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Professor Diane Butler

Profile summary

  • Regional Academic Staff
  • Professor of STEM Education
  • Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics
  • School of Life, Health & Chemical Sciences
  • diane.butler

Professional biography

Diane Butler is currently

Professor in STEM Education in School of Life, Health and Chemcal Sciences, Faculy of STEM

Previous roles and appointments

  • Associate Dean Academic Excellence STEM Faculty
  • Access, Participation and Success Lead for STEM Faculty
  • Director eSTEeM Centre for Scholarship and Innovation in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics 
  • Science Staff Tutor
  • Scholarship Lead, School of Life, Health and Chemical Sciences
  • Undergraduate (Level 1) Student Support Team Academic Lead
  • Science Staff Tutor Group Chair
  • Deputy Programme Director Natural Sciences
  • Qualification Director Natural Sciences
  • Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning COLMSCT Teaching Fellow

Qualifications

BSc (Hons) Microbiology and Virology, University of Warwick (1985)

PGCE Biology/Science, University of Leeds (1986)

PG Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, Open Univeristy (2002)

MA Online and Distance Learning, Open University (2005)

Professional accreditation
Higher Education Academy Principal Fellow

Research interests

My current research interests focus on supporting academics to develop skills relating to the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) and the delivery of synchronous online tuition in ODL contexts.

Authored resources for SoTL include:

Enhancing Scholarship at the OU - an online toolkit for OU Scholarship and Innovations Centres which describes the approach, the methods and resources successfully used by eSTEeM over the last seven years to facilitate practitioner-led scholarship within STEM.

 

Teaching interests

Current modules:

S291 Clinical Diagnostics Module Team Member

Previous modules:

S290 Investigating Human Health and Disease Module team Member 

S201 Science and Society Module Team Member and Author

S294 Cell Biology Module Team Member and Author

SXHL288 Practical Science: Biology and health Module Team Member

S141 Investigative and mathematical skills in science Module Team Chair and Author

SXR103 Practicing Science Module Team Chair/Examination Board Chair and Author

S288 Practical Science Module Team Member

S104 Exploring Science, Module Team Chair/Examination Board Chair and Author

S103 Discovering Science Module team Member

SEH806 Contemporary issues in science learning Module Team Chair/Examination Board Chair

Impact and engagement

EDEN Research Workshops 2018 (ERW18), Invited expert Round Table "From data use for guidance to guidance for data use - developing data literacy to empower learners" 26.10.2018

Publications

Virtual internships in open and distance learning contexts: Improving access, participation, and success for underrepresented students (2023-05-14)
Butler, Diane; Reid, Kristen; Comfort, Catherine and Potter, Andrew
Distance Education ((Early Access))

[Editorial] Innovations in STEM distance education (2019)
Herman, Clem and Butler, Diane
Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 34(1) (pp. 1-5)

Inclusive Frameworks in Online STEM Teaching and Learning (2023-08-18)
Veuger, Stephany Jane; Butler, Diane; Wood, Peter and Potter, Andrew
In: Keengwe, Jared ed. Handbook of Research on Innovative Frameworks and Inclusive Models for Online Learning (pp. 28-51)
ISBN : 9781668490723 | Publisher : IGI Global

Co-creation via student internships (2024-01-31)
Butler, Diane and Potter, Andrew
In : Advance HE Students as Co-creators Symposium 2024 (31 Jan 2024, Online)

Developing a maturity model to scaffold an evolving institutional culture for SoTL (Poster) (2023-11)
Butler, Diane
In : ISSOTL 23 Context Matters (8-11 Nov 2023, Utrecht, The Netherlands)

What does an inclusive STEM curriculum look like in an online learning context? (2023-11)
Butler, Diane; Potter, Andrew and Wood, Peter R H
In : ISSOTL23: Context Matters (8-11 Nov 2023, Utrecht, The Netherlands)

Developing and implementing a teaching and learning plan at the Open University (OU): a faculty-led approach (2023-07)
Butler, Diane
In : Teaching and Learning Conference 2023: Shaping the future of HE (4-6 Jul 2023, Keele University, Newcastle, UK)

Identifying and developing good practice in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) within STEM HE (2023-06)
Butler, Diane; Collins, Trevor; Gretton, Sarah and Williams, Neil
In : Horizons in STEM Higher Education Conference Proceedings: Making Connections, Innovating and Sharing Pedagogy (28-29 Jun 2023, Swansea University, Wales)

Achieving Student Centred Facilitation in Online Synchronous Tutorials (2018)
Butler, Diane; Cook, Lynda; Haley-Mirnar, Vikki; Halliwell, Catherine and Macbrayne, Louise
In : 10th EDEN Research Workshop 2018 (24-26 Oct 2018, Barcelona) (pp. 76-82)