ECYS News

The winners of this year’s WELS Student, Tutor and Teaching Excellence Awards were announced at the virtual WELS Teaching Excellence Day. In total, 33 awards were made across the three categories.

The winner of the OU’s People’s Choice Award is a research project led by Dr Margaret Ebubedike from the Faculty of WELS, co-investigated by Dr Saraswati Dawadi from the Institute of Education Technology, looking at improving the lives of human trafficking survivors in Nepal and Nigeria.

Now in its third year, researchers at the Faculty of WELS walked away as winners and runner ups at The Open University’s annual Research Excellence Awards. The awards celebrate and recognise the outstanding achievement of the university’s research environment and WELS were no exception.

Tutor Stuart Wroe reveals what it was like to win a 2021 WELS Tutor Award, as well as the places his impressive career has taken him – and the hobby that’s seen him followed by a BBC documentary crew.

Research by WELS academics has resulted in 14 nominations at this year’s Open University Research Excellence Awards, including a project heralded as ‘groundbreaking’ by Dame Elizabeth Fradd DBE.

Research by the WELS School of Education, Childhood, Youth and Sport (ECYS) has been used to create an innovative new reading app.

Monday 20 June is International Father’s Mental Health Day, and its timing – directly following Father’s Day – is no coincidence. Dr Martin Robb, a Health, Wellbeing and Social Care Senior Lecturer specialising in Fatherhood and Masculinity, explains why this event is equally as important, if perhaps not more so. 

The WELS School of Languages and Applied Linguistics (LAL) has contributed to an OU support package for Ukrainian refugees, which aims to help those affected by the war settle into their new homes in the UK and Ireland.

In 2021, the Faculty of WELS introduced the WELS Tutor Awards for the first time, providing students with the opportunity to recognise the dedication and skill of their tutors. Following the awards, analysis was carried out on the nominations to better understand what students valued from their tutors.

An OU study to professionally develop maths teachers in low- and middle-income countries is one of the projects within Edtech Hub’s first research portfolio, and will investigate the impact of technology on teaching in Bangladesh.