The Learning Development Project

Why do we have exams? The idea of the memorisation and narrative regurgitation of facts being a measure of learning is, in many ways, quite absurd. The exam system can also be excluding of students with different linguistic, cultural and social capital from those for whom the system was originally developed (nearly 200 years ago, for Oxbridge candidates, if you’re interested). We know that authentic, practical assessment can remove some socially-embedded hierarchies, but changes to the operational mechanics alone will not resolve these issues of inclusion: the social space has to be changed as well, through our pedagogical dynamics, through our language and through our assessment processes. The awarding gap is all about what can be measured or counted, but inclusion is about how students feel in, belong to and navigate through the educational space. Students who feel included, to whom assessment can really speak, will do better and achieve more. When we aim for the transformative over the transactional, everybody wins. The resources we mentionedNazir, M. B., Johnson, K., Greenhalgh, J., Aston, L., & Pedley, N. (2026). Exploring student assessment literacy: how undergraduate students actualise and transform their assessment strategies. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (39). https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi39.1798 An article that explores the relationship between intellectual knowledge and transmitted knowledge in Islam. And the publication we talked aboutNazir, M. B. (2025). Understanding inclusive assessment: how British Pakistani male graduates engage with university assessments. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (36). https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi36.1478 

When is ‘transparency’ not transparent? When it comes in the form of policy that carries different levels of risk for staff and students. For Chahna Gonsalves, the biggest issue with institutional AI policies is that it adds what she terms ‘interpretive load’ to students: the idea that they have to weigh up the risk of declaring their uses of generative AI in an environment that doesn’t adequately or explicitly set clear boundaries. For AI policies to be useful, they have to speak in pedagogical language to everyone, rather than punitive. It’s the quality of our feedback and the clarity of our expectations that counts, and staying true to the criteria we say we’re assessing. We’re looking for effort from our students so perhaps we can ensure that our own effort is clear too, in the form of understanding what these tools are capable of. And they are capable of much, but perhaps we need to embrace slow learning and failure as our dominant pedagogies in this new fast-paced world of instant gratification. Let’s all give ourselves a break and take the time to think!The resources we mentionedIllingworth, S. (2026). What UK university AI policies actually do: A study of 96 institutions. Available from: https://www.hepi.ac.uk/reports/what-uk-university-ai-policies-actually-do-a-study-of-96-institutions/ And the publication we talked aboutGonsalves, C. (2026). The transparency trap: Generative AI and the rise of interpretive load. Review of Education 14(1), https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.70139 

Student-staff partnerships (SSPs) offer multiple benefits to all participants. While we might most often think about the pedagogic, employability or experience gains for students, SSPs can also help staff think through various issues from new perspectives, for example the potential gains brought by technology enhanced learning and AI advances and developments. There are a healthy set of challenges too, not least the unavoidable power dynamics. Sharing power does not come naturally, and participants will bring their own cultural experiences with them into an SSP. We can’t remove power or avoid it, so how best to manage these dynamics? For our guest Nurun Nahar, communication is key, specifically around expectations: what do we expect of our students? What are their roles in the project, and what value do we see them adding? And what are they expecting from us? Then together the team can agree the aims and objectives of the project, and the principles by which it will run. So far, so pragmatic (and wise!). But SSPs are also relational and personal, and Nurun recommends reflecting on the emotional journey as a participant, as part of the evaluation of impact. The resources we mentionedMargaret Atwood - Canadian novelist and poetBengali writers:Satyajit Ray - filmmaker and novelistSarat chandra Chatterjee - novelistRabindranath Tagore - Nobel Prize winner in Literature for GeetanjaliMike Sharples - Emeritus Professor of Educational TechnologyTIRIgogy CPD resources - and Alicja’s podcast episode with Nurun!And the publication we talked aboutNahar, N., Storey, T., Azhar, A., Lomas, V., & Jabbar, K. (2024). From Collaboration to Transformation: A Reflective Exploration of Student-Staff Partnerships for Technology Enhanced Learning in Higher Education. Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal, 5(2), 76–91. Retrieved from https://sehej.raise-network.com/raise/article/view/1213 

Remember when you started as a Learning Developer? What it was like to welcome a student into a tutorial for the first time, and stand in front of your first class ready to run a workshop? Do you remember what it felt like to flounder? For Joy Igiebor, that feeling of floundering and unknowing, and the questions it prompted – who am I as an LD? what does the job mean? – came to seem like a rite of passage, a process of drawing on our prior knowledge and experiences as we gradually build our identities in this field. As we build our confidence and competence, so do we become more able to advocate for the role, our work, and our students. And when we bring theory and practice together, in a deep understanding of praxis, we are able to speak with so much more authority. Getting there, though – that can take time. So for any new or early career Learning Developers who’ve stopped to wonder what on earth they’re doing, here are Joy’s top three pieces of advice:You’re not alone. We are a strong and vibrant community, waiting to hear from you.Making mistakes is part of the role. Failure is learning. Reflect, revise, and try again.Join a professional association, whether ALDinHE or ScotHELD (or SEDA, CILIP or ALT), and access information and knowledge on wider contextual issues and values, to ground your individual practice and give it meaning.And our own advice: get yourself a copy of this book!The resources we mentionedAbegglen, S., Burns, T., Sinfield, S. (2021) Supporting Student Writing and Other Modes of Learning and Assessment. A Staff Guide. Calgary: University of Calgary. http://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/6970/1/Writing-guide-2021_2021.05.25.pdf Arthur, R. (2023) “‘Conscious’ learning development: towards a pedagogy of race-consciousness ”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (26). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.vi26.928.Burns, T. & Sinfield, S. 2022. Essential study skills: The complete guide to success at university (5th ed.). Sage.Dhillon, S. (2018) “Whose wellbeing is it anyway?”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. doi: 10.47408/jldhe.v0i0.460.Igiebor, J. (2023). What the learning developer needs to know. Take5 #84, available from https://aldinhe.ac.uk/take5-84-what-the-learning-developer-needs-to-know/ Journal of Learning Development in Higher EducationLamott, A. 1995. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anchor Books.Syska, A. and Buckley, C. (eds.) (2023) How to be a Learning Developer in higher education: Critical perspectives, community and practice. Routledge.  Webster, H. 2019. “Towards a Signature Pedagogy of Learning Development.” Rattus Scholasticus blog. Accessed 2 July 2022. https://rattusscholasticus.wordpress.com/2019/07/28/towards-a-signature-pedagogy-of-learning-development/. Zinsser, W. 2016. On writing well: The classic guide to writing nonfiction. New York: Harper Perennial.And the publication we talked aboutIgiebor, J. (2026). Doing Learning Development in Higher Education: a practical guide for new and early career learning developers. Routledge

We talk about wanting to empower our students, but what does that really mean? For Laura Dyer, it means that we are the ones holding the power and we extend it to our students – whereas what we could and should be doing instead is helping students to tap into the power that they already have. This makes power such an important outcome of the humanistic pedagogy model she has developed, which brings together People, Place and Compassion to support students in accessing their power. A humanistic approach aims to teach the whole person, not the subject. It also acknowledges that emotions are central to the learning process and can impact its outcomes both positively and negatively. And what is it like for us, as teachers? As people in a learning environment, we also want to enjoy what we do and have self-compassion as we do it. Content might be king, but perhaps it’s time that the people teaching and learning it took its place!The resources we mentionedMihalyi Csikszentmihalyi’s ideas about flow and its contribution to happinessMaslow’s Hierarchy of NeedsThe Montessori methodPekrun, R. (2014). International Handbook of Emotions in Education. RoutledgeRogers, C. ‘The Interpersonal Relationship in the Facilitation of Learning’, In M. Thorpe, R. Edwards and A. Hanson (eds.), Culture and Processes of Adult Learning, London and New York: Open University, (1993 (first published in 1967)), pp. 228-242. Shahjahan, R. A. (2015). Being ‘lazy’ and slowing down: Toward decolonizing time, our body, and pedagogy. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47(5), 488-501, https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2014.880645And the publication we talked aboutDyer, L. (2025). A humanistic approach to English for academic purposes pedagogy: people, place, compassion, power. Springer Nature.

