Inclusivity and Differentiation

“We use our understanding then, to resist others’ assumptions: around deficits, deficiencies and barriers. We use it to not only impact the individual but also demand change from the institution.” This #Take5 is brought to you from Jennie Blake, who is writing about student partnership, inclusive practice and making a big difference by keeping an eye on the small things. Jennie embraces change as a constant and ‘community’ as an astonishingly powerful force – and this blog looks at one aspect of what it means to work collectively and in partnership with students. As Jennie says, “There are no answers […]

This blog post is brought to you by Maria King, an educational developer and former academic librarian whose teaching and learning (T&L) practice is underpinned by punk pedagogy. You might be thinking what have the Sex Pistols got to do with education? But punk pedagogy draws its principles from the ethos, values and characteristics of the punk scene such as DIY, challenging dominant hegemonies, and thinking critically. You don’t have to like punk music to be a punk educator! But the spirit of punk certainly speaks to the emergent and liberatory nature of learning development. What is Punk Pedagogy? Punk […]

This #Take5 is brought to you from Nilay Balkan, a lecturer in Marketing at the University of Glasgow. Nilay shares her powerful insights derived from using Charity Case Studies with Business students. This is a powerful and moving piece in itself – and it also reveals the benefit of keeping a reflective diary when we work – to see what emerges from our practice. Compassion front and centre I’ve noticed there are certain attributes and skills that we are particularly interested in within business schools; communication, collaboration, creativity, for example. While undoubtedly important, these are rather project focused in that […]

Join us in the new EDI working group We are establishing a working group to focus on our approach to EDI as an association and a community of practice. We know excellent work is going on within our community and we feel it is important to bring together colleagues to create a vision of how we might embrace EDI work. The Steering Group has been discussing the concept of an EDI working group for a while, but we felt that it is important the community makes these decisions. Therefore, we would like to invite colleagues who are interested to fill in our form so […]

Frantzeska Kolyda provides an overview of her article published in issue 27 of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education which aims to encourage educators and universities to explore interventions and practices that cultivate a growth mindset to reduce inequality in the academic success of students and the central role that learning development plays in achieving this. ‘I am not good at maths’, ‘I am not good at this’, ‘my classmates are smarter than me and get things quicker’, ‘I feel like an imposter’; educators may hear students saying. Students’ beliefs about their competence, intelligence, and skills play an […]

This #Take5 is brought to you from Joy Igiebor a Learning Development Tutor within the School of Law at Birkbeck, University of London. This is especially for the newbie LDer who feels a bit lost… who thinks that everybody else knows exactly how to ‘do’ Learning Development whilst they alone are thrashing about in the dark. Joy offers very helpful guidelines on workshops and tutorials – a beginner’s guide to Learning Development. Next week we have a post from the team at MMU – what the learning developer needs to know next. A one – two – three of LD I am […]

This #Take5 is brought to you from Julia Reeve – and it is a beautifully detailed and thoughtful look at  LEGO® Serious Play®. Julia Reeve is a National Teaching Fellow based in Leicester who works in diverse educational settings including Further, Higher, prison and community education. Her practice focuses on building confidence, connection and creative thinking via imaginative, multisensory learning. If you’ve never attended a LEGO® Serious Play® session yourself – please, please read on.   Setting the scene My name is Julia Reeve, I’m an educational consultant and part-time lecturer in the Faculty of Business & Law at De Montfort University, Leicester. I’m […]

This #Take5 is brought to you from …Karen Welton and Jennie Dettmer, facilitators of the ALDinHE N/I CoP (read on to find out more!). They are passionate about breaking down barriers to learning in higher education for neurodivergent students. If you are interested in making a difference and being part of this dialogue, they welcome you to join the crusade! Cerebrum Celebration! We are all different and our individuality is something to be celebrated! It is this individuality which makes the world so richly diverse, informing and altering our perceptions of anything and everything. Some differences are immediately apparent, but […]

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 […]

This #Take5 post is brought to you from Sandra Abegglen (University of Calgary), Emma Gillaspy (University of Central Lancashire), and Tom Burns and Sandra Sinfield (London Metropolitan University) – all are members of ALDinHE and are involved in the #creativeHE community. There will be a follow up to this blog in November, where we will run the first #creativeHE event of this academic year: Game on: playful practice for online environments – 18th November 14.00-16.00 – and where we will also call for the community to say what sort of creative activities they want support with across this challenging year. […]