Brookes Scholarship Groups

Brookes Scholarship Groups are teaching scholarship communities composed of cross-disciplinary academics and professional services staff (10 to 15 in total members) that engage in an active, collaborative, year-long programme on a theme of wide institutional relevance. 

The overarching aims are to enhance student education and to learn with a community of peers. Each member applies to join the group and works on their own project within the theme. In addition, members of the group attend regular group meetings that accelerate and share learning and build a strong sense of community among members. Group meetings may variously take the form of seminars, reading groups, writing circles, mentoring circles or action learning sets.

Each scholarship group is supported by one or two facilitators from the Oxford CAED and is assigned a small fund to support the functions of the community – extra funds may be available for members or the group each year depending on the topic. There is no workload allocation for participation in these groups. Participating in the Brookes Scholarship Groups provides an excellent opportunity for learning across all academic staff and professional services staff.

Features and benefits of participating in Brookes Scholarship Groups

Brookes Scholarship Groups provide a ‘process and content’ approach to enhancing education practices. They have firm foundations in the scholarship of teaching and learning, thus ensuring a strong evidence basis to educational practice developments as appropriate to institutional and sector context.

They:

  • build University-wide community through teaching and learning
  • enable all Brookes' staff to explore interest in undergraduate/postgraduate teaching and learning
  • investigate and incorporate ways that difference can enhance teaching and learning
  • nourish scholarship of teaching and learning and its application to student learning
  • increase staff collaboration across faculties and directorates
  • encourage reflection about education and coherence of learning across disciplines
  • each Brookes Scholarship Group has its own specific goals and objectives, which the facilitator and members refine but each member and the community as a whole are expected to produce outcomes or products about the topic for use by Brookes (and beyond as appropriate)
  • opportunity to meet and work with colleagues on your own projects within the group theme as well as learn from others
  • monthly meetings with peers in the group to work through projects, shape and direction of each meeting is decided upon by the group and is set in the initial ‘away-day’ that each community member must attend
  • a closing scholarship group event 

Past groups