All learning is social, but not all learning is social learning. For Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner, the distinction between the two lies in three crucial factors: the pursuit of learning to make a difference; the engagement of uncertainty; and the paying of attention to what might emerge. Learning then becomes embodied, the engagement of the whole person in their world and a willingness to shape and respond to that world. More than just the content of learning, their idea of systems convening asks, who am I in the world, using this content to change things? Identity is therefore central to learning and indeed gives it its power, in that it is not just about learning what to do, what to say, what to think, but about how we experience the world. The landscape of learning is a place of potential, and in experiencing it, in turn it offers us new ways of seeing and experiencing ourselves. And yes, this may seem very theoretical. But as Etienne points out, learning theory matters. It’s how we recognise learning, how we support it, and how we assess it. Our only task is to decide how we might make it our own. The publication we talked aboutWenger-Trayner, E. and Wenger-Trayner, B. (2021). Systems convening: A crucial form of leadership for the 21st century. The Social Learning Lab. Available from: https://www.wenger-trayner.com/systems-convening-book/ 

What has philosophy got to do with learning development? And why should learning development be concerned with philosophy? For Jason Eyre – indeed, for all philosophers – philosophy gives us new ways to think about things and new concepts we can work with, to understand not necessarily the answer to a question (such as, What is LD?) but alternative ways we can engage with that question. Jason (with some help from his cat, Peppercorn, who you might hear in this episode) wants LD to consider its tendencies more than its boundaries, its connectedness more than its categories. When we don’t pin something down, we can focus instead on our commonalities. The world is ever changing and higher education changes with it; rather than be left behind in our rigid definitions, by situating ourselves in our contexts we can stay responsive. And by keeping our emphasis on relationality, and the communities in which we work, we can find resilience in each other, boost each other’s agency, and discover joy. Surely such a gift is worth spending some time with Deleuze? Failing that, spend it with Jason; you won’t regret it. The resources we mentionedDhillon, S. (2025). Book review: Eyre, J. (2025) Learning Development in higher education: crisis, practice, and power in the 21st century university. Singapore: Springer. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (38). https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi38.1819Didion, J. (2021). Why I write. Literary Hub. Available at: https://lithub.com/joan-didion-why-i-write/ Spinoza: a useful introduction is available from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. You might find the section on Virtue and Happiness particularly useful. For an introduction to the concept of the virtual vs the actual, as conceived by Bergson and developed by Deleuze, this short article in Epoche Magazine will give you plenty of text to dwell with!And the publication we talked aboutEyre, J. (2025). Learning Development in Higher Education: Crisis, Practice, and Power in the 21st Century University. Springer, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-96-8802-9

Belonging is one of those abstract concepts that seems to be something whose meaning we can all relatively easily grasp, but when we come to look at it more closely, actually appears to be much more slippery and elusive. Belonging itself is an objective fact about an individual’s membership of a group or community. A sense of belonging – that mysterious element that occupies us in this conversation – is that individual’s subjective relationship with the group or community to which they belong. So before we can measure or even examine someone’s sense of belonging, we must first ensure we know what we are talking about, and that that person shares that understanding. And what would we do with that measurement, anyway? A lack of sense of belonging is not an easy fix, and not something that everyone would want fixed, anyway; a sense of belonging is not obligatory, nor is its lack necessarily a problem. Why worry about it, then? Because the Venn diagram of sense of belonging and engagement has a large intersection, and therefore, in the eyes of this particular Venn, a problem worth solving.The resources we mentionedBooth, W.C. (1995). The craft of research. The University of Chicago Press. NB 1st edition recommended - try World of Books!Kaminski, R. (2025). The gift of not belonging: How outsiders thrive in a world of joiners. Scribe.Chapters specifically mentioned by Ed from his book are those by:Stacey Mottershaw, Rachael O'Connor, Nadine Cavigioli: A collaborative autoethnographic reflection on social class and student belonging in higher educationKathleen Quinlan: Belonging and engagement in higher education literatureAyoola Johnson: Seeking belonging in higher educationTerrell Strayhorn: Social engagement and students’ sense of belongingEdward Venn, Karen Burland, Boroka Javor: Challenging dominant discoursesAnd the publication we talked aboutAhn, M.Y, Venn, E. and Lowe, T. (Eds.) (2025). Student Belonging in Higher Education: Perspectives and Practice. Routledge.

How do we make the body not only our partner in learning, but our friend? And why would we even want to? The mind-body dualism espoused by Descartes in the 17th century continues to influence our thinking today, with the body – or more specifically, the emotions it houses – often represented as an obstacle to rational thought and therefore its enemy. This is little more than an enduring misogyny that positions emotions – the body – as feminine, irrational, and undesirable, and thought – the mind – as masculine, rational, and desirable. Yet we are all subject to this discourse, all of us alienated by western culture from our bodies and our emotions. Some of us find our way back, to connect what Lisa Clughen cites as ‘the intelligence of the flesh’ with cognition. Lisa strongly believes we should celebrate our embodiment and recognise its centrality to our learning and thinking processes. How many of us have walked or moved to help ease a thought into consciousness? How many have felt the excitement, the joy, when someone has praised something we have done? Similarly, we can aim to induce feelings of awe, interest, joy, amusement in our students to stimulate an emotional and more memorable response to their learning. And perhaps in doing so we can reconnect with our own bodies and our own emotions, and truly engage with the joy of learning and teaching. The resources we mentionedBordo, S. (1993). Unbearable weight: Feminism, Western culture and the body. University of California Press. Clughen, L. (2002), ‘Lorca's anorexics: hunger strike in the cause of selfhood’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 79: 3, pp. 309-324. https://doi.org/10.3828/bhs.79.3.4 Clughen, L. (2014). ‘Embodied writing support’: the importance of the body in engaging students with writing. Journal of Writing in Creative Practice 7(2), pp.283-300. Available from:  https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/embodied-writing-support-lisa-clughenDana, D. Rhythm of regulation. Available from https://www.rhythmofregulation.com/glimmers Elbow, P.  (2012). Vernacular eloquence: What speech can bring to writing. Oxford University Press. Forster, E.M. (1909). The machine stops. Available from: https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~koehl/Teaching/ECS188/PDF_files/Machine_stops.pdf Fredrickson, B.L. (2004). The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B, Biological Sciences 359(1449): 1367-78. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2004.1512Grosz, E. (1995). Space, time and perversion: The politics of bodies. Routledge. hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom.  Taylor and Francis.Immordino‐Yang, M. and Damasio, A. (2007) We feel, therefore, we learn: the relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education. Mind, Brain, and Education, 1(1), pp.3-10.Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-228X.2007.00004.xNeff, K. Self-compassion on her YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@NeffKristin Orbach, S. (2010). Bodies. Profile BooksRogers, C. ‘The Interpersonal Relationship in the Facilitation of Learning’, In M. Thorpe, R. Edwards and A. Hanson (eds.), Culture and Processes of Adult Learning, London and New York: Open University, (1993 (first published in 1967)), pp. 228242. Shilling, C. (1993). The body and social theory: Theory, culture and society. Sage PublicationsSuzuki, W. (2015). Healthy brain, happy life. Dey Street Books.Woolf, V. (1930). Streethaunting: A London adventure. Available from: https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk/news/street-haunting And the article we talked aboutClughen, L. (2025). Eros in the classroom and beyond: cultivating positive emotions for learning, teaching and wellbeing in higher education. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (35). https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi35.1348 

