2021 – 2022
Use of student-led workshops as an authentic and innovative approach to teaching, learning and assessment
This project focused on the summative student-led workshops component on the LLB Disability Law Level 6 elective module which is part of the LLB Qualifying Law Degree.
Secondary Data Collection and Initial Analysis for Immigration Research
This project worked on identifying/connecting how policy approaches (such as immigration legislation, labour laws, and equalities) are built on and feed back into the ontological basis of data on such areas such as Employment and Labour, Education, Migration.
EDI and Authentic Assessments: how truly authentic are we?
This learning and teaching research collaboration allowed student partners and staff from Westminster Law School to conduct research and provide opportunities to enhance learning and teaching at the University of Westminster.
Conversation Application – User Interface Design
The aim of this co-creators project is to design the human-computer interface of a web-mobile enabled app to practise conversation while learning a foreign language.
Employability & Innovation Project – EIP
The aim of this project was to raise awareness about the available opportunities at the University of Westminster or provided by the University which can increase the engagement of students within the University as well as the employability rate of students after graduation.
Community building through a foundation mentoring scheme
The project set out to discover if and to what extent our mentoring scheme has been successful in enhancing students’ sense of belonging and connectedness with the University, which are established elements of student success.
Student Cabinet for SMARTEST
This project’s aim was to introduce an aspect of a “student cabinet” feature to SMARTEST (a graph-based e-learning platform which structures learning content visually and mentallythrough graphs.) topersonalise users’ learning experiences.
Incorporating BMS training for Improving Student Engagement
The project’s main objectives were identifying the sector current BMS students want to pursue during and/or following their degree, the relevant qualifications they would need to obtain to achieve their professional goals – training, certification and work experience, and their satisfaction with UoW’s approach at helping students to achieve these goals.
Cody Dock Reed Beds
The aim of the project is to help design, build and install the reedbeds to clean the polluted water with the roots of the plants, as well as create a habitat for a more diverse fauna.
Engaging Your Core: Strategies for Strengthening Students’ Learning
The project aims to review module’s and general attitudes towards the new teaching methods by the students.
Designing authentic assessment for 6FNCE005W International Financial Management
The project’s goal was to acquire insightful feedback on two important components of teaching and learning from the module’s participants, including both student partners as well as other students: the assessment and the learning activities, both of which are aligned with the module’s learning outcomes.
RIBA Part Three Professional Practice Course in Architecture: Mastering Contracts through “Role Play”
This project reviewed the impact of “Role Play” by building a “plight simulator” so that the students are prepared for questions on contract administration.
WRaPS Westminster Research by Psychology Students: A Website for Westminster psychology students to recruit and showcase their research
The ambition was to create a new website where psychology project students will be able to upload a short study description along with a link. This will facilitate participant recruitment, while also promoting our incredibly diverse research.
Towards a more inclusive and competence-based Themes in Contemporary Hispanic Studies
The principal aim of the project was to gather vital feedback from the student body about how they feel about the current content, pedagogical strategies and assessment of this module and to use the data collected in order to analyse together in which areas the module could be tweaked in the future to take account of the views expressed.
Future Skills and the Future of Skills: How best to Equip WLS Undergraduates with Legal and Transferable Skills
The project explored what undergraduate law students feel about these modules in terms of the way they are taught, their usefulness and their ability to prepare students for academic study and graduate careers.
2020 – 2021
Architecture Design Studios: Re-framing with the Empathic Imagination in Mind
Provoking conversation and support transformative, inclusive learning and teaching practices as part of the architecture design studio.
The Feedback Journey – Accessibility and Engagement
Addressing students’ understanding and engagement with feedback on their formative and summative assessments.
The Future of Live-streaming Post COVID-19
Discovering if students find laboratory live-streamed sessions useful. Additionally, the research team hoped to identify areas for improvement as well as possible solutions that could be implemented to improve practical teaching and live-streaming post-COVID-19.
Imaginative Empathy: Towards Inclusive Pedagogies
A broader application of an ‘empathic approach’ in HE dialogues between students and educators; considering the ways in which modules are delivered, assessments are conceived of, and processes realised.
STAR-GATE
Investigating students’ appreciation of on-line learning and classifying/comparing available learning platforms, mapping their functionalities to the identified students’ expectations and identifying new functionalities not already offered by these platforms.
SMART-bridge-to-WEB
Developing a web-based application which will target an additional functionality to the already developed knowledge and learning platform SMARTEST.
Climate Studio
Increasing student engagement in conversations surrounding the climate emergency so that sustainability is more integrated in design studio work.
Understanding Genetics to Counter Racial Discrimination
Development of new learning material aimed at challenging widespread misconceptions about the role of Genetics as a provider of theoretical frameworks underpinning racial discrimination.
Optimising Student Skills for Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint
Determining student entry skills in relation to the use of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, skills development through use in the degree programmes, and the most appropriate and suitable mechanisms for student support for the use of Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint.
Creative Technologies – Printmaking
Exploring different methods of remote working as alternative methods of technical support for students working in the printmaking studio.
Evaluating Assessment for Learning in Introduction to Academic Practice
Evaluating the effectiveness of meaningful assessment techniques and seeking ways to strengthen the role of assessment in the learning process.
