Natalie Adamson is an art historian whose research focuses upon the relationship of art to politics, especially in late nineteenth- and twentieth-century France. In teaching art history, she is especially interested in the central role of different kinds of visual images and objects in the construction of ideology, and the means by which students learn to critically engage with visual and material culture.

Jim Aiton is interested in ways to improve the effectiveness of curriculum delivery in the medical school in his capacity as a module organizer for the Foundations of Medicine course. He was part of a small group that developed the School's on-line curriculum management and delivery system (Galen) and is involved in the implementation and of the on-line student portfolio and the teaching of evidence based medicine and research skills. With colleagues, he has been looking at methods for the early identification of the 'student at risk' and the evaluation of assessment in anatomy.

Fabio joined the University of St Andrews in 2007. He holds a MSc and a PhD in Economics, as well as a Postgraduate Award in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education from the University of Warwick. He currently teaches Intermediate Macroeconomics, Labour Economics, and Growth Theory, at the School of Economics and Finance. He is actively involved in various research projects in the field of Economics of Education. In particular, Fabio is interested in the relationship between technological innovation and skill-acquisition activities. He has also recently started to focus on education policies to raise the employability of vulnerable young adults, as well as on issues in Higher Education.

David Borchers is an applied statistician with educational interests including:

• Methods to help students develop problem-solving skills, particularly skills for solving real-world problems with substantial uncertainty.
• Methods that engage the broader public in thinking about the role of uncertainty - in ecological/environmental contexts in particular.

He teaches statistics at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. He has recently introduced a statistics module aimed specifically at teaching statistical problem-solving skills, and has some limited experience of engaging the public in thinking about issues relating to uncertainty, via an EPSRC grant (see www.ruwpa.st-and.ac.uk/whalequest/).

Shiona Chillas's thesis researches the graduate labour market and the work content of graduate jobs. She is interested in graduate employability and connections between education and work more generally. The data of her thesis consisted of two cohort surveys from universities in Glasgow, supplemented by five occupational case studies. Findings suggest that demand for graduates is influenced by "work-readiness" and that relevant degrees are preferred, irrespective of entry requirements. Shiona teaches in the School of Management, particularly on HRM modules.

Huw Davies is interested in how evidence from research can be used for the betterment of public policy (national and local), for improved managerial decision taking, and for more evidence-informed professional practice. Through extensive work at the Research Unit for Research Utilisation, we have explored this agenda in public education, but also in health care, social care and the criminal justice system. A recent distillation of work in this field can be found in Using Evidence (Nutley, Walter & Davies, Policy Press 2007).

Roy Dilley has conducted ethnographic field research in Senegal, West Africa among Tukulor craftsmen and musician groups, as well as in Northern Ireland and Scotland among fishing communities. His interests are in forms of socio-economic organisation and notions of political and cultural identity, and he has been concerned especially with understnding socio-economic action conducted by members of occupationally specialised groups within specific cultural contexts.

He has twice served as Head of Department of Social Anthropology at St Andrews, and was made Dean of Arts in 2009.

E: ishbel@cs.st-andrews.ac.uk.

Ishbel Duncan is interested in computer based education and in learning to program. She has worked on projects regarding learning to program with an automated tutor (forthcoming paper), the uses of Virtual Worlds in education (to be published in the British Journal of Educational Technology in 2010) and previously supervised a project on automatic plagiarism detection which she would like to develop more. Currently, she is teaching the IT MSc and Honours Computer Security and IT Software Engineering Principles, also on the IT MSc. She is also Co-ordinator and Admissions Officer of the IT MSc program.

Ioan Fazey's teaching activities include coordinating and teaching interdisciplinary modules for the Sustainable Development undergraduate programme. His research activities that relate to education/learning include understanding how best to teach thinking, developing and researching participatory mechanisms to facilitate learning and adaptive comanagement in rural community development, and understanding how to develop adaptability and flexibility.

Paul is interested in the development of Computer Assisted Instruction software and in particular the influence of interactivity and animation on the development and maintenance of mental models in the computer environment. That may sound rather dull but the field is so full of hi-tech, super-duper, bells and whistles software with no underlying pedagogy that you have to ask the question "Is it really better than curling up with a good book?"

Fiona Gray’s research background is in electrochemistry and polymeric materials. She has developed distance learning module material in these fields for St Andrews chemistry students on one-year Industrial Placement. She is interested in evaluating outcomes of different delivery formats, particularly as one module is also presented in conventional lecture/tutorial format.

Fiona has recently been involved in developing enquiry-based learning material for senior undergraduate students.

John Haldane is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs. He has taught elements of philosophy of education as part of an Honours Module on Philosophy and Public Affairs at St Andrews, and lectured publicly on aspects of the philosophy of higher education. He has also published on aspects of educational theory and policy. He is also the general editor of the series St Andrews Studies in Philosophy and Public Affairs which contains several volumes on aspects of education.

