In celebration of the art of pedagogy: The winners of the National Teaching Fellowships, 2007

Inspiring teaching is being celebrated this week with 50 National Teaching Fellowships. The Higher Education Academy has chosen lecturers and learning support staff from England and Northern Ireland. Each receives £10,000 to support their activities. The fellows were chosen from 223 nominations submitted by universities, higher education colleges and conservatoires. Each could nominate up to three candidates. The Open University and Warwick University both notched up three winners.

The HEA also announced £200,000 of funding for nine projects to support the student experience under its National Teaching Fellowship Scheme. Winning universities are: UCE Birmingham, Bolton, Brighton, Gloucestershire, Huddersfield, UCLan, Manchester Metropolitan, Norwich and The Open University.

The fellows are:

David Allen
Portsmouth University: head of school, School of Creative Arts, Film and Media

Elizabeth Anderson
Leicester University: senior lecturer in shared learning

Linda Anderson
Open University: reader in creative writing

Julie Baldry Currens
University of East London: principal lecturer, School of Health and Bioscience

June Bianchi
Bath Spa University: senior lecturer and co-ordinator of art education

Tim Bilham
Bath University: director, education research and development

Susan Bloxham
St Martin's College: head of Centre for Development of Learning and Teaching

Jennifer Blumhof
Hertfordshire University: assistant director of learning and teaching, Centre for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching

Elizabeth Boath
Staffordshire University: reader in health

Michael Bramhall
Sheffield Hallam University: faculty head of learning, teaching and assessment

Sharon Brown
University of East London: senior lecturer, School of Computing and Technology David Burnapp Northampton University: senior lecturer, Northampton Business School

Tim Cable
Liverpool John Moores University: director of sport and exercise sciences

David Carey
Conservatoire for Dance and Drama: senior voice tutor

Robin Clark
Aston University: senior lecturer, School of Engineering and Applied Science

Lynn Clouder
Coventry University: research fellow and director of the Centre for Interprofessional e'Learning

James Derounian
Gloucestershire University: senior lecturer in community development and local governance

Martina Doolan
Hertfordshire University: principal lecturer, blended learning teacher

Mark Fenton-O'Creevy
Open University: director of programmes and curriculum and professor of organisational behaviour

David Gibson
Queen's University Belfast: senior teaching fellow in entrepreneurship

Graeme Gooday
Leeds University: senior lecturer in history and philosophy of science and director of learning and teaching

Glenn Hardaker
Huddersfield University: professor of group research, leader

Penelope Harnett
University of the West of England: head of primary and early years school

Clare Hemmings
London School of Economics and Political Science: senior lecturer in gender studies

Christine Hocking
Wolverhampton University: learning and teaching research co'ordinator

Pat Jeffries
Bedfordshire University: principal lecturer and teaching fellow course leader PGCE (14-19)

Adam Longcroft
University of East Anglia: academic director for history, archaeology and regional studies

Gill Marshall
St Martin's College: professor of medical imaging education

Stephen McHanwell
Newcastle University: senior lecturer in anatomy

Mike Neary
Warwick University: reader, department of sociology

Jonothan Neelands
Warwick: chair of drama and theatre education

Lin Norton
Liverpool Hope University: dean of learning and teaching, professor of pedagogical research

Edward Peile
Warwick: associate dean (teaching) and head of the Institute of Clinical Education

Ian Pickup
Roehampton University: principal lecturer and subject leader, PE

Phil Race
Leeds Metropolitan University: visiting professor, assessment, learning and teaching

Alan Rice
University of Central Lancashire: reader in American cultural studies

Gaynor Sadlo
Brighton University: head of occupational therapy

Mark Sandle
De Montfort University: principal lecturer in Russian and Soviet history

Jane Sunderland
Lancaster University: senior lecturer in linguistics and English language

Stephen Swithenby
Open University: professor of physics, director of the Centre for Open Learning of Maths, Science, Computing and Technology

Jill Taylor
Leeds Metropolitan: director, faculty of health learning technology unit

Jamie Thompson
Northumbria University: learning and teaching co'ordinator

Paul Tosey
Surrey University: senior lecturer, school of management

Dominic Upton
Worcester University: head of health and psychology

Elizabeth Warr
Writtle College: director of educational development

David Young
Derby University: head of flexible learning

Ever heard of “the membrane lipid dance”? Andrew Booth ’s students have. The professor of online learning in the faculty of biological sciences at Leeds University works to bring the subject to life. He has developed award-winning simulations on topics that are too time-consuming, dangerous or expensive to carry out in teaching laboratories, such as mass spectrometry and nuclear magnetic resonance. Other projects include helping developing countries set up IT-based distance teaching, and devising new techniques to aid visually impaired students.

Katharine Boursicot ’s innovations include a course exploring the perspectives of ethnic minority residents of London’s East End, and how their cultural background influences their use of health services. Another project by the reader in medical education and head of assessment at Queen Mary, University of London,  was on attitudes to disabled medical students and doctors.

Described by one of her students as “the Rolls Royce Phantom V of the history department”, Jo Fox , senior lecturer in modern history at Durham University, teaches on the principle that students should be empowered to become researchers in their own right.

When her students were inspired by her modules on the history of propaganda to start a “propaganda” page of their own on the popular website Facebook, Dr Fox developed a project exploring why and how ­students are choosing to learn through Facebook and how the academic community should respond.

Challenging the divide between research and teaching is central to Mike Neary ’s education philosophy. “It’s important for undergraduates to be seen as part of the research culture,” he says.

With a colleague, Dr Neary developed the Reinvention Centre for Undergraduate Research, a project based in the sociology department at Warwick and the School of the Built Environment at Oxford Brookes.

The idea is to equip undergraduates with research skills and involve them in the re­search cultures of their departments. Dr Neary, a reader in sociology at Warwick, is behind the “reinvention” of the classroom on Warwick’s Westwood campus. “When you walk in, there is no obvious place for the teacher or the students, so the room itself is challenging,” he said.

Dr Neary does not give formal lectures, rather, he records them in MP3 format for students to listen at their leisure.

Duco Van Oostrum , a senior lecturer in American literature at Sheffield University, has fostered cross-cultural learning on his American sports literature and film module through a website that allows his UK students to exchange ideas across the Atlantic with students at the University of Maine. Students also get to meet US basketball players and go on “field trips” to sporting events.