Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP)

The University of Reading has an active and vibrant group of staff, consisting largely of new lecturers, undertaking the PGCAP at any one time. The PGCAP is co-ordinated by the Centre for Staff Training and Development and CDoTL contribute to a number of workshops as part of the programme.

As part of the PGCAP, staff are required to create a reflective teaching portfolio and to undertake a teaching and learning research project relating to their area of interest. Each year, the University awards a New Lecturers Project Prize to the project considered by the PGCAP Examiners Board to be most likely to influence the teaching and learning practices within the candidate's School and/or disciplinary area.

Project Prizes

All projects and portfolios submitted as part of the PGCAP are eligible to be considered for the New Lecturers Portfolio and Project Prizes.

• 2010/11

This year the PGCAP Portfolio Prize was awarded to Henny Osbahr (School of Agriculture, Policy and Development), and exceptionally this year, three PGCAP Project Prizes were awarded;

Best overall project:

Andrew Charlton-Perez (Department of Meteorology) - Introducing Problem Based Learning Approaches in Meteorology

Runners up:

Phil Baker (School of Biological Sciences) - Investigation of learning performance during a revised statistics module for MSc wildlife management students

AND

Simon Clarke (School of Biological Sciences) - A Comparison of Microbiology Degree Courses

• 2009/10

In this year the PGCAP Portfolio Prize was awarded to James Garnett (Institute of Education), and exceptionally this year, three PGCAP Project Prizes were awarded;

Best overall project:

Ruth Evans (Geography and Environmental Science) - Enhancing students' academic performance, employability and research-teaching synergies. A project evaluating a new method of assessment in a third year undergraduate geography module.

Runners up:

Katrina Bicknell (Pharmacy) - The use of wiki technology to evaluate and assess group work in a problem-based learning task.

Liz Shaw (Geography and Environmental Science) - Peer assessed group poster presentations as an 'assessment for learning' approach to teaching microbial biogeochemistry to environmental science undergraduates.

• 2008/09

winner: 

Rhianned Smith (former Undergraduate Learning Officer at MERL)

Rhianned's project investigated the problems undergraduates face when trying to navigate unfamiliar learning environments such as archives or museums and suggested that an enquiry-based learning approach can be used to support students as they develop new information handling skills. The project builds on the work undertaken as part of CETL-AURS at the Museum of English Rural Life. Rhianned was awarded £1000 for her staff development account in recognition of her achievement.