As part of the Library's Academic Liaison Team, Graeme Hawes is involved in the promotion and teaching of information skills among the University's academic community. His current research looks at scholarly use of e-books by undergraduates. Analysis of data collected should help towards understanding how students interact with e-books, how e-books usability matches up to students’ needs and expectations, and the correlated need for HE institutions to effectively promote resources and educate users.

Bill Heitler teaches at all levels (1st year to 4th year) in the School of Biology. He is also the exams officer in the School. He has a particular interest in the use of computer simulation and modelling as a tool in teaching neuroscience.

Stephen Holmes has written on historical debates about the nature of the university, and particularly the place of theological study within the university. He is also interested in contemporary questions concerning the negotiation of faith commitments by students and teachers in order to promote good learning practices.

Cathy Jackson currently leads the clinical teaching at the medical school. Her educational research interests are in the effectiveness of experiential teaching in diverse settings, indicators of future performance other than exam results and inter-disciplinary learning and teaching.

Mike Johnson is interested in the pre- entry year to HE and the effect it has on the first year teaching and learning experience, with specific reference to those students from backgrounds with limited HE experience and also in relation to the diversity of qualifications accepted for entry to HE. He is looking at the possibility of a diverse learning and teaching experience in first year to reflect the diversity of student backgrounds.

Lisa Jones is Senior Teaching Fellow and Director of Teaching in Philosophy, where she works primarily within the fields of aesthetics and ethics. Her educational interests include supporting the delivery of philosophy in secondary education: to this end, she organises an annual St Andrews 'Study Day' for Higher Philosophy candidates, and has created a set of distance-learning modules aimed at philosophy schoolteachers.

Antje Kohnle has interests in student-centred learning, student alternate conceptions and the use of new technology to enhance learning and teaching. She has introduced problem-based learning labs and group work into the first year curriculum. Current research work involves understanding student misconceptions in physics and astronomy with the aim of improving teaching methododology and developing new curricular materials. Current work involves the development of diagnostic surveys and an HEA-funded project to develop animations and visualizations to enhance student conceptual understanding of quantum mechanics. Previous work concerned with new technology involved an HEA development project on computer-based formative assessment, and a SELF-funded project using mobile digital notetakers to enhance student feedback.

Anita Laidlaw’s research interests include the cognitive aspects of doctor – patient communication and Medical education pedagogy.

Doctor-patient communication

Some of the questions being investigated: Why do we communicate in the way we do? What cognitive factors influence this? How can we help individuals to communicate more effectively? Current interests include social anxiety and its influences on self reported and actual communication behaviour as well as the impact of the ability to recognize facial expressions on communication.

Medical education pedagogy

Although main areas of research are clinical communication training and assessment, Anita has a broader interest in Medical education. This includes issues such as linking research and teaching and instilling professionalism in undergraduate students. She convenes the Medical education research group within the School of Medicine.

Dr Laurence Lasselle is Senior Lecturer in the School of Economics & Finance at the University of St Andrews. Her research interests in education lie in the area of students' aspirations towards university and students' progression.

As Director of Student Services, Chris Lusk is the operational manager of "The Student Experience" within the university, also representing Senior Management to student front-facing services of support and advising. She also carries responsibility for student discipline and residential wardenial teams. Her personal research examines the tensions of the HE sector, particularly for Ancients, in a political wider access agenda. Chris's methodology focuses on the social construction of identity; using a qualitative, interpretive methodology throughout her work.

Jane Magee is interested in the following areas: Second language acquisition:  how do learners acquire lexical strings and what governs their word choices; collocation, metaphor and idiomaticity;  socio-pragmatic competence and failure and the negotiation of meaning in different cultural contexts;  CLIL – the integration of language and content in the classroom; EAP – writing in the academy; academic writing and discipline-specific genres; language learning and new technologies; learner independence; ELT management.

Ally Malcolm-Smith has been working for several years with young scientists whose first language is not English and who wish to study science in UK Higher Education Institutions.  As part of their programme they take two modules and other courses in schools in the Faculty of Science. She works closely with them to understand their language, academic and study needs, and with the academic schools to learn more about the module curricula and assessments in order to help the students to understand what is required to succeed. She has a particular interest in methods of science and language education, and in phonetics and phonology.

Iain is a Behavioural Ecologist and Senior Teaching Fellow in the School of Biology. Within the Centre for Higher Education Research, his particular interests are the delivery of teaching and assessment within field courses and in internationalization and the teaching of international students.

