Contextualizing the teaching and assessment of engineering skills

We are frequently being informed that Engineering graduates are not 'work ready', but lacking in a broad range of generic skills, despite these being mandatory for professional body accreditation. In this case study we present a newly developed second year undergraduate module which explicitly integrates the practice and assessment of generic skills with realistic technical challenges in 'scenarios' (week long intensive group projects). It is intended that this format would demonstrate the relevance of the generic skills to the students and hence improve engagement and learning. Observations by staff and feedback from students confirmed the success of this approach

Potential cellular and biochemical mechanisms of exercise and physical activity on the ageing process

Exercise in young adults has been consistently shown to improve various aspects of physiological and psychological health but we are now realising the potential benefits of exercise with advancing age. Specifically, exercise improves cardiovascular, musculoskeletal, and metabolic health through reductions in oxidative stress, chronic low-grade inflammation and modulating cellular processes within a variety of tissues. In this this chapter we will discuss the effects of acute and chronic exercise on these processes and conditions in an ageing population, and how physical activity affects our vasculature, skeletal muscle function, our immune system, and cardiometabolic risk in older adults

Individual peer assessment of contribution to group work (IPAC): Key points and recommendations

Individual Peer Assessment of Contribution to group work (IPAC) has been widely reported in the literature as successfully addressing problems that arise when students are asked to perform group work, such as complaints of ‘passengers’, and staff and student concerns about fairness of the marks. However, there are multiple variations on how to implement it, which makes it difficult for current and potential users to have an in-depth view and understanding of this assessment method or what works best. A working group was created at University College London (UCL) to look into this methodology (IPAC Consortium). This paper reports the key points of the IPAC methodology, as well as guidelines and recommendations for practice, e.g. make it more useful for students by sharing the feedback. These are informed in the review of relevant literature, discussion with academics and educators, and own experience. We also introduce the software that is currently in use at UCL to implement this practice easily and time efficiently. This is of interest to anyone organizing and running assessed student group work activities, and that is using or might want to use in the future the IPAC methodology