NTFS 2024: ‘Learning by heart’

What does being awarded a National Teaching Fellowship mean to you?   

I am incredibly thankful to have received this National Teaching Fellowship, it’s a real pinnacle of my career in education! As a medical doctor, I have long loved providing medical education, and this award feels like a wonderful validation of my efforts over a number of decades. I also look back to when I failed medical school in the 1980s, then spent a year working as a cleaner and production line worker. I learnt then that education is a real privilege. I worked as hard as I could to eventually return to medicine.  

Given my experience, since those early days I’ve had a particular passion to support learners who are struggling or failing. I therefore, primarily think of this fellowship, as an opportunity to further reach out to support students in need, and I am so grateful for this award to help me do this! 

What do you consider the impact of this recognition will be to yourself, your students and your colleagues?  

Being awarded a National Teaching Fellowship is an incredible honour and I am determined to use it to the best of my ability to support my students and colleagues.  

In the first place, awards, especially of this magnitude, should be shared celebrations. The achievements I’ve had in education cannot be considered only as my own, but rather the result of so many shared interactions and projects. In recognition of this, I hope to let my students and colleagues know that they should feel part of this award too. I do not intend this to be a physical award sitting on a shelf, but rather an active award to encourage each and every student and colleague who has helped me on the way. 

I wish also to encourage those who have encouraged me. I am fortunate to have had excellent support from my institute and UCL in my long journey as an educator. It was my institute (Queen Square Institute of Neurology) who supported me to become their first professor of teaching. I have also felt strongly encouraged by UCL, not only in terms of promoting an environment which encourages innovations in education, but also in terms of specific support.  I am so grateful that my application for the National Teaching Fellowship was actively supported by UCL’s fantastic Teaching Excellence Awards Lead (TEAL) and Vice-Provost (Education & Student Experience).  

Nationally, I suspect that a still higher profile for education would be beneficial both for teachers and students. I believe that these National Teaching Fellowships achieve just this and can send out the message to a wide audience that educators are valued.  

As for the impact on myself, this I hope will be seen through the impact I can have on those around me, to hopefully inspire, motivate and support them in succeeding with their own hopes and goals. 

What, for you, epitomises teaching excellence?  

When demonstrating evidence of teaching impact, it may be tempting to try and find the largest ‘numbers’ we can. However, at its heart, I believe teaching excellence is about each individual student. Each student will have their own aspirations, and their own requirements for support.  

Teaching excellence should foster an environment where each student feels listened to and supported. In short, each student should feel that they are being treated as an individual rather than just one of many. This is a challenging requirement with all the competing requirements in education, but I believe it is at the centre of teaching excellence. 

I readily confess there are still many areas that I can further improve upon here. One area that I have made progress on is promoting (and helping design) student surveys to try and hear each student’s voice. In addition, responding to each student with very individualised feedback, and thus offering support and encouragement in every way possible, is another way to help students feel valued. 

Have you any immediate plans for maximising the impact of your National Teaching Fellowship?  

Firstly, I intend to highlight within my institution that this is an award that recognises above all the great support and teamwork that I have benefited from as an educator. This theme of a ‘collective’ award is based on fact but is also part of my desire to share the encouragement I now feel with as many of my students and colleagues as I can.  

I very much hope that this National Teaching Fellowship will help empower me as I continue to develop a number of aspirational educational projects which would need support from a number of senior figures. These projects are based around bringing educators together. Like any change management plans it is incumbent on me, as the initiator, to collaborate and hopefully convince others of their virtue. I do believe that the National Teaching Fellowship will greatly assist me with these endeavours. 

I also intend to use the experience I have gained over the application process for this award to offer any insight I can to future candidates applying for a National Teaching Fellowship. I am so grateful for this opportunity and I would like to work hard to help others achieve this too. 

Finally, I am very excited about interacting with other National Teaching Fellows. This community has great potential for enabling educational projects between institutions, and I look forward to the ideas that I am sure will freely flow in this group! 

What advice would you give to prospective NTFs?  

1. Show what makes you an individual, let your character and passion for education seep through the application form. 

2. If you are starting on an application, remember that almost certainly there will be a lot more to write about in terms of achievements than you might at first think. Asking colleagues can be a helpful way forward as they remember achievements that you have forgotten! 

3. The application, in my experience at least, does take a lot of work. Hopefully you will be able to seek advice from your institute’s TEAL to help guide you in this process, which will likely require many iterations. 

4. If you are thinking about a possible application to the National Teaching Fellowship in future years, gathering evidence of impact proactively can really help when you eventually come to the application process. 

Professor Tim Young is a professor (teaching) at the Queen Square Institute of Neurology, University College London. He qualified as a medical doctor in the 1990s and has worked as a neurologist since 2000. Academically he obtained his PhD in neuroscience in 2009. Since he was a medical student, Tim has provided medical education for students and has continued this with a passion ever since. In 2017 Tim changed his focus primarily to medical education and less on clinical work. He leads both an undergraduate and postgraduate degree course at his institute and has been actively involved in promoting medical education both nationally and internationally.  

You can find out more about Tim in his inaugural professor lecture here