The FMS Education, Research, Development and Practice Unit has now been in existence for over a year and we continue to run a full programme of events. Attendance at our Journal Club continues to be strong and so far this year we have had stimulating presentations from Jo Matthan and Lindsay Ferrie. These meetings provide us with opportunities to look at papers on a wide range of teaching issues and discussions are always lively and thoughtful. If you have not been able so far to attend then please do come or if you want to present a paper on a learning and teaching topic that you have found interesting then your contribution will be warmly welcomed. Our learning and teaching seminar programme this semester has included talks from Concha Martinez from the Dental School in Madrid talking about dental education in Spain, Stephen Billett from Queensland talking about workplace learning and Hamish McLeod from Edinburgh talking about e-learning. The seminar programme continues in the New Year and the programme will be found elsewhere in this newsletter. Can I remind you that we are always seeking seminar speakers so if there is somebody that you would like to invite or if you wish to give a seminar yourself then, again, we would be pleased to hear from you. Finally, our first Faculty learning and teaching forum was held in December when we heard about a wide range of work-in-progress projects from across the Faculty reflecting our diverse interests in learning and teaching. This range of interests was also very much to be seen in the applications made to our small projects fund and I congratulate the successful applicants and wish them well in their projects. Finally, the next cycle of EQUATE is well under way with strong representation from FMS staff.

There are important outputs from this range of activity. The first, of course, is the enhancements of the teaching we deliver to our students while at the same time engaging in development of our own practice. It is also important, however, that we take opportunities to disseminate the results of our work. This includes, of course, our colleagues in the Faculty and University but we also need to disseminate the results more widely both to our specialised educational communities and where appropriate, to a more general education audience. This will include presentations at educational conferences whether of your relevant professional bodies or communities or more wide-ranging educational meetings but it also should include, where appropriate, publication in refereed journals. The FMS Unit will be running a series of events to help and encourage you to take the plunge and write up your work for submission to a relevant Journal. The seminar by David Reed on January 19th is going to focus on dissemination through publication. David is a Professorial Teaching Fellow in Southampton University and will be talking about his transition from being a basic scientist to developing educational projects and publishing the results. The Centre for Learning and Teaching (CfLAT) in Education, Communication and Language Sciences runs a very successful paper writing group. Members of the Centre are able to take papers in preparation to the group for supportive discussion and comment. They have offered us two slots in the New Year for us to take any papers we have in preparation to the group for discussion. Dates will be announced in the New Year but if anybody has a paper that they would like to take to this group please let me know now. I see this very much as a prelude to starting up our own paper writing group in FMS. EQUATE has a specific focus on writing up outputs from the projects of this group and has organised a writing retreat which will help us to build our collective skills in writing for education publications. Finally, in the New Year I will be placing on the Unit site a list of education journals that you might want to consider when thinking about publication or simply as a resource for reading.

I would also like draw your attention to the BERA Conference being held in September. The British Educational Research Association annual meeting is one of the top education conferences along with ECER, the conference of the European Educational Research Association. There is a Higher Education SIG within BERA and so given that and the fact that the meeting is in Leeds this year and so readily accessible could I encourage as many of you as possible to attend and, where appropriate present. Details of the BERA conference are to be found elsewhere in this newsletter.

In the meantime I would like to thank everybody whose has contributed to the work of the Unit this year whether as a presenter at one of our events, helping with organisation or simply through attending and contributing as a participant. I wish you all a restful and peaceful break over the Christmas holiday.

Prof Steve McHanwell, Director, FMS Unit for ERDP

Dr Iain Keenan has just been elected onto the Anatomical Society Council for a term of 3 years. The results of a ballot of Society members were announced on Tuesday 15th December 2015 at the Society AGM that was held during the Anatomical Society Winter Meeting held at Cambridge University. He will take on his new role in addition to his current responsibilities as Anatomical Society Social Media Editor and as member of the Society Membership and Website Management committees. His work for the Society so far has included setting up, developing, editing and managing the Anatomical Society Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts, YouTube channel and LinkedIn group, assisting in the decision when recruiting a new website and membership service provider for the Society, judging the Society Best Image Prize and helping with organisation and reviewing of abstracts when the Society Winter Meeting was held here in the Medical School in 2013.

The MBBS course has been hugely successful for many years and is constantly reviewed and adjusted. However it is now some years (over 15!) since there was a major review of the whole structure and content of the programme. In that time much has changed, for example when the current curriculum was designed all of our graduates undertook two 6 month House Officer posts in Medicine and Surgery and the course was designed to give them “terminal velocity” to begin their careers. Now our graduates undertake a 2 year foundation programme and their first post might be in psychiatry or paediatrics. Of course we now also have a medical school in Malaysia which follows the same outcomes. Graduates there also undertake a two year period of House Officer Training with a similarly wide range of postings. Other external drivers to change include new national assessments in the final year such as the Prescribing safety Assessment and Situational Judgement Test and more are planned in particular the UK National Licencing Assessment.

The most important driver to change however comes from within. The Board of Medical Studies has recognised for a number a years that there are issues relating to the structure of the programme that cannot be addressed without a major review. We wanted to wait until NUMed was firmly established before embarking on major changes and of course want and need input from Malaysia to make sure the course is appropriate there and in the UK.

The specific issues we wish to address in reviewing the curriculum are:

• Improving integration between the Phases of the MBBS course and between the institutions that deliver it (Newcastle, Durham and NUMed).
• To address the loss of momentum in relation to clinical skills that builds in Stage 3 but can drop off in Stage 4.
• To change the timing of finals and facilitate “assistantship” that is not overshadowed by high stakes summative assessments.

