Teaching and training
This section is not completely up-to-date!
Professional training
Invited neurodiversity trainer for NHS Fife clinicians (2023)
Invited science communication trainer, Autistica Early Career Researcher programme (2023)
Invited workshops related to neurodiversity, education, and technology for educators and other professionals for venues including the National Autistic Society, Middletown Centre for Autism, West Lothian Local Authority, and others (2017-present)
Student project supervision
Salvesen Mindroom Research Centre, University of Edinburgh School of Clinical Sciences
Wellcome Translational Neuroscience PhD mini-projects, Semester 1 2020, 2021
Co-supervision with Sue Fletcher-Watson of 10-week mini projects for first year PhD students, collecting interview and survey data from educators and the community.
Rebekah Smikle (2021): scoping study with secondary school educators. Project report available on OSF: Smikle, R., Alcorn A.M. & Fletcher-Watson S. (2021). Considerations for adapting the LEANS resource to teach secondary school pupils about neurodiversity: a focus group study. University of Edinburgh. https://osf.io/37evy/
Reesha Zahir (2020): Community consultation study--now published! Zahir, R., Alcorn, A. M., McGeown, S., Mandy, W., Aitken, D., Murray, F., & Fletcher-Watson, S. (2023). Short report: Evaluation of wider community support for a neurodiversity teaching programme designed using participatory methods. Autism, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/13623613231211046
5th-year medical student project, 2020-2021
Anna Nightingale: review of existing interventions for teaching adolescents about neurodevelopmental conditions.
Nuffield Research Placement projects, summer 2020
Two secondary school students completed remote research placements (due to Covid) as part of a widening participation programme offering hands-on research experience.
UCL Institute of Education
Masters in Psychology of Education, 2017-2018
Claudia Seddon: Behavioral analyses of DE-ENIGMA project video and observational data, focused on children's social communication.
Asif Jahangir: Behavioral analyses of DE-ENIGMA project audio annotation data.
Masters in Special and Inclusive Education (MASIE), 2016-2017 (team supervision with Dr. Laura Crane and Prof Liz Pellicano)
Saerom Lee: Quantitative project comparing performance on a facial emotion recognition task between children in a robot-led versus an adult-led teaching programme.
Stefania Mantinioti: "Robots in the classroom? Educator's views on using humanoid robots as a teaching tool for social and emotional skills." Qualitative project using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis.
University of Edinburgh School of Informatics
Honours project students (final year projects), 2012-2013
Charles Fergusson: Designed, implemented, and evaluated the WordLearner proof-of-concept vocabulary-learning Android tablet app, targeted at young children on the autism spectrum. See a video demo of WordLearner here.
Anda-Lucia Flintoaca: Designed, implemented, and evaluated the Rainbow Circles Android phone app for supporting relaxation and emotional regulation through very open-ended, experiential play. It was designed for young children on the Autism spectrum (age 3-6 years) and does not include any language. See a video demo of Rainbow Circles here.
MSc dissertation project students, Summer 2012 (co-supervisor with Dr. Helen Pain)
Olyesya Razuvayevskaya
Shenglan Wu
Eduabasi Essien
Lecturing
Guest lecturer, MSc Developmental Science, University of Edinburgh Psychology department (2024)
Guest lecturer, Autism Research and Practice module, UCL Institute of Education (2020)
Lecturer, Adaptive Learning Environments 1 (ALE1) University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics Fourth-year/ MSc course (2014)
Tutoring, demonstrating, and TA'ing
Research Design and Methodologies, UCL Institute of Education
Masters level course focused on skills for educational research
Seminar facilitation, marking; 2016-2019
Data, Design, and Society (DDS) University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics
Cross-disciplinary undergraduate course, years 1-3
TA and course development, 2016
Professor Ewan Klein has written a blog post about our experience of teaching this class. It includes excerpts from student course feedback, reflecting on their experiences with project-based learning in interdisciplinary teams.
Design for Informatics (D4I) University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art & School of Informatics
MSc Course
TA, 2015
Informatics Research proposal (IRP) University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics
MSc course
Tutor, Semester 2 2012
Informatics 1: Cognitive Science (INF1-CG) University of Edinburgh, School of Informatics
First-year course
TA, tutor, and demonstrator, 2010; 2012