophthalmology (with Moorfields Eye Hospital).
1 UCL Main Campus
2 UCL Hospital
3 Great Ormond Street Hospital and
UCL Institute of Child Health
4 Moorfields Eye Hospital and
UCL Institute of Ophthalmology
5 Royal Free Hospital and UCL School of Medicine
6 Whittington Hospital and Archway Campus
With the MRC, Wellcome Trust and Cancer Research
UK, UCL is also a founding partner of the Francis Crick
Institute, led by Professor Sir Paul Nurse, which is due
to open in 2015.
UCL also establishes wider partnerships in the UK,
for example with Imperial College to set up the London
Centre for Nanotechnology, and with Imperial, King’s
College London, the MRC and GlaxoSmithKline on the
‘Imanova’ clinical imaging initiative.
6
5
2 1 4
3
46
The School has also developed ties with nearby academic
centres, including the London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine and Birkbeck College. As well as many
joint research initiatives, the institutions also liaise at a
strategic level.
London EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
As well as numerous international research collaborations,
UCL has developed a strategic alliance with Yale
University, the Yale–UCL Collaborative, to promote
cross-fertilisation and joint ventures across education,
research and application.
UCL Learning and Teaching Strategy
Key links
UCL’s Learning and Teaching Strategy 2010–15
incorporates the following strategic priorities:
UCL education: www.ucl.ac.uk/studying-at-ucl/
• Internationalisation of the curriculum
UCL prides itself on being London’s international
university and teaches a global curriculum, rather than a
UK- or EU-centric one. Whatever their discipline or level of
study, students gain an international perspective on their
subject, its application and themselves as global citizens.
• Education for global citizenship
As well as encouraging intellectual growth UCL shapes
students’ personal and social development. A UCL
‘education for global citizenship’ enables students to
respond to the intellectual, social and personal challenges
that they will encounter throughout their future lives and
careers.
• Key skills
Personal tutors play an active part in helping students
to assess where they need to develop, planning how to
acquire the skills needed and exploring how they can best
present themselves to others.
UCL Teaching and Learning Portal:
www.ucl.ac.uk/teaching-learning/default
UCL undergraduate perspective:
www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/undergraduatestudy/entry-2014
UCL graduate perspective:
www.ucl.ac.uk/prospective-students/graduate-study/
entry2013
UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences:
www.ucl.ac.uk/slms
UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
Education Domain:
www.ucl.ac.uk/slms/education/education-domain
UCL Medical School: www.ucl.ac.uk/medicalschool
UCL Medical School Education Consultancy:
www.ucl.ac.uk/medicalschool/education-consultancy
UCL Eastman Dental School: www.ucl.ac.uk/eastman
• Tools and technologies
New learning technologies can bring innovation,
increased efficiency and enjoyment to the way we teach
and learn. UCL embraces new learning technologies and
actively incorporates them into its methods of teaching
and assessment. Key principles are outlined in UCL’s
E-Learning Strategy, outlining its priorities and aims for
2012–15.
•Employability
UCL students develop skills and experiences both inside
and outside the classroom, ensuring they are highly
employable when they graduate. This is achieved through
experiential learning, work experience, and opportunities
to volunteer, create new businesses and develop
leadership qualities.
The objectives of the Learning and Teaching Strategy
2010–15 provide benefits to teaching staff as well as
students. Incorporating an outward-facing curriculum
means that staff are always up-to-date with current
issues, are exposed to an international network of key
contacts, and carry out research into areas that deal with
larger problems facing our world. Encouraging students
from multiple cultures and societies strengthens the
intellectual environment, improving the quality of students
and maintaining UCL’s global profile as a world-class
university.
Copies of UCL’s Learning and Teaching Strategy
2010–15 can be downloaded from:
www.ucl.ac.uk/teaching-learning/strategic_priorities
EDUCATION UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences
47
CREDITS
Cover, contents, pp. 2, 3 (lower), 4, 8 (left), 9, 35, 37, 38, 39, 42, 47, IBC:
UCL collections; pp. 3 (upper), 5, 7 (left and right), 10 (left and right), 11
(left and right), 12 (right), 16, 17, 18 (left), 20, 21 (left), 22 (left), 23 (left), 24,
25, 26 (left and right), 27 (left and right), 28, 29, 32, 33, 34 (left), 36 (left
and right), 37 (right), 43 (left and right), 45: David Bishop, UCL; p. 8 (right):
Juergen Berger/Science Photo Library; p. 12 (left), p. 13: UCL Eastman
Dental Institute; p. 18 (right): iStock.com/quavondo; p. 21 (right): iStock.com/
monkeybusinessimages; p. 22 (right): nolinger/Wikimedia Commons; p. 23
(right): iStock.com/webphotographeer; p. 30: iStock.com/track5; p. 34 (right):
iStock.com/fmajor; p. 35 (left): Chassenet/BSIP/Science Photo Library; p. 40:
Wellcome Images; p. 42 (right): iStock.com/Leontura; p. 44 (left): iStock.com/
eyecrave ; p. 44 (right): iStock.com/brytta.
Text: Ian Jones, Jinja Publishing Ltd
Design: Jag Matharu, Thin Air Productions Ltd
© UCL. Text may not be reproduced without permission. The UCL ‘dome’ logo
and the letters ‘UCL’ are the registered trademarks of UCL and may not be
used without permission.
TAP1974/05-08-14/V1K
About UCL
UCL is one of the world’s top universities. Based in
the heart of London it is a modern, outward-looking
institution. At its establishment in 1826 UCL was radical
and responsive to the needs of society, and this ethos –
that excellence should go hand-in-hand with enriching
society – continues today.
UCL’s excellence extends across all academic
disciplines; from one of Europe’s largest and most
productive hubs for biomedical science interacting with
several leading London hospitals, to world-renowned
centres for architecture (UCL Bartlett) and fine art
(UCL Slade School).
UCL is in practice a university in its own right, although
constitutionally a college within the federal University of
London. With an annual turnover exceeding £800 million,
it is financially and managerially independent of the
University of London.
UCL’s staff and former students have included 21 Nobel
prizewinners. It is a truly international community: more
than one-third of our student body – around 25,000
strong – come from nearly 140 countries and nearly
one-third of staff are from outside the UK.
www.ucl.ac.uk
UCL
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London WC1E 6BT
Tel: +44 (0)20 7679 2000