University lecturers to be awarded National Teaching Fellowships

An inspiring maths teacher famed for using a ‘trebuchet’ to launch footballs in his lectures, and a leading thinker in the field of disability and social inclusion in education, are to be honoured with National Teaching Fellowships. Paul Hewson and Suanne Gibson of Plymouth University are two of only 50 winners nationally in the scheme, which aims to raise the status of teaching and learning across the UK. Paul is an Associate Professor in Statistics, in the School of Computing and Mathematics, and joined Plymouth in 2004. His educational philosophy is to make mathematics fun, which he does through engaging his audience with technology – from response clickers to medieval catapults. He said: “Learning is about the learner, and I wish to make maths come to life by engaging the whole range of learners. For example, I use a trebuchet and some footballs to demonstrate ideas in modelling and experimental design as well as looking at fundamental principles such as momentum, forces, rates of change and vectors. Whatever the maths, it's fun to see it for real.