Dr Steve Cayzer is inspired by diversity and his career reflects this. Steve has an undergraduate degree in combined physiology and programming, a PhD in Computational Neurobiology, five years of IT consultancy and 10 years researching topics such as artificial intelligence and semantic web. He now designs and delivers courses that span engineering and management. However, Steve has also experienced academic failure, with incomplete training in veterinary science. This experience has been turned into a positive, enabling Steve to empathise with students who are struggling and means that far from being intimidated by personal failure, Steve can use it as a learning experience.
He designs his teaching to make use of student diversity; interdisciplinary challenges that require global perspectives and a variety of team roles. Steve is proud of the transformational nature of his teaching; students tell him they have changed as people and leave with the determination and confidence to make a positive change in the world. Steve inspires his colleagues nationally to embrace new teaching methods that enable high quality inclusive peer learning at scale. His particular focus is on Team Based Learning, for which he leads a community of practice and delivers regular staff training and mentoring. He has also designed, delivered and studied MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) which scale up to cohorts of 1000+ with a global reach.
Steve is proud of his alumni, many of whom have gone onto achieve things they did not think themselves capable of before they started. He is also proud of all the staff he has mentored and their own teaching innovations. He is proud of the cultural change he has helped foster, one that views constraints and challenges as opportunities to innovate and improve. He is currently using his experience to help shape the response to the climate emergency, a role that perfectly blends his skills and desire to have an impact. Steve believes that education should be transformative - for us, for students and for the world.