The move away from transmission-based lecturing toward a more student-centred active learning approach is well evidenced in STEM higher education. However, the examination of active learning has generally remained confined to formal timetabled contexts, with assumptions made that students independently manage the transition between timetabled and…

Cambridge undergraduates have regular active-learning opportunities in small-group tutorials, in which they solve problems and discuss ideas based on course material. Would they see any value in performing similar tasks in flipped-classroom settings, or would they regard the introduction of a second active-learning modality as redundant? Following…

This case study of large-class teaching at a UK university focuses on the place of large-scale lectures in academics' approaches to teaching, their "use" by students in their studies, and their relationship to institutional quality assurance policies. The case is a second-year module comprised of 180 students, and it includes two-hour…

This paper focuses on a UK higher education institution (HEI) which redesigned three lecture theatres as 'Collaborative Lecture Theatres' (CLTs). Using Radcliffe's framework for designing and evaluating learning spaces and using his three related components; pedagogy, space and technology it will explore how the redesigned rooms (space) and the…

This paper explores the benefits and drawbacks of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) to engage undergraduate students in geography modules at Newcastle University. I consider the efficacy of "student response systems" (hereafter SRS, also known as audience response systems, clickers or personal response systems) in large lectures by…

This article details an approach to teaching entrepreneurship to Higher National Diploma (HND) students that combines lecture-based and experiential learning processes to increase student learning, comprehension, and entrepreneurial skills. A UK university redesigned an entrepreneurship course to have students design and implement business plans…

Hydrology teaching deals with processes happening outside the classroom, which calls for active-learning methods to complement lectures. In a geography undergraduate course, new teaching methods and assessment were designed, in which students investigated a river of their choice by completing homework tasks and presenting their results on a…

Aim/Purpose: The aim of this work is to explore which factors impact on the adoption of the flipped classroom in vocational education to pave the way for the schools which want to apply this model. Background: Although various experiences in the use of the flipped classroom have been reported in recent years in the literature, fewer efforts have…

This paper describes a case study of two pure mathematicians who flipped their lecture to teach matrix determinants in two large mathematics service courses (one at Stage I and the other at Stage II). The purpose of the study was to transform the passive lecture into an active learning opportunity and to introduce valuable mathematical skills,…

This research explores "teaching excellence" by examining the perceptions of geography academics and students at Brunel University as to what makes a lecture "unmissable". The findings from 10 interviews with lecturers and five focus groups with undergraduate students suggest that whilst there is probably no such thing as an…

Despite criticisms in the literature on pedagogy, lecturing continues to be the dominant teaching method on most undergraduate programmes. Drawing on research examining teaching practice in undergraduate Social Policy programmes, accounts of approaches to lecturing are discussed in the context of the arguments in the literature for more active…