• Project Summary
• Project Outputs
• Project Report
• What Next?

Project Summary

This project recognised the need for additional student information, advice and guidance from students to students, staff to students and students to management about what it means to be a student in HE from a widening participation background.  

Increasingly, students look to video-based materials and social networking tools for guidance on future study and careers. With a focus upon Maths, Engineering and Physical Sciences disciplines, this project produced a series of video vignettes in which both students and staff talked about the rewards, challenges and day-to-day experiences of learning and teaching within their discipline. The vignettes enhance the range of resources available to outreach practitioners and other university staff and students acting as ambassadors for their respective disciplines.

Academic staff themselves have a valuable role to play in raising students' aspirations to become STEM practitioners and the interviewing of staff in ways that enable them to share exciting and innovative learning and teaching practices brought with it an additional benefit for staff development. Subsequently, some of the video resources were incorporated into the University of Exeter's PG Cert programme for academics as well as their Learning and Teaching in Higher Education Programme for Graduate Teaching Assistants and technical specialists.

Aims & Objectives

The aim of the project was to:

Develop a suite of video-based, STEM open educational resources for use by outreach practitioners, students, subject specialists and staff developers. The resources will help encourage progression from tertiary education into higher education and will enhance the sharing of good practice in teaching STEM subjects.

The project:

1. Produced a series of student stories focusing on: the transition to university; what they wish they had known before they started; tips for settling in and how to seek help when needed
2. Produced a series of staff stories focusing on: how they became mathematicians / engineers / physicists; their approaches to learning and teaching; ways of working; teaching methods and how students can prepare for university-level study in their discipline

Staff involved

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