Author: Dallas Alexandrou

A new vision from the FoM PG Education Team

The Faculty of Medicine’s Postgraduate Education Team has expanded over the last year and our remit has evolved.

Given this, we decided to take some time towards the end of last academic year to reflect on and agree our priorities and identify effective ways to deliver them. In so doing, we agreed a vision statement that we wanted to share with you at the start of our new academic year.

Our priorities for this academic year include the implementation of the curriculum review and a range of strategic activities including the introduction of a Faculty-wide shared project call and the development of an agreed mechanism to recognise the value of teaching. These, and all other projects, as well as the way we work, fall within our vision:

To maintain an outstanding learning experience for our students, through collaboration with FoM PG Medicine educators. To bring this about, we are committed to creating and sustaining an environment in which PG Medicine colleagues can develop their own tools and initiatives. Working together, our goal is to make student learning interactive, engaging and digitally enhanced.

To achieve our vision, the team:

  • facilitates and coordinates the efforts of teachers and support staff to create high-calibre learning experiences for students;
  • uses evidence as the foundation of the support we provide;
  • collaborates with all FoM PG colleagues in practical and pragmatic ways, with a focus on dialogue, solutions and staff fulfilment;
  • ensures that our support is accessible and adaptable
  • promotes innovation and efficiency as a means to transforming educational practice;
  • encourages initiative and reflection among the FoM PG community;
  • adopts a strategic approach to supporting the FoM PG teaching community.

The team comprises:

Sophie Rutschmann Academic Lead for Postgraduate Taught Programmes
Jeffrey Vernon Principal Teaching Fellow, Postgraduate Medicine

Dallas Alexandrou Project Manager: Attributes and Aspirations (AA) Short Course
Operations Manager: PG Education
Ania Jones Teaching Fellow, PG Medicine
Latha Ramakrishnan Teaching Fellow, PG Medicine
Katie Stripe Senior Learning Designer: Attributes and Aspirations (AA) Short course
Nousheen Tariq Postgraduate Education Manager
Gemma Williamson Postgraduate Education Officer
Meg Carter Summer School Administrator

Faculty of Medicine’s new Attributes and Aspirations Module – what is it?

Dallas Alexandrou, project manager for the Attributes and Aspirations module explains this new module:

In parallel to the ongoing curriculum review, the Faculty of Medicine postgraduate team has identified the need to develop high-quality tools and activities to help our Master’s students take ownership of their professional futures and develop their graduate attributes beyond the mastery of their chosen discipline.

As a result, the proposed Attributes and Aspirations (AA) module has been approved by the College Pedagogy Transformation Committee and is currently being developed. It will use interactive pedagogical activities based on a blended, inclusive, innovative and active approach to supporting our students.

Critical to the development of the AA module is that it meets both students’ and employers’ needs. Research has been undertaken to identify the relevant topics and skills our students are keen to develop, together with the skills and attributes identified by employers as being critical graduate skills for current and future employment. Areas including effective career guidance, practice of selection processes and skills such as adaptability, communication, critical thinking, problem solving and effective team work have been identified as priorities.

Subject to the College’s standard approval mechanisms, a pilot delivery of the AA module will commence from Autumn Term 2019-20 in selected Faculty of Medicine MSc/MRes programmes. AA will be non-credit bearing and elective, with much of the delivery online to avoid interfering with students’ timetabled teaching and lab sessions.  Following evaluation of the pilot, there is an ambition to offer the module to students from all FoM postgraduate programmes and to students from Faculties across the College. (more…)