The University has launched a new initiative to strengthen its commitment to excellent teaching by embedding a mandatory micro-teach into all recruitment activity for roles that include any element of teaching responsibility.
The move forms part of the University’s wider Teach Well, Consistently Well approach, which promotes meaningful, inclusive and engaging learning experiences for all students. The initiative reflects a growing emphasis on ensuring that teaching excellence is visible not only in practice once colleagues join the University, but from the very beginning of the recruitment process itself. The micro-teach is not a presentation. It is designed to provide candidates with an authentic opportunity to demonstrate how they teach in practice. It enables recruitment panels to observe how candidates design for effective learning, engage participants, facilitate interaction, and create purposeful learning experiences aligned to the University’s educational values. As such, enabling a fairer, more consistent, and evidence-informed recruitment decisions. The guidance also recognises that no two excellent teaching sessions will look the same, encouraging creativity, authenticity and disciplinary individuality within the process.
Importantly, the micro-teach is positioned as a professional teaching interaction rather than a performance. Candidates are encouraged to actively engage micro-teach participants and demonstrate their facilitation skills in a teaching environment. The process also reinforces the University’s belief that excellent teaching is not simply about delivering content but designing activities that enable learning.
The guidance has been developed by the Centre for Academic and Digital Innovation (CADI) and provides practical advice for Schools and Faculties on planning, facilitating and assessing micro-teaches as part of recruitment activity. This includes advice on timing, audience participation, assessment criteria and the appropriate use of supporting technologies and resources. As part of the new initiative, recruitment teams can call on the support of CADI to be part of the audience and review panel for micro-teach component.
Colleagues involved in recruitment and selection are encouraged to familiarise themselves with the new guidance and consider how the micro-teach can support stronger, more authentic conversations about teaching practice during recruitment. The guidance can be found in the Micro-teach in Recruitment section of the CADI website.