Dr Donna Peberdy is Senior Lecturer and Course Leader of BA Film and Television and MA Film Production at Solent University, Southampton. Central to Donna’s ethos as an educator and Course Leader is to create an accessible, meaningful and stimulating teaching and learning environment that boosts self-efficacy, confidence and employability.
She is committed to transforming the student experience of higher education through creative, experiential and authentic teaching, learning and assessment. Donna’s drive as Course Leader has been to bring critical studies and creative practice together. She transformed assessment design in her department, significantly reducing the number of summative assessments and bolstering formative assessments to positively impact student experience and outcomes. Designing and replacing traditional assessments with creative and experiential formats, Donna has enhanced student engagement with practicable and industry-relevant variations, such as film festival programming and feature articles. In designing authentic assessments, Donna is driven by creativity as well as social, cultural and industrial relevance, working with industry and the wider community to engage with real issues and challenges to inspire students, such as supporting students to produce television drama pilots informed by current debates around mental health and wellbeing.
An active researcher with a strong publication record crossing disciplines of film, culture and identity politics, research-informed teaching is at the heart of how Donna seeks to inspire students and motivate colleagues. She actively participated as a steering group member for the launch of the British Conference for Undergraduate Research, since supporting students to develop research proposals, papers and posters as well as mentoring students to pursue publication of their research in undergraduate journals such as Film Matters.
In 2010, Donna established the undergraduate magazine Diegesis, which has since enabled over 250 students to publish their research-informed writing and more than 50 students to gain editorial experience. A strong advocate for sharing practice as an important pedagogic process in developing teaching excellence, Donna established and developed key initiatives that form the basis for Solent’s teaching and learning community, including Solent’s peer observation scheme – Peer Practice Exchange – and the Solent Teaching and Learning Community Conference.