Learning does not happen without attention. But in a world so full of distractions, how can we ensure our students are paying attention? For Professor James Lang, the answer lies in deliberating cultivating attention in our students, rather than trying to limit distractions. And how do we do that? Think about what makes you pay attention. How do you help yourself focus? How, then, can you create these conditions for others? The key is to remember that attention is personal: not just in the sense that we all have our own interests, but also in that we need to create space in the subject for the individual. When we can see ourselves, or a connection to ourselves, in what we are learning, it is easier to be drawn into the material. Above all, paying attention brings joy, and as educators there is surely no greater joy than in deliberately creating those moments for others!The resources we mentionedGermano, W. 2016. Getting It Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about Serious Books, (3rd ed.). University of Chicago Press.Lamott, A. 1995. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anchor Books.Jim’s personal website: https://www.jamesmlang.com/ Jim’s substack, A General Education: https://jamesmlang.substack.com/ Jim’s podcast, Designed for LearningMiller, M.D. 2024. A Teacher’s Guide to Learning Student Names: Why You Should, Why It’s Hard, How You Can. University of Oklahoma Press.Sword, H. 2012. Stylish academic writing. Harvard University Press.Sword, H. 2017. Air & Light & Time & Space. Harvard University Press.And the publications we talked aboutLang, J. M. (2020) Distracted: Why students can't focus and what you can do about it. Hachette UK.Lang, J. M. (2025) Write Like You Teach: Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience. University of Chicago Press.

The eruption of generative AI into higher education prompted many educators, worried about the integrity of their courses (and the personal integrity of their students), to redesign their assessments, rejecting essays and other long-form pieces of writing in favour of ‘AI-proof’ reflective pieces or so-called authentic assessment formats instead. Lily Abadal, in contrast, believes not only that writing has deep implicit value in learning, but that it can be meaningfully achieved in a way that circumvents the temptations of AI. Engaging in a topic in depth, mulling over an issue, considering an argument, and then sitting with the discomfort of not having a clear and quick answer can all be difficult and uncomfortable. By learning how to think slowly and deeply, students come to understand that the discomfort is itself a sign of learning; designing these opportunities out serves no one. When we slow down, when we look for the meaning beyond the output, we can reconnect with our thought processes and relish the pleasure of learning. The resources we mentionedAbadal, L.M. (2025) Only the Humanities can save the university from AI. Public Discourse, 21 July. Available from: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2025/07/98429/ Lily’s website: https://www.drlilyabadal.com/ Hadot, P. (1995). Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault. Wiley-Blackwell.James Lang’s articles on The Chronicle of Higher Education. Pascal’s WagerStrunk, W. and White, E.B. (1999) The Elements of Style (4th ed.). Pearson.Syska, A. (2025). We tried to kill the essay - now let’s resurrect it. The LSE Blog, 27 February. Available from: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducation/2025/02/27/we-tried-to-kill-the-essay-now-lets-resurrect-it/ And the publications we talked aboutAbadal, L.M. (2025) Drafted: A Workbook for Slow Thinking in the Age of AI. Available from: https://www.drlilyabadal.com/drafted-workbook.html Abadal, L.M. (2024) 'Ensuring genuine assessment in philosophy education: strategies for scaffolding writing assessment in an LLM era', Teaching Philosophy, 47(1), pp. 143-165. doi: 10.5840/teachphil2024422195.

We’ve been thinking about the connections between professional identity and writing in the context of third space for a few years now, and it seems ever more pertinent in these times of uncertainty, transition and change. We see colleagues change roles or leave academia, not always of their own volition, and we experience it ourselves. With change inevitably comes loss, but some of the things we have been thinking and writing about might be of use in this turbulent context. Writing for publication acts as an anchor for identity, a trail of breadcrumbs of our thoughts and of who we were when we committed them to posterity, and writing in third space in particular can be an act of resistance: to the crush of loss, to the absence of identity, to the fear of transition. By choosing what we write, how we write it, and where we publish, we create ourselves again and again in our writing. No matter our role or where change might take us, our writing remains a way for us to hold onto who, at heart, we are. The resources we mentionedThe Third Space SymposiumOur Slowposium padletAnd the article we talked aboutBuckley, C., Syska, A. and Heggie, L. (2024) ‘Grounded in liquidity: writing and identity in third space’. London Review of Education, 22 (1), 26. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/LRE.22.1.26.

Sandra's secrets of collaboration:Openness to the experience and what it bringsRecognition of our human nature and the need for being with otherWe can - and must? - make time and space for each other. Hold onto the in-between spaces where we can come together; create meetings without agendas, where things can emerge.Collaboration is more than simply working with others. It’s more, even, than working successfully with others. It is, rather, a direct pathway towards social justice through its absolute commitment to equality. Universities therefore have a social obligation to do collaboration well, both internally and with external partners, which means raising up marginalised voices and dismantling power relationships. Our students need to experience positive learning experiences with other people. There are undoubtedly challenges: working to a deadline (and bringing others along to it); ensuring space for everyone to contribute; being conscious of our own bias and preconceptions. But these are all within our gift. Reclaim your agency! That way true collaboration lies. If you would like to explore what this means with Sandra, this is your invitation to reach out and have a conversation. The resources we mentionedDevisch, I. (2006). The Sense of Being(-) with Jean-Luc Nancy. Culture Machine vol. 8. Available at: https://culturemachine.net/community/the-sense-of-being/ Robertson, N. S. and Neuhaus, F. (2024). The asocial society and urban form in Canada: A scoping study. Canadian Journal of Urban Research 33(1)And the books we talked aboutAbegglen, S., Burns, T., Heller, R., Madhok, R., Neuhaus, F., Sinfield, S. and Gitanjali Singh, U.  (Eds.) (2025) Stories of hope: Reimagining education. Open Book Publishers. Available at: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0462 Abegglen, S., Burns, T. & Sinfield, S. (Eds.) (2023). Higher education collaboration: A new ecology of practice. Bloomsbury.

What matters to us and what do we value? These are two key questions posed by Karen Gravett as she explores ideas around relational pedagogies and mattering and how they can contribute to creating a more caring university. In a neoliberal HE context laden with metrics-driven performativity, the call to care can feel like another layer of emotional labour, one disproportionately carried by women. Indeed, when the notion of care generally is seen as ‘women’s work’, how can it become part of a system that is overwhelmingly structured and gendered in ways that make it seem impossible? The first step is to critique ideas of care itself, in this context: it is not about happiness or pleasing or affection, but rather more nuanced, complex, ambivalent, and relational. Then we can aim to respond positively to the material challenges: to look beyond broad brush solutions and instead focus at the microlevel, on small changes and ways of relating and engaging that make a difference. The resources we mentionedGravett, K. (2023) Relational pedagogies: Connections and mattering in higher education. Bloomsbury.Gravett, K. (2025) Critical practice in higher education. Bloomsbury.Heron, M., Gravett, K., and Yakovchuk, N. (2020). Publishing and flourishing: writing for desire in higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, 40(3), 538–551. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2020.1773770 Elizabeth Adams St. Pierre professional profileWoolf, V. (1929/2002) A room of one’s own. Penguin.And the article we talked aboutGravett, K., Taylor, C.A. and Fairchild, N. (2024) Pedagogies of mattering: re-conceptualising relational pedagogies in higher education, Teaching in Higher Education, 29:2, 388-403, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2021.1989580

What does it mean to liberate learning? Who is doing the liberating, and what do we think someone being liberated from? For Becky Lindner and Martin Compton, the answer to the first question is essentially to find, nurture, and celebrate the inherent joy of learning and teaching. For fifty years (at least), as they point out, we have been having these conversations about rekindling joy and love of learning, which, if nothing else, signals that we have been uncomfortable with some of the absurdities, constraints, and expectations of contemporary higher education for a long time. Yet that sense of hope continues to drive us forward, looking for ‘care-full’ ways of bringing our students and colleagues along with us. And that brings us to the second question: we must be our own liberators. Our role is to enable to liberation of the university by acting with compassion, equity, and humanity, through collaboration, co-creation, and curiosity, one small step at a time. The resources we mentionedOliver Burkeman (n.d.). The imperfectionist: Seventy per cent. Available from https://ckarchive.com/b/wvu2hghk5m82zf9r552rqtn34kzxxc8 Kerri-lee Krause (2023). Learner centred leadership in higher education: A practical guide. RoutledgeChoose your own impenetrable writer to inversely learn from!And the issue we talked aboutCompton, M. and Lindner, R. (2025) Liberating learning in the empathetic university, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, 35. Available at: https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi35.1576.

