On Wednesday 16th June 2021, the Bristol Teaching Awards (BTAs) announced this year’s winners and the School of Education is pleased to announce that Professor Robin Shields received an Inspiring and Innovative Teaching Award 2021.
The BTAs recognise and celebrate those staff who have made an outstanding contribution to teaching, the provision of support for students, and enhancing the student learning experience. The scheme also aims to provide an opportunity for reflection on collective achievements in supporting teaching and learning in this most challenging of years.
When first nominated for the award, Professor Sheilds, who joined the School of Education, University of Bristol in 2019, spoke with the Bristol Institute for Teaching and Learning (BILT) about his experiences and approaches to teaching in 2020-2021;
"I knew that teaching in the 2020-21 year was going to be mainly online and tried to prepare myself for this over the summer. To understand students’ experience of learning online, I decided to try it myself and enrolled in a MOOC (Andrew Ng’s course on Machine Learning on Coursera). In addition to gaining new skills, I learned about good practice in online learning, for example structuring videos in short “digestible” chunks with a clear point, making references to other videos, and introductory/concluding videos that recap content."
The nominations for the BTA's are submitted from current students. Professor Shield's received fantastic comments alongside his nominations, with one student noting:
"...Professor Robin Shields places democracy first, and empowers his students to understand the world from multiple perspectives. Furthermore, Robin embraced the use of creative technology for teaching from the start of the 2020-2021 academic year. Through creating YouTube lecture playlists and using interactive Google technology in seminars, Robin maintained an inclusive and positive approach to learning..."
Head of the SOE and Professor in the Psychology of Education, Melissa Allen, said “Thank you Robin for the wonderful experience you are providing for our students, we are proud of your achievement!”
Huge congratulations to all those who were nominated, shortlisted, and to this year’s winners for all their hard work during such a challenging year.
Details of all this year’s nominations can be viewed on the University’s ‘Thanks and Recognition wall’ and a full list the winners can be found on the Bristol Institute for Teaching and Learning (BILT) blog.