Dr Clare Milsom

National Teaching Fellow 2014 Dr Clare Milsom is renowned for her enthusiasm and commitment. As a teacher she is an excellent role model, being reflective, adventurous and never satisfied with second-best in her own practice. On the two programmes (PG Certificate and 3i's Information, Ideas and Insights) that she leads, her students are overwhelmingly positive with comments including, "You are an inspirational teacher, whose practices I will try to model". Supportive, but also constructively critical, Clare pushes staff who study with her to find their best practice and to seek to inspire their own students in turn. Clare has been instrumental in supporting new ways in which the institution uses data as an underpinning tool for development and enhancement, making use of the analysis of qualitative data from student surveys in particular. Clare works with programme teams to identify both areas of excellence to celebrate and others where the planning and delivery of the curriculum can benefit from rigorous examination and improvement. She has also worked with service teams, such as the library to make highly effective use of survey data to enhance service delivery, encouraging a holistic approach to enhancement across LJMU. Through her work with student record data Clare identified a dip in student performance in the second year of their study. This led to a successful HEA grant application: 'The forgotten year - Characterising the sophomore slump' ( £200,000). Reviewers applauded a key strength of the project in that the work 'contributes to filling a clear gap in pedagogical research'. Project outcomes have led to changes in curriculum design and the development of a second year induction programme. Clare is a professional in every aspect of her work, setting the highest standards for herself and others. This has meant that the dissemination of good practice is always seen to be effective at both an institutional level (for example through the learning and teaching conference and the festival of learning and teaching which she initiated) and at a programme team and individual level. This has genuinely made a difference to practice across the University.