360 Immersive Storytelling
Evaluating 360-degree immersive storytelling as a tool for creating empathetic responses.
Decolonising UG Media
Begin to centre and embed student-voiced diversity into a new revised curriculum, and in so doing to ‘decolonise’ the heritage or legacy-related strands of curricula that inform a new degree structure.
2019 – 2020
Online Studio
Creating a structure/space/platform within which all students feel empowered, able to engage and learn proactively. Design tutors are already finding ways to carry on with the teaching of design skills through online tutorials in response to the pandemic. However, the other, softer qualities of studio teaching still need to be considered.
Mental Health, Design and Wellbeing: A Co-Design Workshop
This cross-disciplinary collaboration between the Medical School at Imperial College London and the School of Architecture and Cities at the University of Westminster explored the relationship between design, mental health, and wellbeing.
Co-Production for Mental Health Workshop
Surveying of two sites in order to gain deeper insight into CAMHS therapy and adult mental health/dementia therapy resulting in the production of technical drawings.
Decolonial approaches to the legal curriculum
Understanding what it means to decolonise the legal curriculum, and what students might want and need from a decolonised core legal curriculum. Find out more: https://youtu.be/C5XhzTsfIY4
2018 – 2019
Learning and Teaching Research Collaborations
Designing a virtual representation of course activities to enhance the student experience of managing assessment.
Online Mental Health Interventions
Exploring the acceptability of mobile applications to improve mental health of university students.
Student Mental Health and Wellbeing
Investigating what Social Sciences students at the University of Westminster feel about mental wellbeing and their university experience.
Evaluating the experience of first year students in the School of Life Sciences feel about Blackboard and email communications.
Preference of study methods and influence of timing, content and lecturer on lecture attendance in the School of Life Sciences.
Student Tool for Reinforcing the Intake of Valuable Experience (STRIVE)
Improving the existing education interactive software EnAbled to link modules and enhance assessment.
Feasibility of an online platform to showcase game projects on the Computer Development course.
Designing a virtual view of Westminster has to offer, to easily discover useful information about the classrooms or laboratories and to get the full usability of the on-site services.
A prototype VR simulation to allow remote access to university campus facilities via a mobile headset.
Providing universities with information on what students are actually looking for from their timetables.
The staff perspective on the role of student-staff partnerships in higher education.
Factors that influence in-class interactions between students and lecturers.
How does the Engage platform help Media students improve their academic skills?
Disciplinary Research Collaborations
Heuristics for Natural Deduction Layout (HANDEL)
To investigate how changing the basic set of Booleans affects natural deduction proof.
Scent and Literature
Building a health index test based on extracellular vesicles (EV) & key microRNA EV-Markers from plasma.
Growing new marine bacteria cultures from New Quay, Wales to stop the growth of Vibrio parahaemolyticus.
Correlating CD180 expression and TP53 deletion in chronic lymphocytic leukaemia using a computational model.
YouTube and Mental Health
Studying the effects of video blogging on the mental health of content creators.
Testing sediment from the rivers in England for the presence and degree of microplastic pollution.
A Case Study in how Translations are used in Creating National Narratives
Comparing articles in the Financial Times and their translations in a Cankao Xiaoxi.
Increasing our understanding of factors influencing BME student attainment.
Curriculum Design Collaborations
Increasing student understanding by encouraging debate, use of digital quizzes and question-asking platforms.
Reviewing the module assessments to create meaningful and engaging assignments, and improve the learning experience of foundation students.
English Literature Curriculum Review
Reflecting on the level four and five core modules of the BA English Literature programme.
Involving learners in a structured review of two core modules led by Professor Graham Meikle in the School of Media and Communication.
BA Radio & Digital Production Curriculum Review
2017 – 2018
Investigating how accessible extra-curricular resources are in the department of Psychology.
Introducing a library application that captures the needs of students
Exploring student’s perceptions, awareness and attitudes to mindfulness.
Exploring student’s attitude to Brexit, education and their tendency to begin, continue or leave their higher education in the UK.
Examining the effectiveness of FANS (Friends of Arriving New Students) initiative and ways to improve it.
How can we make the university more comfortable for international students?
Improving the postgraduate experience by expanding the availability of or awareness for the various forms of digital communication made available to Masters students.
Establishing how students within the construction studies programme perceive the relationship between full-time and part-time students and whether the mix hinders student engagement.
Learning, Training and Networking Opportunities in Application and Gaming Software Localisation
Are more learning opportunities in application and gaming software localisation needed by students at the University of Westminster?
Providing universities with information on what students are actually looking for from their timetables.
The Introduction of a Nomadic Studio as part of the MArch Programme at the University of Westminster.
Exploring how exposure to international experiences can impact employability
Assessing racial and queer diversity on the Visual Culture MA programmes.
Understanding the barriers that prevent MA students of design using active making, as a method of learning.
How does the Engage platform help Media students improve their academic skills?
2015 – 2016
Could training and exposure to technologies before online studies boost the academic performance of the student?
Departmental differences in student engagement with iPads via use of smart applications during teaching sessions.
Exploring the usefulness of Youtube videos in enhancing student learning and integration into university.
Reviewing assessment briefing processes to increase the transparency of assessment criteria for students in Westminster Business School.