Dr Andrew Folkard
NTFS 2006
Dr Andrew Folkard
Lancaster Environment Centre
Numeracy skills for non-specialists
Andrew writes: ‘The work that my NTF award recognised is my development of the teaching of mathematical, statistical and quantitative skills to non-specialists. This relates both to my own teaching within our Geography degree schemes, but also to my efforts to spread effective practice across the campus and the wider HE sector'.
The award of the NTF has led to Andrew's involvement in a number of teaching development projects, both as a project leader and as member of several project steering committees. He has also been co-opted onto committees tasked with developing teaching and learning at departmental, faculty and university levels. At a national level, he has become a member of the Committee for the Association of National Teaching Fellows and the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching & Learning (ISSoTL) and attended the annual NTF Symposium as well as various other pedagogic research conferences - 'all of which I would not been made aware of without the NTF network' he notes.
On a personal level, Andrew notes that 'my NTF was a central aspect of my successful application for promotion to Senior Lecturer in 2007, so it has had a major tangible impact on my career development. I am still where I was when I received the award (although the Department of Geography is in the process of being merged into the Lancaster Environment Centre) and I am still trying to make a success of both my discipline-based research (hydrodynamics and its interactions with ecology in lakes, rivers and coastal waters) and my teaching and pedagogic research'.
Andrew is an active member of University Learning, Teaching & Assessment Committee and continues to make a significant contribution to enhancement of learning & teaching practice across the University.