As an American transplanted as a young adult to the UK, Jennie Blake knows a lot about what it means to belong somewhere. For her, belonging is an action: it is about having the agency to make choices, and for that to be realised, belonging cannot be something that we do for students; it must be enabled in all of our systems, structures and processes, so that we can recognise it by its presence and not just – as is all too often the case – its absence. And belonging, true ‘belongingness’, is unconditional. We must be prepared to embrace our own vulnerability and question to what extent we are willing to cede space and agency to our students. This can be as simple as building an interactive ‘magic to-do list’ into a pre-arrival resource, as Jennie’s team did, and assuming that students may not want to start university worrying about what they don’t know yet. Of course they don’t know anything yet! But we can embrace and value the conversation with them, and learn from them as much as they do from us. The resources we mentioned15% solutions: an introductory overviewbrown, a.m. (2017) Emergent strategy: shaping change, changing worlds. AK PressFawns, T. An entangled pedagogy: Looking beyond the pedagogy-technology dichotomy. Postdigital Science and Education 4, 711–728 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00302-7 Hypothesis annotation tool: https://web.hypothes.is/ Life at University: The University of Manchester guide for new students.And the article we talked aboutBlake, J. and Pearson, L. (2025) ‘The power of an open door: student partnership and supportive transition to higher education’, Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/13603108.2025.2474558

Lucy’s interests in pedagogy have expanded over the last couple of years to draw AI into her work on learning design. Using AI in the classroom, in an ethical and responsible way, with learners with diverse needs and backgrounds, can level the playing field and support learners in doing things and thinking in ways that might not otherwise be available to them. For learning design to be thoughtful and effective, digital technologies - including AI - must serve a purpose and earn its pedagogic place in the classroom. We need to know what students will get from it, and we must make sure the students know that too. Lucy’s drivers are creativity and curiosity, and they combine into a pedagogy of wonder. But that goes for us too: AI is new, for all of us, so we need to have the courage to not be the expert, to play, to try things out and see what works and have the confidence to co-learn with the students. These technologies aren’t going away so we might as well take the plunge - ethically, pedagogically, mindfully - and see what we can do!The resources we mentionedJohn Fowles biography: https://www.fowlesbooks.com/ Gill-Simmen, L. (2024). Educating Gen Z: why authenticity and connection are key to thriving in an AI-driven world. The Conversation. Available from: https://theconversation.com/educating-gen-z-why-authenticity-and-connection-are-key-to-thriving-in-an-ai-driven-world-230633 Harari, Y.N. (2011). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Random House.Hemingway’s 6-word story…maybe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_sale:_baby_shoes,_never_worn Jhumpa Lahiri’s professional profile: https://barnard.edu/profiles/jhumpa-lahiri Lamott, A. (1994). Bird by bird. Pantheon BooksAnd the article we talked aboutGill-Simmen, L. (2021) “Using Padlet in instructional design to promote cognitive engagement: a case study of undergraduate marketing students”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (20). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.vi20.575

At the moment, there is no evidence that generative AI is a transformative tool for higher education. Making something more efficient is not the same as being better for learners or learning, and efficiency is not transformation. If we come from a critical perspective, focused on social justice and care, rather than a neoliberal one, then AI currently has little to offer. But it is also important to say no to resistance. We need to resist the harmful uses of AI and drop the assumption that it should be incorporated into teaching; we should not allow students to use it for everything instead of doing it for themselves. There’s little benefit, though, in telling students they are not allowed to use it. To help students develop the critical judgement they need to use gen AI well, we will have to use it a little bit ourselves, experimenting with a critical perspective – often enough to see its limitations and then to decide for ourselves whether it’s truly useful. Talking to colleagues is also vital, in sharing how we feel about it as much as what we know about it, and to ensure that we are always talking about the same thing. Maha’s practice of intentionally equitable hospitality can help us think through inequalities in the way our education system is set up that might mean some people need more support than others. The important question should always be, what is the purpose of this task? And then for those students that need more support, they can use AI anywhere apart from in relation to the skill that they need to learn how to do. Above all, if we practice with compassion, we have the potential to make AI something truly of benefit. The resources we mentionedBali, M. 2024. Cake-making analogy for setting generative AI guidelines/ethics. Available from https://uen.pressbooks.pub/teachingandgenerativeai/chapter/cake-making-analogy-for-setting-generative-ai-guidelines-ethics/Bali, M. 2024. When it comes to AI, is transparency enough? Available from https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducation/2024/10/18/ethics-in-ai/And the article we talked aboutMills, A., Bali, M. and Eaton, L. (2023). How do we respond to generative AI in education? Open educational practices give us a framework for an ongoing process. Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching 6(1), pp.16-30. https://doi.org/10.37074/jalt.2023.6.1.34 Available from https://hawksites.newpaltz.edu/fdc/files/2023/07/How-Do-We-Respond-to-Generative-AI-in-Education-Open-Educational-Practices-Give-Us-a-Framework-for-an-Ongoing-Process.pdf 

Academic Literacies (AL) is an approach to teaching and supporting learning that seems to be integral to Learning Development - but should it be? Apart from the focus of its purported transformational value on seeing and being but not doing, leaving it thin on practical pedagogical value, it bundles up tensions and contradictions that are difficult – some might say impossible – to reconcile. Rather than privileging these ideas of voice and power and rejecting the central role of knowledge in education, Steve suggests that a more useful way forward is to strive for nuance, without condemning anything that isn’t AL as morally deficient. It shouldn’t be wrong to try different techniques as the context requires, nor should it be impossible to critique those theoretical positions and epistemologies, like social constructivism, that raise doubts in our minds. The key is to read widely, looking for alternative perspectives, and then giving ourselves permission to craft something new that works for us. We’re Learning Developers: learning is what we do best! The resources we mentioned Haidt, J. (2013) The Righteous Mind. Penguin Hilsdon, J., Malone, C. and Syska, A. (2019) ‘Academic literacies twenty years on: a community-sourced literature review’, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, 15, pp.1−49. Available at: https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.v0i15.567 Kotzee, B. (2010) ‘Seven posers in the constructivist classroom’, London Review of Education, 8(2), pp.177−187. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14748460.2010.487340 Moore, R., & Muller, J. (1999). The Discourse of “Voice” and the Problem of Knowledge and Identity in the Sociology of Education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20(2), 189–206. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425699995407 Sold a story: how teaching kids to read when so wrong. Podcast also available on Apple and Spotify Dan Williams - an introduction to his ideas is available at https://danwilliamsphilosophy.com/  Wrigglesworth, J. (2019) ‘Pedagogical applications of academic literacies theory: a reflection and case study’, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, 15, pp.1−21. Available at: https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.v0i15.552 Young, M. (2007). Bringing knowledge back in. Routledge. And the articles we talked about White, S. (2024) “Resisting ideological echo chambers: if we are all critical pedagogues, how will we know we are doing LD well? ”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (32). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.vi32.1461. White, S. and Dhillon, S. (2024) “We need to talk about AL: has academic literacies designed the pedagogy out of Learning Development? ”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (31). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.vi31.1267.

