I have been teaching at the University of Manchester since 2001, and over that time teaching has evolved from something I simply did well into something I think about carefully, write about, and try to actively improve. My courses now reach over 250 students a year, satisfaction scores consistently outperform departmental and faculty averages, and the feedback methods I have pioneered have been adopted by colleagues across the School. The work spans large core undergraduate courses, a specialist optional unit that has grown from 56 to over 250 students, and the creation and direction of the only cross-faculty HCI undergraduate programme at the University.

Teaching Philosophy

Good teaching, in my view, rests on a few things that are easily stated but require sustained effort to deliver well. Students learn better when feedback is timely and personal rather than passive and delayed, so I developed what I call a push feedback system: rather than requiring students to retrieve their feedback, I deliver it directly to them by email. This single change has driven my feedback satisfaction scores to 4.70 against a departmental average of 3.69. It sounds straightforward, but reversing the default assumption — that the student retrieves, rather than the teacher delivers — turns out to matter a great deal in practice. I have written about this in teaching-focused scholarship and contributed related ideas about distributed work to the Wonk.he platform.

Research-led teaching is not just a phrase here. The User Experience unit I created (COMP33511) is taught from the position of someone actively working at the frontier of the field, which means students encounter live research problems, current debates, and methods that are genuinely in use rather than retrospectively described. I published the pedagogical approach behind this at the CHI 2016 conference, addressing how to introduce UX and HCI concepts to students encountering the domain for the first time.

I also make extensive use of open educational resources. All lecture materials are available via Slideshare, where they have accumulated over 11,000 views, and video lectures on YouTube have been watched for over 14,495 minutes. The unit’s custom textbook is published on the LeanPub model, enabling continuous improvement.

Current Teaching

COMP33511 (User Experience) is a third-year optional unit I built from the ground up in 2011. It is the only dedicated HCI unit in the Department, and its growth from 56 students in its first year to 299 in 2024/25 reflects both genuine demand and, I hope, a reputation for quality. The 2024/25 survey scores for 251 students place it above the departmental, school, and faculty averages across all three measured dimensions: excellence at 4.20 against a departmental average of 3.77, organisation at 4.40 against 3.89, and feedback at 4.70 against 3.69. That last figure is the one I am most pleased with.

The CS(HCI) programme, which I founded and have directed since 2012, is the University of Manchester’s only cross-faculty undergraduate degree in Human-Computer Interaction. It combines units from Computer Science, Psychology, Design, and Business across four schools and three faculties, requires no additional specialist teaching, carries no financial overhead, and yet produces graduates with a depth of scientific and research-led HCI education available nowhere else in the institution. Negotiating the programme through four schools and three faculties, creating the necessary approval documentation, and moving it from concept to operation by 2014 was a significant piece of institutional work, and the programme has run successfully ever since.

Previous Teaching

The Databases unit (COMP20312), which I taught as sole lecturer from 2003 to 2009 to cohorts of 130–240 students, consistently outperformed the comparative average on quality scores across every year I delivered it. I pioneered the use of a specialist bespoke publication, produced in partnership with Pearson, instead of traditional handouts — an early example of the kind of curriculum thinking that has continued throughout my career. I also taught Software Engineering I (COMP20341) from 2005 to 2008, and Information Retrieval, Hypermedia and the Web (CS3352) from 2001 to 2003.

Leadership in Teaching

As GTA Lead for Computer Science I recognised a decline in volunteer numbers that was beginning to threaten teaching quality and student experience, and initiated a broad programme of reform. This included creating CS-specific GTA training, introducing wellbeing events for GTAs, reforming the allocation process to maximise time on unit and better match skills to tasks, adding mechanisms so that GTAs can receive formal praise included in references, and organising regular meet-ups for GTA Leads across the Faculty. I also serve as School of Engineering GTA Lead, deputising for Akilu Yunusa-Kaltungo on GTA matters and instigating the SoE GTA Open Forum.

Earlier roles in teaching leadership include Learning Enhancement Officer (2012–2015), membership of the Teaching Innovation Group (2012–2015), and membership of the G7 Curriculum Review Committee (2005/06), which was tasked with a comprehensive revision of the undergraduate curriculum. As UG Applicants Tutor between 2012 and 2017, I introduced the concept of treating applicants as students from the moment of their offer, conducting approximately 1,000 communications with around 600 applicants each year; this coincided with a marked increase in conversion rates from offers to acceptances.

External Examining

I have served as External Examiner for all Computer Science programmes at the University of Nottingham since 2016, and previously held the same role at the University of Abertay from 2010 to 2015. These appointments reflect a broader engagement with teaching quality across the sector that also includes contributions to Wonk.he and a tutorial on practical web accessibility delivered at the International Conference on Web Engineering in 2009, which was sufficiently well received to be invited back the following year.

Teaching Assessment and Recognition

I was assessed by the Faculty — by Rodger Edwards — and received a score of 4/4 across all categories. More meaningfully, the consistent trajectory of student satisfaction in COMP33511 across fourteen years of delivery, and the steady growth in student numbers, represent a kind of ongoing assessment that I find more informative than any single point-in-time review.