My teaching vision for the department is captured in my "Strategic Teaching Vision" section of the reflective analysis report of the recent academic review. I see the main directions of growth in the areas of AI, robotics and data science, and in their under-pinning systems (my area of expertise). Systemic AI safety and high-performance machine learning offer opportunities of combining existing strengths in the department. Important design principles for programmes are disentanglement and differentiation to work out programme profiles. We continue to build on a strong technical core and monitor admissions closely. In terms of course delivery, the vision statement focuses on TEL activities, as discussed below.
In my teaching, I put strong emphasis on Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) for in-depth studies of very technical, coding based topics. I have been pioneering the use of Socrative for interactive polls in the department, and I frequently use live coding sessions in my courses, which are positively commented on by students. I have been promoting the usage of TEL for many years, e.g. selection of BTL Surpass for e-exams in 2018, before Covid. In order to improve student engagement, I am also running Peer-Assisted- Learning (PAL) initiatives, e.g. the ongoing activity on CS Peer Mentoring. One specific emphasis of mine is the embedding of playful learning techniques into my courses. I am a strong believer in the benefits of playful learning for student engagement and therefore directly impacting student experience. Playful learning could be realised by: gamification (bringing aspects of games into the traditional learning process), serious games (using games, designed for a specific learning purpose), or more generally game- based learning (using games as an aide to the more traditional learning process). I’ve explored all three strands. Specifically, I’ve run several instances of programming challenges, a sequence of online coding tasks that train practical programming skills. Over 10 instances, this was very successful in engaging students (especially during Covid with up to ~80 participants), and feedback was very positive. I have run 4 of these instances Scotland-wide (SICSA) engaging students from 7 Scottish CS departments in total. I have used serious games in the “Secrious” project, to develop games designed to train students and adults on issues of cyber-security. Jointly with the Glasgow School of Art, we developed provoking games that focus on one aspect of cyber-security, as an introduction to the learning process. We ran several game design workshops (“game jams”) with participants designing their own game.
Looking forward, my Vision is to embed playful learning systematically into CS courses, and to assess the impact this has on student engagement and performance. In the department, we can build on successful initiatives by other staff members on gitlab integration of code submissions (now used in more than a dozen of our courses across 4 campuses) and on peer-testing. I am leading a group of academics, who has attracted funding in the form of a teaching-oriented CPHC project (Jul’24-Jun’25) to support this direction. Other key priorities in my leading of UG teaching are: (1) more immediate feedback to students (through usage of (Socrative) quizzes and other Technology Enhanced Learning techniques); (2) improved infrastructure (through novel usage of devices such as Raspberry Pis, or more integrated usage of robotic devices), (3) redesign of programmes to better align courses, cater for cross-campus teaching and cope with increasing student numbers. Key challenges, in particular in CS, are the larger class and lab sizes, due to rapidly increasing student numbers, and the efficient communication with a diverse, global student community, spanning 5 different campuses or partners institutions.