Blog

The LearnHigher Working Group are keen to hear about and share your experiences of the LearnHigher website materials by means of short videos, which may be showcased at the forthcoming ALDcon in June. This can be achieved through three simple steps: Please choose ONE of the following themes: Submitting a resource:How did you find the process? What correspondence did you receive? Have you received/shared your certificate of submission? Promoting a resource:What is your resource? Why did you create it? Who is it aimed at? Why would you recommend it? Using a resource:How did you find your resource? Which resource did […]

This #Take5 blog post is brought to you from Gilly Salmon – and we are so delighted to be able to present her latest thoughts on the 5-stage model for online learning. If not now – when? The 5-stage model: Carpe Diem The 5-stage model for online learning was first built nearly 30 years ago from grounded and action research. (Sure, cue violins!).  It was rooted in social constructivism, learner engagement and scaffolding  when content was still king. Initially, I deployed it to support tutor development – the term I called ‘e-moderating’.  Fast forward through three editions of the book, another on […]

Monday 16th May @ 3pm – 4pm Although it might not always feel like it, we all have the capacity and the potential to influence others and bring about change. Too often ideas of ‘leadership’ can get muddled up with ‘management’, but if we switch focus from authority to relationships, from responsibility to advocacy, and from hierarchy to mentoring, then suddenly leadership becomes a lot more accessible, to everyone. In this session, Carina and Kate share their experiences of leading and influencing and what’s worked for them, and invite you to reflect on how you might already influence others and […]

Inclusive practice in learning development (practitioner event) This #Take5 post is brought to you from the ALDinHE Events Working Group (see https://aldinhe.ac.uk/working-group/events-group/). The group organises our LD@3 programme and this post reflects particularly on a practitioner event on Inclusive practice in Learning Development that took place in September last year. In this post Sandie Donnelly reflects not just on issues relating to inclusivity but also on the nitty gritty of organising an LD@3 – and this particular and very important LD@3.  As you read through, we hope that you might also be inspired to run an LD@3 of your own. Feel the vulnerability […]

In this blog article, we will be sharing the results of our research into student engagement with online learning and which virtual educational tools are preferred by staff and students at the University of Exeter. After the COVID-19 pandemic hit in 2020, we, as well as all the teaching world, had to rapidly assimilate new online technologies and learning materials, in order to carry out online teaching. Yet, some have proved more popular and engaging than others. This is what we wanted to research: what do staff and students have to say about the online learning tools, and how are […]

ALDinHE is extending an open invitation for mini keynote speakers for our 2022 annual conference in Northampton on 15 June. Our mini keynotes are an excellent opportunity to lead a discussion about a particular area of interest in Learning Development and to network with Learning Developers from across the UK and around the world.This will take place during the Wednesday morning plenary and will run in a ‘speed dating’ style. We invite you to pitch your area of interest (1 minute) along with all the other mini keynote speakers, and prepare 3 prompts for a small group discussion. After 15 […]

March 28 @ 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm This presentation outlines an approach to LD that does not focus on where ‘students should be’ but rather tries to meet them where they are. This ‘pragmatic approach’ is based on real experiences in the classroom informed by critical pedagogy (Freire, hooks). It recognises that the assumed skills of students in HE are a product of social, political and cultural ideas and norms that do not reflect the experiences of many students. We have tried to adopt practices that recognise that the burden of ‘code switching’ (Benzie and Harper, 2020) to prescribed academic norms is often […]

This #Take5 is brought to you by #Take5 and Talon. Last year we collaboratively edited a Special Issue on Collaboration in Higher Education for the Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice. It was hard work, but life affirming to gather so many tales of cooperation and collegiality. In fact, it created such a sense of hope in us that we did not want to stop there – and decided to invite the authors of those articles to come together in a Symposium on the theme of collaboration. Not everybody could make the event – but the majority will be there to speak to their […]

March 16 @ 3:00 pm – 4:00 pm There is a significant amount of literature that looks at the connection between stand-up comedy and teaching (Kaplan and Pascoe 1977; Weaver and Cottrell 1988; Kher, Molstad, and Donahue 1999; Norton, 2001; Baumgartner and Morris 2008; Beavers, 2011). Much of the literature has focused on humour; although it has been beneficial to know that using humour “can deliver a jolt of insight and excitement” and provide the “hooks” that will capture the audience’s interest, I would like to take a broader look at the forms or ‘kata’ of the art of stand-that can inform our practice. […]

In this Symposium, we challenge a Higher Education that is increasingly individualistic to rediscover the power of collaboration, to build spaces and places for partnership between service staff, faculty and students – within institutions, between institutions, and with wider stakeholders. Together we can construct the stories and practices of who we are, what we do, and what we and our students want to become – a space to come together to construct meaning and ourselves. Following on from the publication of our Special Issue of the Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice (JUTLP) on Collaboration in Higher Education, we have brought together […]