Dr Gordon Ramsay

National Teaching Fellow 2011 Dr Gordon Ramsay wants students to be as excited as he is about his subject area. His teaching is based on creating environments which develop students confidence and trust in their own voice, along with a capacity to engage with, reflect on and learn from the work of their peers. The best teaching should be unforgettable and Gordon sees his brief is to enhance students capacity to challenge and question theoretical as well as peer assumptions. This involves disruption of the conventional lecture format and disruption of the teaching space itself. Gordon works with a high degree of energy and enthusiasm and this rubs off on students. If he has a maxim or touchstone, or even the beginning of a manifesto, he supposes it is to imagine that each session is the last session he will ever teach, the last session the students will ever attend. He believes that together, teachers and learners owe it to themselves to be as intellectually adventurous as they are rigorous; to think and say what they may not have previously thought or said; and to listen to, observe and assess each others thoughts and actions with equal measures of acuteness and generosity. And while they should be at ease with each other, the teaching environment should not be too comfortable. If it is, nothing is happening; we are simply going through the motions. Gordon is deeply committed to widening participation and particularly to the development of collaborative relationships with the wider community. This latter blurs the boundary between university and the wider world, and serves to enrich student knowledge, experience and understanding.