Professor Derek Jeffrey Raine

National Teaching Fellow 2004 Derek Raine is Professor of Interdisciplinary Science and Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Science in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Leicester. I am also director of The Physics Innovations CETL (piCETL) at Leicester and Director of Teaching in the Department of Physics. My research interests have included Relativity, Cosmology, General Relativistic Quantum Field Theory, Astrophysics and more recently, Complex Systems and Science Education. My main interest in curriculum development is in Problem-Based Learning (PBL). The Physics programme at Leicester has a large PBL component which grew out of the LeAP project (PBL in Astronomy and Physics) and the Interdisciplinary Science degree is taught almost wholly through PBL. A website with examples of PBL problems to cover essentially the whole of core physics is under construction. The PBL approach has been developed for the physics knowledge component of an online PGCE through iTeach. The Interdisciplinary Science programme represents a new approach to science education in which each of the modules is based on an interdisciplinary problem. It is particularly directed to providing researchers with a broadly based science background as well as a more general science education for policy makers, managers and teachers. Materials for the programme are available on request. I have also pioneered a flexibly-paced approach to mathematics for science students with supporting short videos under development (available from the piCETL website). My current plans are focused on complex systems, particularly the application of physics to understanding society, both for its intrinsic interest but also as a shift in focus for physics education at all levels.