Richard Prince (Reader in Pharmacology, School of Medical Sciences)

Richard’s submission showed how he adapted his teaching to the COVID-19 teaching environment by taking all his lectures and creating e-learning modules (ELM) using Softchalk. Each ELM contained a balance of text-based materials, pre-recorded lecture material that was split into small chunks of 5-20 minutes, and activities such as multiple choice quizzes, crosswords and matching activities to check his students' progress.

To accompany the ELM, Richard created user-friendly unit handbooks which included timetables, Zoom links and the links to all the ELMs. This allowed easy access to and navigation of the content for all students, even those who weren’t formally enrolled on the course. Q&A sessions accompanied each ELM, with the questions being driven by the students, who posted them to a Padlet (the 'virtual bulletin board' platform). Feedback from students was positive on all elements of the course: they described how they appreciated the smaller chunks of lecture content, the activities that tested their learning and the way in which the Q&A sessions were run.

Richard also moved practicals online, using simulations of experiments that the students could change inputs to and analyse data from. This allowed for an active learning experience, rather than one in which students simply watched a video of someone else doing an experiment.