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This #Take5 post is brought to you from Kendall Richards and Nick Pilcher of Edinburgh Napier University – who presented on this topic at the fabulous ScotHELD Winter 2021 Conference. Who we are – and why we wrote this blog We are Kendall Richards and Nick Pilcher. We are lecturers at Edinburgh Napier University. Kendall is in the School of Computing and Nick is in the Business School. Kendall has worked in Australia and the UK in Academic Advice roles, Nick has worked in Scotland in EAP and support roles. We have a recent paper entitled ‘Study Skills: neoliberalism’s perfect Tinkerbell’ which […]

Notice is hereby given of the Annual General Meeting of the Association for Learning Development in Higher Education, to be held online at 15:40 on Thursday 8th April 2021. Further details about the AGM are available here. A key matter for the AGM is the election of new members to the Steering Group of the Association. Self-nominations are now invited from members of ALDinHE who have the enthusiasm and experience to enable the Association to flourish, working with friendly and supportive colleagues on the Steering Group. Further details about the Steering Group and a self-nomination form can be found on our AGM website. […]

Attend #ALDcon21 7th – 9th April 2021 There’s a lot going on this month in ALDinHE with our annual conference taking place fully online this year, 7 – 9th April 2021. If you haven’t yet booked, you can do so from our dedicated conference website. This 19th edition of our well-established and expanding annual conference is focused around four broad strands: 1. Advocacy for Learning Development 2. Creativity for change 3. Embracing diversity 4. Digital equality We have an exciting programme at this conference that will allow members to reflect upon and celebrate our past accomplishments, renew friendships and extend […]

Puzzling the pieces This #Take5 is brought to you from Katharine Stapleford who has solved this year’s Covid-19 problem – how to get students working (and reading) collaboratively when studying online and at a distance. Here’s Katharine: Background I teach on the MA Digital Education programme at Leeds University. The programme is 100% online distance learning and recruits students from all over the world. The programme adopts a flipped learning* design, whereby each weekly unit centres around an interactive student-led synchronous seminar with some asynchronous pre- and post-seminar tasks. Why the jigsaw technique? The underlying principle of the jigsaw technique, […]

Nominations are invited from colleagues by sending a brief (300 words) account of a practitioner’s contribution to learning development to admin@aldinhe.ac.uk Tell us how they have made a difference to students and we will celebrate their achievements. The call for applications is now open. Applications close on Monday 22nd March 2021. Our previous winner and nominees can be found here for: 2020 Some guidelines: You can nominate a colleague at your own institution or a different one. You can nominate yourself! The nominations will be reviewed by a committee of our Emeritus members The committee will be looking for a link to […]

Date / Time: Tuesday 2nd March – 3pm  Location: Online via Zoom – Meeting ID:  872 3622 6036 – Passcode: ncb97=TS Presenters: Debbie Holley and Heidi Singleton, Department of Nursing Sciences, Bournemouth University  Description:  The JISC ‘Student digital experience insights survey’ was recently released, summarising the experiences of over 20,000 HE students at a range of 28 HE institutions. One surprising finding was that only 20% of students gain any ‘real life’ simulation experiences as part of their degree, and these tend to be in engineering design and healthcare. However, our experiences show that with very basic equipment (a SMART phone with internet […]

Date / Time: Thursday 18th February – 3pm Location: Online via Collaborate Presenters: Arielle Redman, University of York Description:  Processing, understanding, and remembering information is often aided by combining images with text or keywords. These are the two essential ingredients of the majority of memes, which are, by definition, widely shared and enjoyed. Come prepared with a piece of research or key idea you have heard, read, or written. Enjoy a whistle-stop tour through the history and purpose(s) of memes, what makes one successful for your chosen audience, where memes have been used malevolently, and how you can positively contribute to making the internet […]

This #Take5 post is brought to you from Neelam Thapar, Head of Careers and Employability at London Metropolitan University and Vanessa Airth who is Head of Work Based Learning, Policy and Practice at London Metropolitan University. Both are interested in Education for Social Justice… and this is a re-blog from: https://careerguidancesocialjustice.wordpress.com/ Employability and Education for Social Justice Neelam Thapar is Head of Careers and Employability at London Metropolitan University. Vanessa Airth is Head of Work Based Learning, Policy and Practice at London Metropolitan University. In this blog post, we will be sharing the journey we have taken in Careers and Work […]

This #Take5 post is brought to you from Tim Hinchcliffe. Previously of Keele and the ALDinHE Steering and Comms Groups, Tim now works with AdvanceHE. The consequence is that many brilliant people think that they are not: An obituary to Sir Ken Robinson “His work was my call to arms, his work still is my call to arms. Ken’s focus may have been compulsory education but his intent was universal.” Education does not have many popular culture icons but Sir Ken Robinson, the educator who was passionate about the creativity of children, was one of them. Learning Developers help students […]

This #Take5 is brought to you from Debbie Holley – with guest bloggers Tom Burns and Sandra Sinfield from LondonMet’s Centre for Professional and Educational Development (CPED) (see also their student studyhub). Debbie is reflecting on her move to Bournemouth’s Department of Nursing where she is Professor of Digital Innovation. Whilst Debbie has always researched digitally enhanced teaching and learning – the challenge of the last year was adapting that to a Nursing focus – and in a time of pandemic. Don’t panic! ‘Mere jelly’ – Student image reproduced with permission from ‘Facilitating Student Learning’ Unit, London Metropolitan University In […]