Student engagement is complex and multifaceted. Ten years ago it meant engaging the student voice. Since then it’s become much more about attendance, attention, motivation, presence on campus, belonging, engagement with the curriculum, and more; ‘student engagement’ covers all of these, so it’s important for us to be clear what we mean when we talk about student engagement. What’s already clear is that the more pressured a higher education system is – such as that of the UK – the more focus there is on student engagement. That pressure can come from a policy angle, a financial angle, or both. The outcome is that students need to perceive that their university education is worth it – whatever that might mean to them. And how do we know what it means? Tom advocates for regularly topping up our empathy by keeping in touch with students about their experiences. Student engagement is never done and achieved, just as learning is always ongoing.  Like many of us, Tom has had a portfolio career and sees himself as ‘someone who works in a university’. Identity is important but we shouldn’t let ourselves be limited by it. As Alan Watts once said, ‘Trying to define yourself is like trying to bite your own teeth’! The resources we mentioned Hamshire, C. and Wibberley, C. (2014) The listening project: Physiotherapy students' narratives of their Higher Education experiences. In Bryson, C. (ed.) Understanding and developing student engagement, pp.47-63. Routledge. InForm: a journal for international foundation programme professionals. Available from: https://www.reading.ac.uk/inform/ LoveLD magazine. Available from: https://aldinhe.ac.uk/news/loveld-magazine/ Lowe, T., & El Hakim, Y. (Eds.). (2020). A Handbook for Student Engagement in Higher Education: Theory into Practice (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429023033 Spire, Z. (2023) University estates: From spaces to places of student engagement. In Lowe, T. (ed.) Advancing student engagement in higher education: reflection, critique and challenge, pp.189-202. Routledge. Watts, A. https://public-library.online/Alan-Watts-This-Is-It And the book we talked about Lowe, T. (Ed.). (2023). Advancing Student Engagement in Higher Education: Reflection, Critique and Challenge (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003271789

‘I’m a perfectionist’ is often a glib response given in job interviews when we’re asked to identify a weakness. We offer it up modestly, sure that it will be received as intended: a desirable trait, one showing dedication, commitment, and high quality. Yet what if that were not true? What if, in fact, perfectionism was rigid, unattainable, and damaging? Jane explains that the internal critical dialogue can be extremely destructive in its relentless messaging of not being good enough and, worryingly, her study reports that it is on the rise in students. The connection of self worth to academic performance is hugely problematic, and detrimental to well being. But there are things we can do to help, firstly in understanding the difference between striving - we want to do well, and we try hard - and concerns - we doubt ourselves and worry about what others will think if we don’t meet our own impossible standards. Helping students to understand themselves and their motivations, to have honest conversations about the value of failure, and to build trust and empathy in the classroom or in tutorials, can allow us to challenge perfectionist tendencies. And Learning Developers are perfectly (ahem) positioned for this work! The resources we mentioned Burkeman, O. (2021) Four thousand weeks: time and how to use it. Bodley Head Burkeman, O. (2024) The imperfectionist [blog] Available from: https://www.oliverburkeman.com/the-imperfectionist Curran, T. (2023) The perfection trap: the power of good enough in a world that always wants more. Cornerstone Press Flett, G. (2018) The psychology of mattering: understanding the human need to be significant. Academic Press Hewitt, P.L., Flett, G. and Mikail, S.F. (2017) Perfectionism: A relational approach to conceptualization, assessment, and treatment. Guilford Press. O’Donohue, J. Irish poet, theologian, philosopher. https://www.johnodonohue.com/  And the article we talked about McKay, J., Williams, K. and Stewart, J. (2024). “You just want a break from the hatred of failure”: the lived experience of being a student physiotherapist perfectionist and considerations for educators. Advances in Health Sciences Education 29, 893–918 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-023-10287-y

Critical thinking is one of those concepts that we teach and use with students, but Emily Danvers makes clear that it is actually much more complex, contextual and contingent than it might first appear. It’s a practice of asking deliberate questions about knowledge and claims to truth, and it can very much depend on who you are, what you’re thinking about, and why. It also involves a type of confidence - do you have the right to ask these questions? Do you feel you’ll be listened to? And this is where the moves to decolonise higher education are so important, because it challenges established ideas about what the right kind of thinker looks like. We all know what those established ideas are - and so does AI. White, middle-aged, male; these deeply ingrained assumptions are hard to break.  But critical thinking isn’t individual. Like identity - a key influence - it is a social act, and students may not want to engage in discussions that threaten or challenge their identity, as separating the ideas from the person can feel impossible. This might be more than we can achieve alone in the classroom, but critical thinking offers a new way of thinking about something, and writing affords a possibility for the slow and deep thinking that supports it. Together, we can work to open up critical thinking for all our students. The resources we mentioned Criado Perez, C. (2019). Invisible women: Exposing data bias in a world designed for men. Chatto & Windus. Mohanty, C. T. 2003. “‘Under Western Eyes’ Revisited: Feminist Solidarity Through Anticapitalist Struggles.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 28 (2): 499–535. doi: 10.1086/342914 And the article we talked about Danvers, E. (2018) Who is the critical thinker in higher education? A feminist re-thinking, Teaching in Higher Education, 23(5), 548-562, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2018.1454419

The intensifying neoliberalisation of HE over the past few decades is all part of a long trend of universities producing who and what the dominant powers in society wish, according to Chomsky. However, the university has always been a contested space with emancipatory possibilities existing alongside domination and oppression. LD, as part of higher education, is also part of that contested space, and the notion of Critical Academic Literacies (CAL) is Gordon’s attempt to reinvigorate and strengthen the critical, explicitly political roots of LD that is focussed on equity, participatory democracy, and social justice.  The criticality of LD is not new; CAL is how that criticality might be expressed, and new and emerging Learning Developers are providing cause for optimism in how they’re questioning what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, and who they’re doing it for. It’s no longer just about helping students navigate higher education, but now there’s more sense of collectively questioning and challenging the nature of the neoliberal university and the demands it makes on students and staff. As Learning Developers, we are part of that system ourselves, in a position of tension and contradiction (and mindful of the self-care needed to manage that positioning), but we can yet all play a part in working to reshape what higher education could look like, by taking this critical turn. We need to understand the past and the present of the university, in order to genuinely help students understand where they might be going in the future.  Students are as subject to these neoliberal influences as staff. We can look, though, for every opportunity to question and challenge, and encourage students to also question and challenge, whether that is the system generally or assessment strategies specifically, for example. AI provides a great opportunity for us to take a critical stance with both staff and students, to use and apply these new technologies well, to challenge, question and resist here too where necessary. Just as universities can be leaders in this arena, so too can Learning Developers provide coherent critiques of new practices, and to help guide the university in an emancipatory and hopeful direction as part of a wider Critical LD movement.  Community is central and essential to becoming critically aware and critically literate, in how a field is situated and sharing in the construction of its knowledge. LD is in a great position to push avenues of thought, to connect students and staff, professional and academic, and build these kinds of movements. Are you interested in being a part of it? Get in touch with Gordon!  The resources we mentioned Abegglen, S., Burns, T. and Sinfield, S. (eds.) (2023). Collaboration in Higher Education. Bloomsbury Beetham, H. (2024). What price your ‘AI-ready’ graduates? Imperfect Offerings. Available from: https://helenbeetham.substack.com/i/146823705/employers-are-already-falling-out-of-love-with-generative-ai Stephen Brookfield - his website Noam Chomsky - his website Coffey, L. (2023). Majority of grads wish they’d been taught AI in College. Inside Higher Ed. Available from: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-innovation/artificial-intelligence/2024/07/23/new-report-finds-recent-grads-want-ai-be  Freire, P. (2014) Pedagogy of hope. Bloomsbury Publishing.  John Holloway - author page at Pluto Press Paul, R. and Elder, L. (2021) Critical thinking: Tools for taking charge of your learning and your life. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. And the chapter we talked about Asher, G. (2023). Learning Development in, against and beyond the neoliberal university. In Syska, A. and Buckley, C. (eds.) How to Be a Learning Developer in Higher Education: Critical Perspectives, Community and Practice. Routledge. 

