Salford lecturer awarded top fellowship

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A University of Salford lecturer has been awarded one of the most prestigious fellowships in the country for excellence in higher education teaching and support for learning.

The Higher Education Academy (HEA) has announced that Helen Keegan, a senior lecturer in Salford’s School of Computing, Science and Engineering, is among outstanding lecturers and learning support staff who have been awarded National Teaching Fellowships, the most prestigious awards for excellence in higher education teaching and support for learning.

Helen is a pioneer of using social media technologies to transform students’ learning. With an educational background which crosses arts and sciences, Helen has a degree in linguistics and joined Salford in 1998. She has been teaching at the University since 2000.

She has developed an international reputation for originality and digital innovation, actively using a wide range of social and mobile technologies to develop and disseminate her ideas, and constantly improve her teaching.

With students, she focuses on learner-driven curricula through the development of digital identities and network literacies.

She works with academics across the world to develop global student project collaborations which are multi-level and multi-disciplinary, and uses mobile phone film-making to nurture creativity and encourage work across traditional disciplinary boundaries. She recently ran an entire module as an alternate reality game to make learners curious. Months of mysterious clues across multiple media, on and offline, led students to the centre of Manchester where their work was displayed on the BBC big screen.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Martin Hall commended Helen on her achievement. “This is great news for Helen and great news for the University. Helen’s teaching takes students into the future in constantly creative ways,” he said.

The Fellowship award winners were chosen from more than 180 nominations submitted by higher education institutions across England, Northern Ireland and Wales. Each will receive an award of £10,000 which may be used for Fellows’ professional development in teaching and learning or aspects of pedagogy.
Successful nominees were backed by their institutions and submissions had to show evidence of three criteria: individual excellence, raising the profile of excellence and developing excellence.
Professor Craig Mahoney, Chief Executive of the HEA, said the awards carry considerable prestige within the sector and are highly competitive. He added: “The 55 new Fellows created this year have all made a highly valuable contribution to learning and teaching within their institutions and often more widely. “

The new National Teaching Fellows will officially receive their awards at a ceremony which will take place in London on Wednesday 10 October 2012.

You can follow Helen on Twitter @Heloukee and her course can be found at http://www.salford.ac.uk/courses/professional-sound-and-video-technology

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