Professor Simon C Riley

Personal Chair of Experiential Student Learning, Director of Teaching for Deanery of Clinical Sciences, Academic Lead for Student-Led, Individually-Created Courses (SLICCs)

Biography

Background

My role is primarily leadership and management in teaching.  I am the Director of Teaching for the Deanery of Clinical Sciences.  I have two main, although quite different, research interests:

  1. In the pedagogy of Higher Education, exploring and developing student's autonomy to co-create their own curriculum through experiential learning, establishing reflective learning skills, and using portfolios for learning.  So, in my practice, in the undergraduate medicine programme, I am lead for Student Selected Components (SSCs), where students choose specialties and projects, where they gain research skills, and insight into career options. Furthermore, I am the academic lead for an institution-wide initiative called 'Student-Led, Individually-Created Courses' (SLICCs) , where students are given autonomy to co-create their own experiential learning course that bears academic credit. If you want to know more, here is a short blog summary (http://www.teaching-matters-blog.ed.ac.uk/student-led-individually-created-courses-sliccs-learning-and-teaching-beyond-disciplinary-silos/) and the SLICC information site (https://www.ed.ac.uk/sliccs/).
  2. My long-standing background as a bioscientist working at the interface with clinical obstetrics - The role and the control of signalling pathways in the placenta and fetal membranes, at the interface with the mother's uterus and cervix, for the maintenance of pregnancy and then to control the initiation and maintenance of labour

Personal Chair of Experiential Student Learning - University of Edinburgh (since 2020)

Senior Lecturer - University of Edinburgh (2001-2020)

Institute for Academic Development – part-time secondment (2015-17)

Travelling Research Fellowship - University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia (2010)

Lecturer - University of Edinburgh (1994-2001)

Post-doctoral Fellowship - Prince Henry's Institute, Melbourne, Australia (1992-94)

Post-doctoral Fellowship - Lawson Research Institute, Ontario, Canada (1988-92)

Qualifications

PhD – University of Edinburgh (1984-88) - Regulation of prostaglandins in the guinea-pig uterus

BSc (Hons in Pharmacology) – University of Edinburgh (1980-84)

 

 

Responsibilities & affiliations

Director of Teaching, Deanery of Clinical Sciences, Edinburgh Medical School

Member of the Design and Implementation group for Student Support and Personal Tutoring (SSPT), in the Service Excellence Project

Member of the University Undergraduate Appeals Committee

Director of Student Selected Components in the MBChB medicine curriculum

Part-time secondment to the Institute for Academic Development

Senior Fellow - Higher Education Academy (2015)

Fellow - Higher Education Academy (2007)

Member - Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (1999)

 

 

Undergraduate teaching

 

Academic Lead and Co-Director, Student-Led, Individually-Created Courses (SLICCs) (https://www.ed.ac.uk/sliccs/)

I contribute (e.g. lectures, workshops, practicals, tutorials, workshops, demonstrations, feedback and assessment) to a range of courses, including:

  • In Biomedical Sciences - particularly in the Reproductive Biology junior and senior Honours programmes [I was co-originator a long while ago, and led this programme for a long period], including Reproductive Biology 3, Conception to Parturition Honours elective, Honours Project Portfolio of Learning, capstone project supervision, etc; also to teaching on Biomedical Sciences 2, Chemical Pharmacology 2, Biomedical Sciences 3, Reproductive Biology 3, Applied Pharmacology 3
  • In MBChB medicine - Endocrinology module in Year2, Student Selected Component (SSC) 1, SSC5

Member of Undergraduate Appeals Committee

 

Postgraduate teaching

Director for PG Taught, Deanery of Clinical Sciences (DCS)

Convenor of DCS PGT Learning and Teaching Committee and Special Circumstances Committee

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Research summary

I have two, quite different research interests:

1. In the pedagogy of Higher Education, exploring and developing student's autonomy to co-create their own curriculum through experiential learning, and establishing reflective learning skills and using portofolios for learning.  In the undergraduate medicine programme, I am Director of Student Selected Components (SSCs), where students choose specialties and projects they are interested in, where they gain research and professional skills, and insight into career options.  I am co-leading the institution-wide initiative Student-Led, Individually-Created Courses (SLICCs), based in the Institute for Academic Development.  In SLICCs, students are given autonomy to co-create their own experiential learning course, which is credit-bearing.

2. The role and the control of signalling pathways in the placenta and fetal membranes, at the interface with the mother's uterus and cervix, for the maintenance of pregnancy and then to control the initiation and maintenance of labour.

 

 

 

 

 

Knowledge exchange

 

 

 

 

Project activity

 

 

 

View all 112 publications on Research Explorer

This article was published on