Third space, while rightly celebrated as a vital engine for collaboration in higher education, brings with it also the risk of becoming no space at all. Although working in the margins and between the cracks can bolster change and act as a point of resistance, there is also a danger of retreat, defence, and invisibility. Julie contends that it is our role as third space professionals to push into the centre - to exercise agency, to take or seek out opportunities, to be visible. It’s not always easy, but to have an impact on decision-making, we have to be part of the conversation. If you’re invited to join a committee, say yes. If you learn about a new initiative, proactively offer how you and LD can help it succeed. If you get a new senior manager, request a meeting to talk about your service and its strategic alignment.  These can be difficult tasks to achieve, for many reasons, but all of them are easier with others. Work as a team, and find your tribe, whether that is through mailing lists or conferences. There will be people who share your ideas and ambitions, and who would love to work – and write – with you! The resources we mentioned Baume, D. (2023) My obituary for SEDA. Educational Developments 24(3), pp.5-7. Available from: https://www.seda.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Ed-Devs-24.3.pdf Beetham, H. (2024) Imperfect offerings. Available from: https://helenbeetham.substack.com/  Jenny Erpenbeck - an overview. https://www.ndbooks.com/author/jenny-erpenbeck/  Meyer, J.H.F. and Land, R. (2003). 'Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: Linkages to ways of thinking and practising within the disciplines', in Rust, C. (ed.), Improving Student Learning: Improving Student Learning Theory and Practice - Ten Years On. Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development. And the chapter we talked about Hall, J. (2022) ‘Understanding and debating the third space’.  In McIntosh, E. and Nutt, D. (eds) The impact of the integrated practitioner in higher education: Studies in third space professionalism. Routledge.

Race is missing from Learning Development, but it is inescapably present in our lives and in the lives of our students. Why, then, this disconnect? Ryan’s proposal for a pedagogy of race consciousness (PRC) is a way for us to wake up to the realities of racial difference, to allow students the opportunity to not just bring their lived experiences into the classroom, but to value them. PRC, with its three-step process of intrigue, connection, and tangibility, takes an asset-based approach to learning, as opposed to a deficit approach, looking for and celebrating the differences that make each student unique. LD is perfectly placed to achieve this, in dialogue with students and those who teach them, and through critical thinking. By truly seeing race, we are better able to see the affective, embodied and relational dimensions of learning, rather than simply or only the cognitive. Only then can we acknowledge the full humanity of our students. And what about writing? It’s like the blues. First, there is catastrophe. But it is only by staying with it, by persevering so it has the time it needs to develop, that we can reach melody. And like the blues, it’s best done with others! The resources we mentioned Arthur, R. (2023) 'Closing the gap: Learning development and race' in Buckley, C and Syska, A. (2023) How to Be a Learning Developer in Higher Education: Critical Perspectives, Community and Practice. Routledge. Ryan’s YouTube Channel Danvers, E. (2018). Who is the critical thinker in higher education? A feminist re-thinking. Teaching in Higher Education, 23(5), 548–562. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2018.1454419 Du Bois, W. (2007) The souls of black folk. London: Oxford University Press Galbally, P & Christodoulidi, F (2023) Personalised learning pedagogies and the impact on student progression and retention: the case of counselling training within a university setting, Teaching in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2023.2211933 Loddick, A. and Coulson, K. (2020) “The impact of Learning Development tutorials on student attainment”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (17). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.vi17.558. Tommy Curry profile Cornel West interview And the article we talked about Arthur, R. (2023) “‘Conscious’ learning development: towards a pedagogy of race-consciousness ”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (26). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.vi26.928. PS Carina’s participation in this episode was the result of a fabulous team effort! Huge thanks to Ian Guest and Lucy Marr at the University of Southampton for their hospitality, and to Professor Sabrina Vieth at Solent University for being such a generous-minded line manager.

Third space. It’s a concept most of us will have heard of before, and many of us will identify with it. But what does it actually mean in practice? For Natalia Veles, third space is a space for collaboration and the building of collaborative capital. When the focus of a project is on the learning and the people involved, rather than outputs alone, everybody wins. It involves having a global mindset and the ability to make connections across boundaries and disciplines, drawing colleagues from other disciplines in and being curious about their positioning, and above all learning, and creating and sharing new knowledge with others. It requires translational skills - a compassionate understanding of challenges and how our own knowledge and experience can be enjoined in overcoming them - and a sense of agency and legitimacy, underpinned by the twin and mutually reinforcing aids of confidence and competence. Natalia calls this ‘identity plasticity’, which is a concept, if not a term, that will carry a certain familiarity for all those who work in third space.  And what about writing in third space? We do so in the same way that we work: by focussing on others and what we can bring to the situation. Write always for your reader, and make that reader a 10 year old child, just to make sure that you can explain your ideas as clearly as possible! The resources we mentioned Bakhtin, M. (1984) Problems of Dostoevsky’s poetics. Trans. C. Emerson. University of Minnesota Press. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990) Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. Harper and Row. Eco, U. (2015) How to write a thesis. The MIT Press. Hyland, K. (1998) Hedging in scientific research articles. John Benjamins Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.54  Soja, E.W. (1996) Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and other real-and-imagined places. Wiley-Blackwell. Syska, A. and Buckley, C. (eds.) (2023) How to Be a Learning Developer in Higher Education: Critical Perspectives, Community and Practice. Routledge. Thomson, P. and Kamler, B. (2013) Writing for peer reviewed journals: strategies for getting published. Routledge. Tolstoy, L. (2007) War and peace. Penguin Classics. Whitchurch, C. (2024) From ‘service’ to ‘partnership’: harnessing social capital in support of activity in third space environments. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360080X.2024.2344132  And the book we talked about Veles, N. (2023) Optimising the third space in higher education: Case studies of intercultural and cross-boundary collaboration. Routledge.

Show notes Decolonising the curriculum is more than diversifying the authors on a reading list. It’s about the nature of knowledge, and questioning where that knowledge comes from and why, so that we can better understand the history of the paradigms within which we work and live. As such, responsibility for it lies beyond the subject, extending into third space and Learning Development. But it needn’t be daunting. We can all reflexively consider our positioning and praxis, question our assumptions (without necessarily disagreeing with them - criticality can be positive as well as negative!), innovate, and invite reconsideration. In this way, decolonisation can become a meaningful part of our way of working, rather than an add-on. As part of this, conversation with colleagues is so important, and writing can be a useful way to increase the number of people you have a conversation with. By capturing thoughts in writing and sharing ideas with others, we invite others into conversation, deepening knowledge and travelling further together. After all, publication is not the end of the story or the end of the idea, but only the beginning! The resources we mentioned Bohlmann, J. (2022) ‘Decolonising Learning Development through reflective and relational practice’, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, 24, https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi24.913 Mignolo, W. D., & Walsh, C. E. (2018) On decoloniality: Concepts, analytics, praxis. Duke University Press. Sibanda, B. (2021) Non-violent pedagogical perspectives in decolonising Academic Literacy. Available at: https://www.saaalp.com/post/non-violent-pedagogical-perspectives-in-decolonising-academic-literacy Spivak - an introduction. https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/postcolonialstudies/2014/06/19/spivak-gayatri-chakravorty/ And the chapter we talked about Koromila, G. and Powell, E. (2023) Decolonisation in Learning Development. In Syska, A. and Buckley, C. (eds.) How to Be a Learning Developer in Higher Education: Critical Perspectives, Community and Practice. Routledge. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781003433347-19 - OPEN ACCESS

Show notes The term ‘third space’ is, these days, readily familiar and recognisable, the concept well rehearsed since Celia Whitchurch first applied it to those boundary-crossing ‘blended professionals’ in higher education, in 2008. However, its definition remains somewhat elusive, its apparent capaciousness also risking a loss of meaning through being too broad. Third space can therefore be discomfiting for some, the transformative and emancipatory possibilities it offers at odds with the threat it can pose to building an established, recognisable identity. These feelings were a source of tension for Emily and Diane, who explored alternative perspectives and critique in the creation of this book. For them, writing was (and remains) a way of socialising ideas: trying things out, refining and developing, and then seeding new conversations. That doing this together has been a joy for them is only too evident - from their ongoing writing and research projects, to their easy delight in writing with each other. The resources we mentioned Adler, M. (1972) How to read a book: The classic guide to intelligent reading. Touchstone Becker, H.S. (2020) Writing for social scientists (3rd ed.). The University of Chicago Press Grant, J. (2021) The new power university: The social purpose of higher education in the 21st century. Pearson Education Kift, S., Nelson, K. and Clarke, J. (2010) Transition pedagogy: A third generation approach to FYE. Student Success 1(1), 1-20 Syed, M. (2019) Rebel ideas: The power of diverse thinking. John Murray Publishers, Ltd. Veles N, Carter M and Boon H (2019) Complex collaboration champions: university third space professionals working together across borders. Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, 23 (2-3). pp. 75-85 Veles N and Carter M (2016) Imagining a future: changing the landscape for third space professionals in Australian higher education institutions. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 38 (5). pp. 519-533 And the book we talked aboutMcIntosh, E., and Nutt, D. (eds) (2022) The impact of the integrated practitioner in higher education: Studies in third space professionalism. Routledge.

