Biomedical Science BSc (Hons)

Teaching

You are taught through a combination of lectures, seminars, group work, interactive workshops and laboratory practicals. Interactive workshops take a variety of formats and are intended to enable the application of learning through discussion and small group activities. Seminars enable the discussion and development of understanding of topics covered in lectures, and laboratory practicals are focused on developing subject specific skills and applied individual and group project work.

In addition, meetings with personal academic tutors are scheduled on at least 4 occasions in the first year and three occasions in each of the other years of a course.

You have the opportunity to engage with professional Biomedical Science practitioners and visit relevant potential employers in a range of different modules in each year.

You will use a range of excellent laboratory facilities, computing suites and software relevant to Biomedical Science throughout the course.

Contact time

In a typical week you will have around 16 contact hours of teaching and in the final year you will have slightly less contact time in order to do more independent study.

The nature of your contact time will vary from module to module but for a 15-credit module it will typically be structured around:

• 8 hours of interactive workshops
• 7 hours of supervised laboratory practicals
• 1 hour of group workshops
• 1 hour of Study Skills (first year only)

Independent self-study

In addition to the contact time you are expected to undertake around 8-9 hours of personal self-study per week. Typically, this will involve completing online activities, reading journal articles and books, working on individual and group projects, undertaking research in the library and online, preparing coursework assignments and presentations, and preparing for examinations.

Independent learning is supported by a range of excellent learning facilities, including the Hive and library resources, the virtual learning environment, and extensive electronic learning resources.

Teaching staff

You will be taught by a teaching team whose expertise and knowledge are closely matched to the content of the modules on the course. Our biomedical team is made up of senior academics, professional practitioners with clinical experience, demonstrators and technical laboratory officers. The team includes internationally-recognised scientists whose specialist areas include: cardiovascular disease, wound healing, cancers, diabetes and dementia-related disorders.

Postgraduate research students who have undertaken teacher training may also contribute to the teaching of seminars under the supervision of the module leader. Teaching is informed by research and consultancy, and 56 per cent of University lecturers have a higher education teaching qualification or are Fellows of the Higher Education Academy. You can learn more about the staff by visiting our staff profiles.

Assessment

The course provides opportunities to test understanding and learning informally through the completion of practice or 'formative' assignments.

Each module has one or more formal or 'summative' assessments which are graded and count towards the overall module grade. Assessment methods include written examinations and a range of coursework assessments such as essays, laboratory reports, portfolios, presentations and a final year independent study project.

The precise assessment requirements for an individual student in an academic year will vary according to the mandatory modules taken, but a typical formal summative assessment pattern for each year of the course is:

Year 1

• 3 formal examinations of 2 hours and 3 formal examinations of 1.5 hours duration
• 1 practical test of 2 hours duration
• 1 essay
• 6 x practical files/reports
• 2 x individual or group presentations

Year 2

• 3 x formal examinations of 2 hours and 4 formal examinations of 1.5 hours duration
• 1 essay
• 4 practical reports
• 4 reports
• 2 individual or group presentations
• 1 research proposal

Year 3

• Major independent study project of 7000 - 9000 words
• 1 poster
• 1 formal examinations of 2.5 hours and 4 formal examinations of 1.5 hours duration
• 2 practical examinations of 1.5 hours
• 3 essays
• 2 reports

Feedback

You will receive feedback on practice assessments and on formal assessments undertaken by coursework. Feedback on examination performance is available upon request from the module leader. Feedback is intended to support learning and you are encouraged to discuss it with personal academic tutors and module tutors as appropriate.

We aim to provide you with feedback on formal course work assessments within 20 working days of hand-in.

Programme specification

For comprehensive details on the aims and intended learning outcomes of the course, and the means by which these are achieved through learning, teaching and assessment, please download the latest programme specification document.