Dr. Diane Westwood

Dr. Diane Westwood (she/her) was a Principal Lecturer (Learning and Teaching) in Psychology at the University of Sunderland.

Dr. Diane Westwood is an award-winning member of the Faculty of Applied Sciences and a former member of its Psychology department. As a stimulating and adventurous teacher, Diane developed learning, teaching and assessment methods to engage curiosity and creativity, drawing on her research on playfulness, and taking inspiration from the disciplines of art and design.

Crossing pedagogical boundaries, she feels, has helped Psychology students clarify what it means to ‘produce’ new knowledge and to emphasise ‘process’ in learning. Starting with the question “What do you do when you’re not at University?” led her students to a range of fascinating projects that bridge their academic and outside lives.

During her time at the University Diane supported students to present their research as digital sketchbooks and to produce and screen digital stories, finding that this is, for many, a magical moment – powerfully transformative as a new mode of expression opens up to them – and a moment that she recognises from her own experience of learning the digital storytelling method. A colleague has noted that students seem ‘two inches taller’ during the screening of their digital stories.

Diane has now left the University.