Show notes A previous career in Marketing has proven useful in helping Sonia advocate for Learning Development in her institution, and in doing so for the students who benefit from it. When we learn to speak the language of strategy, and to align what we do with our colleagues’ institutional priorities, it becomes easier to integrate LD provision by presenting it as a means for achieving goals and solving problems. Similarly, building connections with colleagues and articulating our expertise can boost our confidence by helping us shape the professional identity of LD, a skill that will be increasingly important in the future, along with agility and the flexibility to embrace new developments such as AI. Sonia’s EdD explored the self-efficacy of students when faced with a writing task, so we asked her advice on conquering the fear of writing, particularly that of the blank page. The answer, for her, is to switch from a blank Word document to a blank paper document, and break down the tasks involved into a mindmap, as messy as you like because the process is just as important as the product - if not more so!  The resources we mentioned Bandura, A. (1997) Self-efficacy: The exercise of control. Worth Publishers Elbow, P. (1998) Writing without teachers. 2nd Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. The Pomodoro technique: https://www.pomodorotechnique.com/what-is-the-pomodoro-technique.php  Syska, A. and Buckley, C. (2022) Writing as liberatory practice: unlocking knowledge to locate an academic field. Teaching in Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2022.2114337 And the chapter we talked about Hood, S. (2023) Succeeding in Learning Development. In Syska, A. and Buckley, C. (eds.) How to Be a Learning Developer in Higher Education: Critical Perspectives, Community and Practice. Routledge.

Show notes In a values-driven profession like Learning Development, pedagogies and praxis must almost by necessity go beyond the activities and practices of the classroom, to embrace the socio-political structures in which those pedagogies are situated. By discussing agency (of students, but also of Learning Developers) in relation to structure – whether institutional, ideological, or both – Steve Rooney is able to explore the interplay between the two: how one is informed, constrained, and even liberated by the other, in an educational ecosystem conceptually much bigger than any classroom. Temporally, too, when we think about our own praxis, ‘the past lingers in the same “present” in which the future tries…to take root’ (Bauman, 2010: 38); as we strive to support our students’ agency, so we also acknowledge where they are coming from and what they are bringing with them, even whilst we must negotiate our own part in the structures in which we operate.  Any anxiety this might engender can be tempered by understanding and accepting what is within our control – in writing as in life. Steve reminds us – in his work but also in his conversation – that none of us are alone in feeling this way and that we are part of a compassionate and kind community that offers solidarity. To write is to think and to share and be part of that community, so recognise your anxiety and respect it, and take a chance. Write.  The resources we mentioned Archer, M.S. (2000) Being human: The problem of agency. Cambridge: CUP. Bauman, Z. (2010) Living on borrowed time: Conversations with Citlali Rovirosa-Madrazo. New Jersey: Wiley Danvers, E. (2018) ‘Who is the critical thinker in higher education? A feminist re-thinking’, Teaching in Higher Education, 23(5): 548-562 Fanon, F. (1961) The wretched of the Earth. London: Penguin Books Rose, G. (2011 [1995]) Love’s work: A reckoning with life. New York: NYRB. And the chapter we talked aboutRooney, S. (2023) The mess we’re in: LD pedagogies and the question of student agency. In Syska, A. and Buckley, C. (eds.) How to Be a Learning Developer in Higher Education: Critical Perspectives, Community and Practice. Routledge.

Show notes Writing is magical. It can take your thoughts and ideas and spread them further than you could reach alone. It can unite a group of colleagues in pursuit of a common goal to build a field. And it can mediate and strengthen a creative and rewarding friendship. Alicja and Carina share their experiences of writing together and collaborating on the production of their book, How to be a Learning Developer in Higher Education - where the idea for the book first came from (a Greek beach), what their experience of editing a book was like (compiling the index will never be forgotten), and what writing means to them (everything). The resources we mentioned Jensen, J. (2017). Write no matter what. University of Chicago Press. Lamott, A. (1995). Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anchor Books. Murray, R. (2014). Writing in Social Spaces: A social processes approach to academic writing. Routledge. Pressfield, S. 2002. The war of art: Break through the blocks and win your inner creative battles. Black Irish Entertainment LLC. Silvia, P.J. 2007. How to write a lot: A practical guide to productive academic writing. American Psychological Association. Strunk, S. and White, E. 1999. The elements of style (4th ed.). Pearson. Zinsser, W. 2016. On writing well: The classic guide to writing nonfiction. New York: Harper Perennial. And the book we talked about Syska, A. and Buckley, C. (2023) How to be a learning developer in higher education: Critical perspectives, community and practice. Routledge.

Show notes After a career as a marine biologist, Trevor washed up in London to discover a love of teaching and an aptitude for writing, which became something of a compulsion. Just as writing has become a fundamental part of his own identity, so he is also committed to helping students develop that writerly part of their own identities too, to think holistically about what they are writing and who they are writing it for. This kind of deep thinking about purpose is what he terms ‘writing in the bones’ - a part of who you are and its own motivation. By engaging in dialogue with ourselves around writing, we can unpick our strategies, build our confidence, and support others to do the same. Trevor’s advice for writing is valuable for everyone: start the process with the freedom and looseness of creativity, to figure out what you already know and play with ideas, and then refine through criticality. The outputs of writing are important, but that process of becoming a writer has benefits that reach far beyond any single piece of writing. How about you: would you call yourself a writer? The resources we mentioned Brande, D. (1981 [reprint]) Becoming a writer. Jeremy P Tarcher Elbow, P. (1998) Writing without teachers. 2nd Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hickman, D.E and Jacobson, S. (1997) The power process: An NLP approach to writing. Anglo-American. Nicol, D. (2021) The power of internal feedback: exploiting natural comparison processes, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 46:5, 756-778, DOI: 10.1080/02602938.2020.1823314  Sword, H. (2012). Stylish academic writing. Harvard University Press. Zinsser, W. (2016). On writing well: The classic guide to writing nonfiction. New York: Harper Perennial. And the book we talked about Day, T. (2023). Success in academic writing (3rd ed.). London: Bloomsbury.

Show notes As someone who has been passionately engaged in the craft of teaching for over 20 years - and who has practised at every level from primary to higher education in that time - Virna was keen to explore how to engage an increasingly diverse student body in interesting and relevant teaching. Her journey in producing this fantastic book was triggered by the pandemic, which suddenly made inequalities in access all the more pronounced. Her roots to shoots model, and the metaphor of the tree, emerged from the values that together summarised her understanding of ‘inclusive’ - at which point she discovered the vital importance of finding shared meanings of words, developed further through the guest provocations and narratives that illustrate her intentions so well. The pandemic has brought increased visibility to educators and developers, no matter how they identify, and we all need to make a bit more noise about what we do. A piece of writing is a dialogue between an author and their readership, and despite its challenges, this sense of collaboration and exchange enriches everyone involved. The resources we mentioned Healey, M., Matthews, K. E., and Cook-Sather, A. (2020) Writing about learning and teaching in higher education: creating and contributing to scholarly conversations across a range of genres. Elon, NC: Elon University Center for Engaged Learning. https://doi.org/10.36284/celelon.oa3.  Inclusive Learning Design - the companion website (https://inclusivelearningdesign.com/) Maha Bali - Reflecting Allowed https://blog.mahabali.me/ And the book we talked about Rossi, V. (2023). Inclusive learning design in higher education: A practical guide to creating equitable learning experiences. London: Routledge.

