Mrs Penny Wiggins

National Teaching Fellow 2009 Penny Wiggins is a Learning and Teaching Fellow having being selected by the university as a Fellow of the 'Blended Learning Unit', the university's Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. Penny is also Associate Head of the School of Law. The student learning experience has always been at the forefront of her approach to learning with many innovations in face-to-face teaching and the use of technology in learning. Penny's approach to learning is based on the principles of active engagement both in and out of the classroom. This is a multi-faceted approach using electronic voting systems, tablet PCs, videos, podcasts, blogs, multiple choice quizzes together with highly interactive face to face sessions all to stimulate learning. A student comments "I found myself in a play last week, though I'm studying law!" Another comments "This is the best module we have studied all year." Penny was one of the original authors of IOLIS, a HEFCE funded project in the early 1990s providing an interactive, resource-based CD Rom for the core modules of undergraduate law degrees. She is an enthusiastic user and shaper of the university's Managed Learning Environment. "Penny was the driver; leading by example and encouraging her colleagues": Director of Learning Technology. Penny is particularly proud of the successful validation approved by the professional body of an innovative distance learning programme, unique nationally in having no attendance requirement and in its interactive use of technology for learning, pastoral care, skills development and career guidance. Another first is the external accreditation of the three innovative Masters programmes, the only in the Ukraine, modelled on her approach to interactive learning at the National Law Academy of the Ukraine, through two Tempus projects, opening international employability opportunities to the Academy's students. Penny has an international reputation from working with universities in the Ukraine, Poland, Ireland and France. Penny is in demand nationally through the Higher Education Academy's UK Centre for Legal Education. She gives enthusiastic support to her colleagues across the university and beyond. A colleague comments "Penny leaves a lasting, positive and energetic impression on others from the very first engagement." Since winning her award in 2009, Penny has subsequently retired.