Heather McKiggan-Fee’s primary responsibility is to support the enhancement of learning and teaching across the University through a variety of means, such as organising topical teaching events (eg using personal response systems, technology-enhanced learning in the classroom) and facilitating learning communities and networks (eg convening the Distance Learning Development Group). In addition she delivers courses such as:

• Bi-annual mandatory workshops which all new postgraduate tutors and demonstrators are required to undertake.
• Two 10-credit, taught postgraduate modules which are open to all staff (including postgraduate tutors and demonstrators) involved in teaching or supporting student learning.

E: alan@cs.st-andrews.ac.uk.

The development of 3D Virtual Worlds offers exciting new opportunities and challenges for supporting exploratory learning. Whether it be designing and building virtual historical scenarios for students to explore, providing a rich multimedia environment to support student interaction or designing virtual laboratories to enable computer networking experiments, virtual worlds have the potential to enrich student learning. Alan Miller's interests lie in overcoming the technological challenges that must be overcome for the  potential of virtual worlds to be realised and in evaluating their strengths and limitations in an educational setting.

Raymond Moir is interested in the action research in Learning Technology, e-Learning, e-Assessment, Social & Collaborative Learning (via Web 2.0 and Social Networking tools) and how it can improve or enhance the student learning experience such as deep learning, employability skills, communication skills etc.

He is/has been involved in the following projects:

Home and Away: the Year Abroad Online Community - this institution funded project is investigating how Web 2.0 technology can be used to enhance & improve the student learning experience for "year abroad" language students.

The Scottish Higher Education Developers Learning Objects and Distributed Services (SHEDLOADS) project – this project examined multi-institutional collaboration through the sharing of existing and co-development of resources for academic practice in higher education. This project was funded by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA) through the "Flexible Delivery Enhancement Theme".

Forum for the Enhancement of Learning & Teaching (FELT) - a forum which explored the impact of promoting good practice and innovations in learning and teaching across 3 different institutions. This project was funded by ESCalate (the Higher Education Academy Education Subject Centre).

Jeffrey Murer is interested in the development of techniques to promote writing skills across disciplines. He is also interested in the promotion of mixed methodology research approach in the social sciences and exploring alternative modes of and approaches to assessment.

Clare Peddie teaches Zoology and Marine Biology subjects at all levels across the undergraduate programmes offered by the School of Biology. At Senior Honours she offers specialised modules in Human Diving Physiology and a field module based in South-East Sulawesi in Scientific Diving. She is very interested in the value of peer-marking, group work and field work in the educational experience. As Pro-Dean for the Faculty of Science, she is involved in curriculum development across the Faculty and is responsible for students who need to take time out from their studies.

Birgit Plietzsch is interested in the following areas:

Electronic resource creation: Advice and project management of IT components of research across the Faculty of Arts for projects that produce electronic resources as part of their research outputs (e.g. Records of the Parliaments of Scotland, Corpus of Scottish Medieval Parish Churches). Investigating the technical feasibility and managing the implementation of academic IT projects of interest to various Schools (e.g. image database, digital video storage and delivery).

Digital preservation: Ensuring that where necessary electronic data is created in a manner that allows meaningful access to it in the long term, including sustainable data creation and digital archiving.

Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL): Involvement in or management of CALL software revisions, support for the School of Modern Languages Multimedia Centre.

Education research interests: teaching of the Classical languages to complete or near-complete beginners; issue of interdisciplinarity - when should one start to expose students to this?

Current teaching activites: mainly in the postgraduate field, including masterclasses at other universities, mainly with an interdisciplinary focus between Classics, History and Theology.

In the field of HE, Morven Shearer has interests in inquiry-based learning, interdisciplinarity and the teaching of ethics to bioscientists and medical students. She has a current HEA-funded project, partnering with colleagues in Aberdeen and Glasgow, to develop a national network for PhD students and postdoctoral fellows involved in teaching (see http://www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/funding/currentprojects/repstierney.aspx).

More details at: http://biology.st-andrews.ac.uk/staff/mcs6.htm.

David Shuker is interested in learner behaviour and how behaviour influences attainment. In collaboration with colleagues at Manchester Metropolitan University, David's research has focused on gender and behavioural biases associated with self- and peer-assessment by students, the nature of learning styles, and also how student learning networks develop. The research paradigm is a undergraduate field-course, in which learners have to develop and undertake a piece of original research, and then make an assessed presentation of their research findings. A longer-term goal is to develop pedagogical methods, tested within this research paradigm, that enhance both learner success and tutor understanding of the learning process.

Lorna Sibbett is interested in life transition phases and their relationship to learning; understanding and supporting learning as a lifelong adventure. She works on primary-to-secondary school transition; secondary-to-higher education; integration of higher education with development of transferable skills/employability; the role of the affective dimension in learning; and widening access to higher education.

