CLeaR Fellows 2016 – Peter Bier
Why enhance teaching? The elephant in the room
Peter is a Professional Teaching Fellow from the Department of Engineering Science. He regularly teaches mathematics and programming to classes of 700+ students and has been the recipient of numerous teaching awards. Peter is well known as “the unicycle guy” and he frequently incorporates circus demonstrations into his lectures, to help bring physics concepts to life.
He is in an early adopter of e-learning tools and has a significant amount of experience with using technology to more effectively engage large cohorts of students, both in person and online. He is particularly interested in how e-learning tools can be used to provide faster feedback to students and pioneered the use of the Q&A forum software Piazza in New Zealand.
During his fellowship year, Peter will adopt emerging e-learning technologies that can be used to enhance the student learning experience. In particular he will address the important aspect of timely and relevant feedback, so that students don’t have to wait a significant length of time to receive feedback on work they have done.