The winner of the 2014 Student Academic Choice Award for Best Innovation was Dr David Dye of the Department of Materials.

Biography

David Dye is a Reader in the Department of Materials and an EPSRC Leadership Fellow. His research mostly concerns the understanding of the mechanics of titanium, nickel and zirconium alloys in jet engines and nuclear reactors; both to develop better materials so as to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions, and to understand how to avoid failures. He has been a hall warden and Senior Tutor, and postdoc’ed in Canada after his PhD and BA in Cambridge. A lot of his work is conducted at synchrotron and neutron diffraction facilities around the world, including the XFEL at Stanford, the SNS in Oak Ridge, the ESRF in Grenoble and ISIS and Diamond in the UK.  

“I’m very proud and grateful to receive this award"

His lectures on first and second year metallurgy are on YouTube and get around 10,000 views per month.

Reaction to winning the SACA for Best Innovation

“I’m very proud and grateful to receive this award. I’m very happy that the approach of ‘flipping the lecture’ has been so well received by students, replacing lectures with in-class discussion and putting the lecture materials online.”

Dr Dye can be found on Twitter at @DavidDye9 , and he also maintains a blog , his College page  and information about his work in the Department of Materials.

What students said about Dr David Dye

• "His use of Learning Catalytics on lectures and tutorials made for an extremely interesting and worthwhile learning experience. The concepts were more easily grasped by the students and the fact that many questions and doubts were posed and answered during lectures allowed for an even more in depth understanding of the subject."
  
  
• "Innovated the lecturing process by introducing the 'peer instruction' method, where students used their web enabled devices to interact with the lecturer. He wrote detailed course notes, recorded videos of himself explaining the material and left time during the contact hours to solve the students problems. This is a much more effective way of lecturing than the classic monologue all of us are used to."
  
  
• "Tested out a new teaching method last year, where students watch videos of him explaining the topic, and read the corresponding Notes for the next Lecture with him. During lectures, Dr. Dye used an online program to ask us questions about the video/notes and explained the answer whenever needed."
  
  
• "This method had his lectures/explanations posted on YouTube, which allowed the students to revisit topics whenever they wanted, wherever they wanted, on whatever YouTube enabled device they had."
  
  
• "Dr. Dye has successfully implemented a new style of teaching called Peer Instruction. The basic theory is taught through videos he uploads online and lectures are devoted to insightful discussion and problem solving. He is able to keep us interested and challenge us intellectually."
  
  
• "His teaching was accessible and easy to grasp, even when dealing with complicated concepts. The interactive lectures (through the use of an online system called Learning Catalytics) were extremely captivating and all of them, as well as all tutorials, were given with visible enthusiasm and readiness to explain every question posed by the students."

Dr Dye on Peer Instruction