A DelPHEIraqBritish Council/DFID funded interdisciplinary collaboration led by Lynette Jordan and Catherine Bovill in 2011-12

 

In this project, staff from the University of Glasgow (GU) provided an opportunity for academic staff from the Hawler Medical University (HMU) in Iraq, to undertake professional development supporting their aim to increase the use of student centred teaching and learning approaches across the University. The staff from the GU provided face-to-face professional academic development sessions in Iraq, blended with some online support and facilitated learning exercises for staff to complete over the course of one year. These activities were designed to meet the stated needs of HMU staff, facilitate the participation of women, and to support the implementation of new and challenging forms of teaching and learning among staff and students in a sustainable manner.

 

In this work adopted a blended approach to learning was adopted through the use of both classroom and online activities. Of key importance was  modeling of good practice in terms of ensuring that the approaches used within this course would be student-centred, thereby ensuring coherence with course aims. For example,  a variety of evaluation methods were used within the course to elicit participant feedback in participant-centred ways.

 

See Jordan, L., Bovill, C., Watters, N., Saleh, A.M., Shabila, N.P., and Othman, S.M. (2014) Is student-centred learning a western concept? Lessons from an academic development programme to support student-centred learning in Iraq. Teaching in Higher Education, 19 (1). pp. 13-25. ISSN 1356-2517