My Teaching …

My teaching focuses on the hardware aspects of computing and I currently teach on two undergraduate course units, a 1st year course unit covering the fundamentals of computer engineering (which I lead) and a 2nd year course unit focused on processor design. Blended learning is very much at the heart of my teaching, so I produce a new of teaching videos to convey the taught material, which is supported by online quizzes to test understanding, and live lectures where content is covered in more detail. I use audience interaction in my lectures wherever possible, with TurningPoint being my tool of choice.

In 2018 I was awarded Teacher of the Year in the University Distinguished Achievement awards. In 2019 I became a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy (SFHEA), one of only of handful of staff in the Department.

I’m very much interested in developing new approaches to assessment and have development approaches for the automated marking of laboratory work using commercial digital CAD tools. Here, the students submit their work, where it is marked offline automatically and feedback provided by email. This work was presented at the 10th European Workshop on Microelectronics Education (EWME) in 2014.

I have held a number of substantive posts in the Department, including 1st Year Tutor, Deputy Director of Undergraduate Studies and, since September 2019, I have been the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Computer Science. One of my duties in this role is to write the weekly undergraduate newsletter, Monday Mail.

I was the external subject examiner at the University of Plymouth for their BEng (Hons) and MEng (Hons) degree programmes from 2016 to 2020.