Community Blog

By Carina Buckley and Kate Coulson, ALDinHE  Sound and vision: introducing leadership As a Learning Developer, how do you influence University policy and practice?  “Influencing”, “Visions” and “Strategy” – all seemingly ethereal concepts when you are fresh out of school or university. We wish we had been offered a module as undergraduates which had equipped us with at least a basic understanding of these concepts and how to be good at them! Nowadays the module would be called “Employability Skills” or something similar but we weren’t taught these concepts or how to go about “doing” them. Instead throughout our careers […]

Dr Alexander Cuthbert, University of Strathclyde. External Liaison and Committee Member for ScotHELD   alexander.cuthbert@strath.ac.uk During the summer of 2021, as part of the redevelopment of our Study Skills provision into a Learner Development Services centre, I started building a new VLE to house our learning and research resources. As part of this project, I wanted to create a space in which to collate materials that explore creative approaches as well as those that addressed neurodivergence directly. There were three prompts for this approach, two of which relate to my experiences of working with members of the neurodiversity networks at Strathclyde and Glasgow, as well […]

Maintaining lines of communication and relationships have become increasingly important over the past year.  The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has seen many of us locked down, working from home and isolated from our day-to-day interaction with colleagues.   Ironically, though, the shift to a largely online environment has also provided unexpected opportunities to broaden connections. Previously, for example, members of ATLAANZ (Association of Tertiary Learning Advisors Aotearoa New Zealand) came together only once a year, with our northern, central and southern regional hui (gatherings) that alternated with our biennial conference.  Now, however, as shown by the successful ICALLD’s symposia over time, the online […]

On 21 May the ICALLD Symposium-Over-Time featured Dr Sally Ashton-Hay, Alex Barthel and Dr Amanda Müller speaking about updating the Australian University Register of Academic Language and Learning (ALL) Centres/Units. The table of ALL centres and units captures the structures in which we work, the contexts in which ALL happens and the practices that we engage in. The most recent update highlighted the challenges of collecting data on ALL practices in the time of COVID-19, and the importance of doing so! The update provided a snapshot in time, revealing a significant increase in Australian tertiary student enrolments in the last ten years, […]

This week, ScotHELD opened its Summer Conference and plenary session to learning advisors throughout the ICALLD network, and many of us took up the opportunity to attend (albeit some of us in our pyjamas). During my “visit to Scotland”, as I have affectionately come to refer to these sessions, I was particularly struck by Andrew Struan’s (University of Glasgow) suggestion that as a profession we should perhaps focus a little less on “the problems that we still need to solve” and a little more on the excellent work that we are all doing, and the very real difference this makes […]

24/25 June 2021 from 10am-11.30am NZST Evaluating the impact of Tertiary Learning Advice Consultations on student learning and development:A discussion of a recent pilot study TJ Boutorwick and Kirsten Reid (Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) View the recording Presentation slides Learning advisors at Student Learning Te Taiako regularly evaluate our Tertiary Learning Advice Consultations  (TLACs), workshops and programmes, by conducting student surveys and focus groups, together with staff peer-observations and one-minute papers.  In response to recent calls in the literature to go beyond attendance data and perceived student satisfaction to ‘measure’ impact, we have begun using Hamilton et al.’s  (2019) ICALLD evaluation […]

In the past, ICALLD has hosted an international symposium every two years. This year, in response to a changing and demanding global context, the members of the ICALLD committee decided to host a “symposium-over-time.” As such, there will be a series of one-hour professional development opportunities over the majority of the 2020-21 academic year, held approximately every two months. Hosts will come, in turn, from each of the member associations. (Note that because of the time differences across countries, the actual date shifts).

Title: Updating the Australian University Register of Academic Language and Learning Centres/Units The Australian University Register of Academic Language and Learning Centres/Units summarises the provision of Academic Language and Learning (ALL) services available across the Australian university sector. Information and data from 42 universities, government sources and ALL educators assisted production of the original AALL Register. This register was updated annually from 1993 to 2013, but it has not been updated since then. The aim of this AALL grant project was to update the Register in order to provide a current snapshot of ALL centres/units across Australian universities today. The Australian University Register will also […]

“Not business as usual” – a Scottish perspective on student learning and wellbeing in 2020 A recording of the symposium is available here. (Please note, the recording starts a few minutes into the presentation.) The slides are also available for download: PDF and PPTX. ScotHELD invites to a symposium reflecting on student learning development throughout the Covid pandemic. The presentation will discuss the benefits and challenges the enforced move to online and hybrid teaching models brought to learning development in Scotland and present findings from the recent ScotHELD conference on how the profession sought to enhance student learning and wellbeing during these troubled times. […]

In this uplifting, experiential session, ICALLD participants were introduced to Ryerson University’s Thriving in Action (TiA) program, a unique mind-body-heart-spirit intervention for struggling students. Dr. Diana Brecher and Dr. Deena Kara Shaffer explained TiA’s structure and purposes, how TiA fits in to the Canadian academic and wellbeing landscape, and provided opportunities and resources for webinar participants. Drs. Brecher and Shaffer have generously provided Thriving in Action for FREE to all ICALLD members! Go to tia.ryerson.ca and enter the username TiAO.Free.Guest with the password March2December! for access. Access will be available through April 2021. The slides are available in two formats (see below). The presentation is rich with information and resources in addition […]