My Teaching

Painting by Katy Gibson

At the moment I am only giving guest lectures in an undergraduate module on ‘Fluid Mechanics and Thermodynamics’ and in a CPD programme on Science and Technology Leadership [see ‘leadership‘ and ‘CPD‘].

For more than a decade I taught Thermodynamics as a first-year course to undergraduate students at the University of Liverpool.  This course was the basis for a Massive Online Open Course entitled ‘Energy! Thermodynamics in Everyday Life‘ that has been taken by thousands of online learners.  In addition, I have written a book with Bob Handscombe entitled ‘The Entropy Vector: Connecting Science and Business‘ and edited a booklet called ‘Real-Life Examples in Thermodynamics: Lesson Plans and Solutions’ for teachers and lecturers.  The lesson plans are available on the Everyday Engineering Examples page of this blog.  The preparation of all of these materials has stimulated a number of blog posts which you can read at ‘Thermodynamics‘.

Earlier in my career, I taught Mechanics of Solids at all undergraduate levels and I have produced a MOOC called ‘Understanding Super Structures‘ as an introduction to the field.  You can read posts on this topic at ‘Understanding Super Structures‘.

The homework practicals for both MOOCS are available for others to use at ‘Thermodynamics labs as homework‘ and ‘Homework practical exercises in structural mechanics‘.

Creating A Learning Environment (CALE): during 2018 a series of posts were published based on a workshop given periodically by Pat Campbell from Campbell-Kibler Associates and Eann Patterson of the University of Liverpool between 2010 and 2015.  The workshop was developed and delivered with support from the National Science Foundation in the USA via the ENGAGE project and its delivery in the UK was supported by the Higher Education Academy.  The workshop is unlikely to be delivered again and its content is summarised the CALE series of posts which were published every third week between May and November 2018 and are listed below:

    1. Everyday examples contribute to successful learning on May 9th, 2018.
    2. Formative experiences on May 30th, 2018
    3. So how do people learn? on June 20th, 2018.
    4. Experiences in the lecture theatre on July 11th, 2018.
    5. Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate & Evaluate on August 1st, 2018.
    6. Motivated by fruitful applications on August 22nd, 2018.
    7. Engineering idiom on September 12th, 2018.
    8. Student success and self-efficacy on October 3rd, 2018.
    9. Learning problem-solving skills on October 24th, 2018.
    10. Blended learning environments on November 14th, 2018.