Future of Teaching Laboratories

Joanne Brown - Food Science

Project overview

Teaching Laboratory spaces form an essential component within many STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and Medicine) study programs. They enable students to gain invaluable hands on experience and practical applications of theories they have been taught. With a new digital age upon us, it is important to investigate the impact of these ‘new’ pedagogies and how this influences the way we use the laboratory teaching spaces.
During this fellowship, I would like to investigate different digital practices employed across University Teaching Laboratories and the possibilities these present to create better collaboration within these spaces.

The research approach

My research would be split into 3 sections:

1. Investigating digital tools/pedagogies used across the University of Leeds Teaching Laboratories;

2. Investigate best use of space by understanding how staff individually and/or collaboratively use the space and explore both enablers and barriers they may face. This would also extend to looking at other Universities and investigating how they have re-configured their teaching laboratory spaces in order to collect evidence of best practices;

3. Collect input from both staff and students on their views of collaborative teaching space or other best practices that might stem from this research.

To find out more about the project please contact Joanne Brown

Each fellowship has a project sponsor that helps the fellows achieve impact across the institution. The sponsor for this fellowship is Paul Taylor.

Project start date: September 2023