Dr Fiona Kennedy
Senior Lecturer (Academic Development)
Academic Development and Student Learning
Prior to taking up a post in Glasgow Caledonian University, Fiona’s clinical background was Occupational Therapy, working within a variety of acute medical, community, and accident and emergency-based services. In addition to her clinical duties, Fiona engaged proactively to supporting student learning within the workplace, acting as a Practice Educator. In April 2004, Fiona brought her passion for learning and teaching into the academic environment and joined Glasgow Caledonian University, working within the School of Health and Life Sciences for 15 years before joining the GCU Academic Development and Student Learning team. In her current role, Fiona is the Programme Leader for the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practices, and the Post Experience Certificate in Supporting Student Learning; both being taught, credit-bearing programmes of study leading to the award of Fellowship with Advance HE.
Further to completing a Postgraduate Certificate in Learning, Teaching and Higher Education, and obtaining a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2007, Fiona achieved Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in 2016. She completed her Professional Doctorate in 2013, producing a thesis entitled “Levelling: A basic social process of successful and credible learning in the first year of undergraduate study”, and in 2019 completed the certificated EQUiiP programme (Educational Quality at Universities for inclusive International Programmes).
Fiona has been nominated for the GCU Student Led Teaching awards on several occasions. In 2010, she was nominated and shortlisted for two awards; ‘Effective Teaching that Motivates and Inspires Teaching’ and ‘Effective Teaching that Offers Timely and Constructive Feedback’, going on to win the latter category. In 2011, Fiona received nomination and shortlisting in the category ‘Effective Teaching that Helps Make Sense of the Subject’, and in 2014 she was nominated and shortlisted for the ‘Tremendous Technology’ award. In 2015 she received a nomination for one student-led award (category not known) and in 2017 she received nominations for two categories; ‘Inspirational teaching’ and ‘Outstanding student focused teaching’. 2019 saw a further two nominations for awards, this time in the categories of ‘Fantastic Feedback’ and ‘Super Support’. Fiona was nominated in the category ‘Sensational Supervision and Support’ in 2020, and in 2022 received a nomination for the category of ‘Terrific Teaching’.