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Teaching

Since 2023 I have been a teaching assistant on the core quantitative criminology undergraduate modules at the University of Manchester:
During this time I have been: In my first year teaching on these course units I was awarded the First Year TA Award after being nominated by the course unit directors:

“Nicola Fox was one of the four Teaching Assistants covering the computer lab sessions of CRIM20441 Making Sense of Criminological Data and CRIM20452 Modelling Criminological Data. It is Nicola’s first year teaching MSCD and MCD. In both courses, TAs are responsible for assisting students while they undertake data analysis tasks following step-by-step workbooks in computer lab environments. Other responsibilities of TAs involve holding weekly office hours and replying to student queries over email and through an online Discussion Board. Supporting these labs is challenging because people come from diverse backgrounds and often find learning statistics and programming very difficult.

Nicola is one of the best TAs we have worked with – she always prepares her teaching in advance, including potential questions from students, and even makes suggestions to better improve the online teaching materials. She went above and beyond in her contributions to both courses, putting herself forward to help the students and her fellow TAs and showing a positive, ‘can do’ attitude that was much appreciated. Nicola’s teaching was peer-reviewed by David Buil-Gil, and he was impressed by her ability to address student questions while motivating them to further engage with data analysis: “She is very clear in her communication with students, and the students are generally attentive and engaged, and comfortable with interacting with her”.”

(Thiago Oliveira, David Buil-Gil, and Nico Trajtenberg, Course Unit Directors)

I have also delivered a seminar on NLP and machine learning for the 2022 UKRI and NWSSDTP Methods North West Seminar Series, focusing on presenting the material in an accessible way to reach a broad audience.

Sharing my knowledge with others has been a lifelong passion, starting as a secondary school student doing work experience as a primary school teacher. As an adult, I’ve volunteered as an English teacher in a small rural village in India, approaching lessons with energy and creativity, weaving fun and music into the learning process. Even in my IT career, teaching has played a key role - whether training users on new software, guiding teams through system changes, or communicating updates to a diverse mix of stakeholders across disciplines, technical backgrounds, and countries. I've learned to adapt my approach to suit each person, making complex information clear, relevant, and accessible.