Professional engineering institutions and sector skills councils commission Think Up to develop teaching best practice guidance for schools and universities. Our work is often related to emergent themes such as teaching sustainably, creativity or skills for employment. These are all themes which are of growing importance in industry, which usually pose a considerable challenge to universities and schools to deliver, and which Think Up is well-placed to tackle, sitting as we do at the cross-roads of academia and industry.
Our recommendations are drawn from our extensive networks in schools and universities and from other organisations also researching the latest pedagoguies. Our recommendations are also based on our own experience: all of the Think Up leadership team are heavily involved with university teaching and we are able to use this time in the classroom to test the latest approaches proposed for tackling the above themes.
The output of work is usually a best practice guidance report that provides teachers with practical suggestions for classroom application. We are sometimes asked to carry out curriculum design, sequencing the recommendations from our reports into a programme of activities. We also run training seminars for teaching staff to help them develop use our recommendations to shape their teaching.