Mr Paul Jones

National Teaching Fellow 2011 Paul Jones has built a reputation within his subject and undertakes leading and influential roles in the university, nationally and at an international level. He has enhanced the learning experiences of his students by adapting traditional, and developing innovative new methods of teaching in architecture, drawing upon research and scholarship as well as his own professional evidence base. Paul's overall aim as a teacher is to encourage students to aspire to and attain the highest possible academic standards. Fundamentally, Paul's approach has been to engage students in the challenge of learning and to demystify its application, especially their design process. He has endeavoured to create an environment where his students enjoy their studies; in his experience happy students are more productive. Through active and positive engagement, students' work achieves a higher academic standard. In the 2010 National Student Survey (NSS), Northumbria University achieved the highest national scores for student satisfaction in architecture. Paul has designed approaches to learning which site the studio design project central to programme learning and teaching strategies. He has played a principal role in the progressive adoption of project-based learning using constructive alignment within the wider school. Paul practices research-informed teaching and engages students with authentic projects to enable deep learning; students' exposure to real projects and their contribution to exhibitions and student conferences has transformed their learning experiences. Paul continues to enhance his own skills in research and design practice and he is an award winning architectural designer with an outstanding record in international architectural competitions. With this success, Paul has led students and colleagues by example, reframing his own design processes into design guides and teaching materials, navigating students through their own design process. This has led to a number of them achieving international success with their own work. These design guides were also submitted for the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and have led to Paul's expertise being sought through international design consultancy.