A curriculum review group has been established including representation from Durham University, NUMed and the 4 base-units, students and junior doctors as well as Health Education North East and lay representation. To date we have agreed, and The Board of Medical Studies has approved,some important principles that include:

• Retaining and strengthening our case based approach to teaching.
• No longer using the term  “Phases” but having a single integrated programme.
• Firmly embedding assessment in our plans for change and specifically
  • Completing written finals in year 4.
  • Moving clinical finals to earlier in Year 5.
  • Building in the potential for resitting within year.
• Changing the structure of Semester two in Year4 to include core clinical rotations.
• Strengthening and broadening assistantship in year 5.
• Increasing time spent in primary care.

The next phase is to review in detail the outcomes of the programme  before implementation begins in 2017.

Dr Steve Jones, School of Medical Education

An improved and revised LTDS website goes live on 16 December 2015 at www.ncl.ac.uk/ltds. This replaces the old Quilt website and reflects a focussing of direction for the service and more streamlined communication of what we do and how we can help staff in learning and teaching at Newcastle University. We hope that the changes we have made will make it easier to find the things you need related to learning and teaching development and teaching quality assurance at Newcastle University.

Alongside the revision of the website, we have launched a Learning and Teaching Development blog, https://blogs.ncl.ac.uk/ltdev covering:

• news in learning and teaching from around the University, including teaching quality assurance
• theme based collections of case studies of good practice from academic and support staff – available at http://teaching.ncl.ac.uk/casestudies/
• reports from learning and teaching related projects including Innovation Award holders
• changes and rapid updates to learning and teaching services supported by LTDS (Blackboard, ReCap, ePortfolio, etc)
• hints and tips, tricks and tools covering all aspects of LTDS areas of responsibility

This blog is linked to Twitter – follow us @ncllt – and both are linked back to the LTDS website.

Both the website and the blog will highlight areas drawn from a new collection of good practice, which is actively being managed and added to regularly. If you know of areas of interest or innovation in learning and teaching please let us know by emailing a new generic email address ltds@ncl.ac.uk.

These redesigned and new web based support services are intended to supplement and complement current areas of support provided from the Learning and Teaching Development Service.

We have worked closely with NUIT to put automatic redirects in place, so that, as far as possible, existing links to LTDS/QuILT content will still work. We have concentrated on links likely to appear in student handbooks and the most visited sections and pages of the old website.

We appreciate feedback on the changes we have made and look forward to receiving it via ltds@ncl.ac.uk – this will be monitored especially closely as the website changes are made and in the months immediately afterwards. This generic email address does not replace the individual email addresses of individual members of LTDS staff, but using it will ensure that if an individual is unavailable, someone else is able to pick up your query in a timely fashion.

Sue Gill, Learning and Teaching Development Service

The School of Biomedical Sciences offers a range of 3 year BSc undergraduate bioscience degree programmes, with a focus on human health and disease. Currently these include Biomedical Sciences, BMS with Industrial Placement, Biochemistry, Biomedical Genetics, Physiological Science, Pharmacology, BMS with Microbiology and Exercise Biomedicine. We also offer 4 year MSci programmes in Biomedical Sciences, Biochemistry and Biomedical Genetics.  We have just over 1000 students registered in the school, approximately 20% of whom are international students.

The BSc Biomedical Sciences programme is also delivered at the NuMed campus in Malaysia; this programme was established by Nick Morris and is now being led by Chris Baldwin.  The NuMed students take Stage 1 and 2 at the Malaysia campus and then come to Newcastle for their final year.  The first Stage 3 NuMed cohort arrived in Newcastle this semester and will graduate in 2016.

The School comprises 12 members of academic staff, 10 administrative staff and 5 technical staff.  This teaching-focussed team manage the delivery of the undergraduate degree programmes and provide dedicated support to students throughout their studies.  Teaching and personal tutoring for the programmes is delivered by academic staff from both the school and the research institutes.  Research institute staff contribute significantly to our programmes delivering high quality research-led teaching, particularly in the honours years of the programme, and some are also involved as module leaders and members of the Board of Studies.  The highlight of all our degree programmes is an individual 10 week full time research project; the majority of the students undertake their projects with a research team in one of the research institutes, although some undertake alternative projects, including an Experimental Design project, delivered by academic staff in the school, and Erasmus exchange projects in Europe, co-ordinated by Carys Watts.

School staff are actively involved in Educational Research projects, some of which have been developed through participation in the CASAP and EquATE programmes. For example:

• Damian Parry, in collaboration with Dr Helen Hooper (Northumbria University), has been investigating students’ perception of scientists and has also recently begun a study of student perceptions of feedback, with the assistance of a Newcastle Work Experience student intern.
• Geoff Bosson has introduced a practical skills test taken by all Stage 1 students and is investigating the extent to which engagement with the test develops student confidence and the role of emotional learning in this process.
• Lindsey Ferrie has established a network of student Employability Ambassadors, who help to prepare fellow students for graduate employment. She has also developed a “Feedback Foghorn” delivered via e-portfolio and is investigating whether this mechanism encourages students to reflect on and engage with their feedback.
• Carys Watts is developing training sessions to help students to communicate complex scientific information, generated during summer vacation research projects, to an audience of non-scientists and is exploring how students understand the concept of the “layperson” in this context.
• Debbie Bevitt and Nick Morris are working with two student interns, Bronte Elliott and Kate Johnson, and Dr Sue Thorpe (School of Psychology), to evaluate student use of social media during study, the extent to which they perceive this to be a distraction and how students self-manage their online activities to avoid distraction. This project is funded by a ULTSEC Innovation fund grant.

Dr Debbie Bevitt, Head of School of Biomedical Sciences