Stella Jones-Devitt

National Teaching Fellow 2012 Stella Jones-Devitt has a track record of raising aspirations and building the confidence of non-traditional learners and for facilitating a sense of entitlement and engagement in higher education. She is renowned for her commitment to critical thinking, co-authoring one book devoted to critical thinking in health and social care, with another one in production for developing the critical thinking approaches of higher education practitioners. Within her own practice she uses a range of innovatory approaches in order to develop learning resources that animate learning, inspire creative and critical thinking and, most importantly, help to make complex ideas accessible for a successful student learning experience. One student said: "Who else but Stella could successfully introduce a game of snakes and ladders into a lecture on health, illness and disability?" She has established many effective partnerships with educational institutions and employers' organisations, including working with several sector skills councils, the former Qualifications and Curriculum Authority and third sector agencies. Key partnership work has included developing an accredited transitions route into higher education for non-A level learners and contributing to workforce development of those working in the vision impairment field. Stella has been a national subject advisor for health studies and health promotion and a project consultant for the former HEA Health Sciences and Practice Subject Centre. As an advocate for enhancing the quality of the Health Studies national curriculum, she chaired the revision of the Subject Benchmark for the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA). Stella aligns her role to one of being a tightrope walker in which rope-walking provides the perfect analogy to describe the tension of self, spectacle, willingness to entertain, support, engage, encourage and enthuse. A key motivation for furthering Stellas own search for excellence involves being deliberately exposed on her own tightrope walk; she believes that learners will be reassured if they perceive that academics wobble, stumble and falter, just like them, yet with the right support and determination, they can still succeed.