{"id":626,"date":"2022-04-22T16:45:41","date_gmt":"2022-04-22T16:45:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teachinginnovations.surrey.ac.uk\/?page_id=626"},"modified":"2022-04-30T08:18:22","modified_gmt":"2022-04-30T08:18:22","slug":"the-pedagogic-value-of-cake-2","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/teachinginnovations.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/the-pedagogic-value-of-cake-2\/","title":{"rendered":"The pedagogic value of cake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.surrey.ac.uk\/people\/emma-mayhew\">Professor Emma Mayhew<\/a> \u2013 Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Each year The Great British Bake Off attracts huge audiences. Niche cup-cake shops have been springing up on the high street over the last decade and, during lockdown, the scarcity of flour shows just how popular homemade baking has become\u2026and quite right. Most of us love cake.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, ten years ago, when I worked at the University of Reading, I introduced a 10 minute break in the middle of my two-hour, level 6 seminars. During those ten minutes, my students and I sat together and chatted over a Tupperware container of home-made cake. We had decided on a cake rota at the start of the autumn term. Each week a different student volunteered to made cupcakes, fairy cakes, millionaire\u2019s short bread, lemon drizzle cake, chocolate brownies and carrot cake.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This worked so well that the following year I rolled out my pilot project across all my Level 6 seminar groups. This may seem a rather self-indulgent concept. Six seminars a week does equal six slices of delicious homemade cake. But this isn\u2019t just about the cake and the simple enjoyment of baking. Cake has pedagogical value.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In these breaks we chat. We don\u2019t just chat about the actual topic of debate in the seminar. We talk about dissertations, essays, careers and controversial authors. We complain about the price of food, the weather, what\u2019s on TV, the economy and politicians. We bond a little more as a group and everyone, including me, becomes less intimidating to the quieter students. We carefully tidy our cake cases away, scoop up the crumbs and start debating the topic of the week again. We\u2019re relaxed, refuelled and reenergised.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And this doesn\u2019t just work for students! I also ran several large conferences, designed to share some of the great practices we had learned on a large Electronic Management of Assessment (EMA) Programme. I baked and iced and shared themed cakes with conference attendees.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/emmamayhew1.files.wordpress.com\/2022\/04\/image-2.png?w=1024\" alt=\"A series of colour cakes on a wooden board\" class=\"wp-image-323\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Optimal learning occurs when students and colleagues are happy, calm, engaged and when we feel part of a wider group experience. Cake can help to deliver this environment.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For more information contact:&nbsp; Emma Mayhew, Associate Dean (Education), e.mayhew@surrey.ac.uk&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professor Emma Mayhew \u2013 Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Each year The Great British Bake Off attracts huge audiences. Niche cup-cake shops have been springing up on the high street over the last decade and, during lockdown, the scarcity of flour shows just how popular homemade baking has become\u2026and quite right. Most of us<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/teachinginnovations.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/the-pedagogic-value-of-cake-2\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">&#8220;The pedagogic value of cake&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-626","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachinginnovations.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/626","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachinginnovations.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachinginnovations.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginnovations.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginnovations.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=626"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginnovations.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/626\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":924,"href":"https:\/\/teachinginnovations.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/626\/revisions\/924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teachinginnovations.surrey.ac.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=626"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}