1 Enhancing the Research-Teaching Nexus to Engage and Develop Students R. Wu Faculty of Engineering and Science University of Greenwich

2 OVERVIEW OF THIS PRESENTATION Introduction Research-enhanced Teaching in ‘Analogue Electronics’ Courses Conclusion

3 I. Introduction  More and more people view linking research and teaching as a key characteristic of universities.  Developing the links between research and teaching has been recognised as a priority and as an effective way of engaging students.  Many universities in U.K. have incorporated connection between research and teaching in their mission.

4  The recent research phase has focused on developing strategies, policies and methodologies to enhance the research-teaching linkages at different levels.  Many academics have published their research results on how to apply the research-teaching nexus to improve the quality and outcomes of the learning experience for students.

5 Conceptual representation of the link between research and curriculum design proposed by Healey:

6  The model identifies four qualitatively different views on the research-teaching nexus in a two- dimensional space.  The vertical axis runs from student-focused activities with students as participants to teacher- focused activities with students as the audience.  The horizontal axis from an emphasis on research content to an emphasis on research process and problems.

7  ‘Analogue Electronics’ related courses: A number of courses for Year 2, 3 and MSc  ‘Analogue Electronics’ is a core course for Year 2 Electrical and Electronic Engineering  In order to improve the quality of teaching and the student engagement, an approach to embed research in different components parts of the courses has been adopted.  The research-enhanced teaching which incorporates most of the research-teaching nexus categories is implemented. II. Research-enhanced Teaching in ‘Analogue Electronics’ Courses

8 1. Research-led  Add research related material to the teaching contents.  Provide the students with my research results as well as advanced techniques and recent developments

9 2. Research-oriented Key point: learn how knowledge is created, advanced and renewed, and to raise their excitement of changing knowledge.  Improve the pedagogy by strengthening the connection between teaching and research.  The specific heuristic techniques have been used.  Class discussions and debates are embedded in the lectures to mobilise the students to learn actively and improve teaching effectiveness.  The delivery of the theory is assisted by video, research paper/publication, practical building/test and computer simulation,

10  Assessment (1) An important criterion to assess student's assignment/lab report is ‘analysis of results’ / ‘problem and solution’. (2) The students are encouraged to carry out further research/investigation based on their analysis/testing results to find more solutions for given engineering problem. (3) The students will receive detailed feedback on their research from the lecturer.

11 3. Research-tutored Key point: To develop students’ ability to identify and analyse problems and to formulate, evaluate and apply evidence based solutions.  The students were given special training for how to write coursework report by referring to ‘research paper’ and academic standards.  They worked in groups on experiments to acquire and process data, then, write individual report based on their own research and data analysis.  Provide the students with opportunities to discuss their research findings and methods with the tutors and other students.

12 4. Research-based Key point: Get students involved in the research projects.  EU FP7 project, EU inter-reg project and University Proof-of-Concept Fund etc.  Undergraduate students and MSc students have played prominent part and have achieved very impressive results.  Published one journal paper and four conference papers. Submitted one patent application.

13 III. Conclusion  Integrated method to link research and teaching in ‘Analogue Electronics’ related courses was used.  The teaching results have shown that the embedding research in the course structure and content, coursework, labs, projects and assessment can improve the quality of teaching and students learning and engagement greatly.  More work such as adding more new research material to the teaching contents could be done in future.

14 Thank you