• Director of Teaching in the School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews.
• Coordinator of taught postgraduate photonics programmes in the School.
• School Disability Officer, School Student Recruitment Officer.
• Currently Secretary of the Higher Education Group of the UK Institute of Physics.
• Former Chair of the Advisory Committee of Physical Sciences Centre of UK Higher Education Academy.
• Refereeing for range of journals in photonics, and also for more general papers in American Journal of Physics.
• Currently External Examiner for sub-honours physics at Glasgow University, following on from filling the same role for Edinburgh University.

Iain Smellie’s role is primarily focused toward teaching practical chemistry techniques/skills to undergradute students of all levels. He has recently been involved in developing new organic chemistry laboratory courses. In addition to teaching within the school of chemistry, he has a variety of roles in connection with the School of Chemistry’s outreach activities (http://chemistry.st-andrews.ac.uk/outreach.html).

Anne Smith teaches in the School of Biology in molecular and behavioural biology, and is involved in skills training (statistics and writing). She is interested in evaluating effectiveness of teaching and in working to develop activities that both engage student interest and enhance learning.

Ian Smith’s research skills chiefly lie in the statistical analysis of data. His education research has focussed on two topics. First, a quantitative investigation of student learning and performance for entrant students in Economics. Second, a study of the effects on school pupils aspiration to university of attendance at the Sutton Trust Summer School.

Elisabeth Smith is a member of staff in the Special Collections department of the University Library and part-time PhD student. She is interested in the history of women's education, and in particular in the higher education of women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Julie Struthers's role within the School of Medicine is to promote innovation in the use of e-Learning/ILT to benefit learning, teaching and research throughout the curriculum.

She has a particular interest in curriculum management systems and learning environments and how these are evolving with the rapid changes in web applications.

She is part of the team from the University of St Andrews which is supporting the introduction of a new Medical Curriculum in the College of Medicine (COM) in Blantyre Malawi. Her interest is helping the COM to make in the best use of technology to support the delivery of this new curriculum.

As well as research interests in technology enhanced learning, she has an interest in Research Teaching Linkages and graduate attributes, particularly in relation to Medicine.

Portfolios are a key part of the Medical Curriculum and Julie has been working closely with the academics over the past few years in the development of an ePortfolio. We have developed a series of structured tasks to develop the students’ skills of reflective practice. Our portfolio focuses on the planning, recording and reflecting on learning throughout the Professional areas of the curriculum.

Vicki Symington is currently a lead demonstrator for some of the biology first year modules.  In addition she is working with Lorna Sibbett on a transition project for primary and secondary schools called Science: News & Views, this project aims at engaging children with science through news media approaches.  She is interested in engaging audiences with science across the demographic.

E: vpteach@st-andrews.ac.uk

Teaching: science communication and outreach: e.g. organiser of interdisciplinary module that provides placements for Science undergraduates within local primary and secondary schools and science centres to gain experience of science communication and teaching.

Alyson Tobin's teaching within the School of Biology covers sub-honours and honours classes in topics ranging from Cell and Molecular Biology to Environmental Physiology. She is convenor of the Admissions and Exchanges subcommittee of TLAC and currently leads a working group on Widening Participation. As Dean she has oversight of all new modules and programmes within the Faculty of Science as well as involvement with external organisations.

Responsibilities of the Vice-Principal for Learning and Teaching include:

• Oversight and development of the University's overall strategy for excellence in learning and teaching across the Schools.
• Enhancement of the quality of Learning and Teaching.
• Oversight and development of the SALTIRE (St Andrews Leaning and Teaching, Innovation, Review and Enhancement) research resource for staff and students.
• Promotion and development of innovative and interdisciplinary programmes.
• Oversight of the Teaching Learning and Assessment Committee.

Graham Turnbull is a lecturer in the School of Physics and Astronomy. He teaches physics at undergraduate and postgraduate levels including courses on semiconductor physics, and polymer and liquid crystal displays. He is the School's Distance Learning Coordinator, and deputy coordinator of the Photonics and Optoelectronic Devices MSc course. Graham has interests in developing physics laboratory and study skills and e-learning.

Rehema White has 20 years of experience teaching in higher education in several countries including Australia, South Africa and UK. She is trained as a biologist but also has social science expertise. Currently she is coordinating the Sustainable Development Programme, which is hosted by the School of Geography and Geosciences, and teaches a range of topics on this Programme using innovative learning approaches. Her research interests in relation to teaching include education for sustainable development, interdisciplinary teaching and learning, teaching through transformative methods and assessments, the use of fieldtrips and the links between education, design and sustainability.

Pat Willmer was formerly Director of Teaching in the School of Biology, served as Dean of Science from 2002 to 2005, and as Vice-Principal of Learning and Teaching from 2009 to 2011.

Wuzong Zhou is teaching Characterisation of Solids (CH5515) and Crystallograhy (CH3431) and also convener for CH5515 and Physical Chemistry II (CH2701). He is interested in improving teaching for students at different levels and in small-group tutorial teaching.