Show notes We might see predominantly our own little slice of the higher education sector but something we all have in common is a concern with the knowledge ecology and how we think with students about their learning. For this, writing matters. Writing is a way of thinking and being; it is a form of dialogue, and conversation matters too - with each other, and with our students. By writing long-form essays on her Substack, Helen has found a lightening of voice and a closer connection to an audience. For her, writing is a commitment to writing as development, a way of coming to be and coming to know; she’s a different person at the end of a piece than when she started. And perhaps this process is more important now than ever. The knowledge ecology in which we all work and live feels dominated these days by big business. Despite sometimes unavoidable pressure to support and promote these technological interventions, our knowledge practices can remain open, communal, and ethical.  The resources we mentioned Ivanič, R. (1998) Writing as identity: The discoursal construction of identity in academic writing. John Benjamins Publishing Maxwell, G. (2012) On poetry. Harvard University Press Nussbaum, M. (1992). Love’s knowledge: Essays on philosophy and literature. Oxford University Press Seymour, R. (2019). The twittering machine: How capitalism stole our social lives. London: The Indigo Press And the publication we talked about https://helenbeetham.substack.com/

After an eclectic career that has involved extended stays in vastly different countries, Julian Edwards is familiar with the need to find a way to integrate his experiences into his sense of who he is. He is also familiar with how easy it is for students to feel bamboozled or at the mercy of something they don’t understand, and the detrimental impact that can have on the curiosity so vital for truly widening – and deepening – participation. Julian’s goal, in what he calls this ‘kitchen sink’ book, was to help students get through a complex and complicated assignment by helping them to understand their writing and reduce the culture shock inherent in confronting new forms of writing. Reflection itself contributes to that process, in creating a means for recognising that perception and reality are often dissonant but time usually solves all ills. Looking back on an event or an experience is the best way to learn from it, after all!  And what of his advice to the struggling writer? Get some distance from your writing and don’t be afraid to edit, not just for the finishing polish but to really figure out what it is you want to say. As for where you start, work with what you’ve got. Perhaps a student has brought a question, or a colleague has a problem. Maybe there’s something you’d like to see changed. Maybe you feel inspired. Whatever it is, cultivate a regular habit of putting something onto the page and you’ll be on your way! The resources we mentioned Beer, G. (1999) Open fields: Science in cultural encounter. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Demings, W.E. (2000) Out of the crisis. Massachusetts: The MIT Press Davies, WH. Leisure. Available at: https://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=100  Elbow, P. (1998) Writing without teachers. 2nd Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kolb’s reflective cycle. Available from https://www.simplypsychology.org/learning-kolb.html  And the book we talked about Edwards, J. (2023). Write reflectively. Los Angeles: SAGE.

Show notes Lee would be the first to admit he’s a tech nerd (in fact he does at least twice, in this conversation!) and has been since building his first website as a child. However, he never loses sight of the person in front of the screen, and he has never forgotten what it was like to be the only one of his school friends not to have access to a computer. That sense of inclusion has driven him ever since, culminating (to date, anyway) in the Designing for Diverse Learners poster now in the National Teaching Repository. As well as providing clear instructions for ensuring all our resources are as inclusive and accessible as possible, they also open up more of a link to design thinking. Well designed resources benefit everyone, and it’s an important habit to cultivate. As for writing, Lee loves it. (We cheered!) He has engaged in an ongoing process of trial and error to figure out what works best for him but as with other guests, recommends collaborative writing for that sense of accountability and value. If you’re still unsure whether to take the plunge, perhaps this is the extra nudge you need? The resources we mentioned Richards, K. and Pilcher, N. (2023) Study Skills: neoliberalism’s perfect Tinkerbell, Teaching in Higher Education, 28:3, 580-596, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2020.1839745 Tomlinson, T., Fallin, L. and Watling, S. (2022). Designing for Diverse Learners Poster [4.0]. National Teaching Repository. Poster. https://doi.org/10.25416/NTR.20141498.v1 And the papers we talked about Fallin, L. (2021) “Developing online content to support students: the Remote Learning SkillsGuide”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (22). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.vi22.671. Fallin, L. (2021) “Teaching academic software via YouTube videos in the Covid-19 pandemic: potential applications for learning development”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (22). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.vi22.679. Fallin, L. and Tomlinson, T. (2022) “Designing for diverse learners ”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (25). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.vi25.973. Fallin, L., Davison, E., Spencer, G. and Tomlinson, T. (2023) “Supporting inclusive learning resource design with Designing for Diverse Learners ”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (26). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.vi26.924.

Show notes The concept of third space is one that most Learning Developers have probably encountered at some point, whether in their reading, their writing, or how they understand their role. Celia Whitchurch has a long relationship with LD, first invited into the fold by Janette Myers in 2015. She outlines for us how the idea of third space has developed, from attempting to define what someone is not, to positively recognising and legitimising a new way of working in the university. Third space professionals are adept at networking and negotiating, crossing boundaries and creating new pathways, and similarly third space (never THE third space, for Celia - there are multiple!) has undergone its own metamorphosis. Much of her recent work is on managing a career of shifting identities, and impending retirement doesn’t seem to have allayed Celia’s passion for writing. It starts with an idea, and then a paragraph, and it flows from there, with some headings to ensure all bases are covered. Get a writing mentor, or gather some writing buddies, and learn from each other. But take heart - even Celia Whitchurch can have a paper rejected! So if it’s ever happened to you, you’re in excellent company, and the only thing to do is try again. The resources we mentioned Murray, R. (2020) Writing for Academic Journals. 4th ed. London: Open University Press, McGraw-Hill Education. Whitchurch, C., W. Locke, and G. Marini. 2023. Challenging Approaches to Academic Career-Making. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/challenging-approaches-to-academic-careermaking-9781350282537/ And the paper we talked about Whitchurch, C. (2008). Shifting Identities and Blurring Boundaries: the Emergence of Third Space Professionals in UK Higher Education. Higher education quarterly, 62(4), 377-396.

Texts encountered on screen, printed off, or bound in books can only ever be confronted one or two pages at a time, a situation which Dave Middlebrook contends is detrimental to a complete understanding of the whole text. His solution is to take the pages of the text apart and bring them together into a single continuous scroll, allowing its entirety to be comprehended in a single look. However, a single look is by no means the extent of this action, but only the beginning. The text can be mapped, dissected, demarcated and understood, by an individual or by a group, opening up the printed word to a more discursive treatment, and providing a means for active engagement with reading by making it a physical process as much as a mental one. In a first for the podcast, we are delighted to share a video resource of Dave demonstrating the text mapping technique, hosted on LearnHigher. Take a look and let us know how it works for you! The resources we mentioned http://www.textmapping.org/index.html And the paper we talked about Abegglen, S., Burns, T., Middlebrook, D. and Sinfield, S. (2019) ‘Unrolling the text: Using scrolls to facilitate academic reading’, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (14). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.v0i14.467.

Although the concept of academic literacies introduced by Lea and Street in 1998 has been transformative in helping us understand the sociostructural context of student writing, it has never put forward a pedagogy. This is where the concept of genre, the signature pedagogy of EAP, can step in, marrying a concrete teaching practice to the theoretical stance of academic literacies. There is a tension between the two approaches yet both aim to be transformative - in the mindsets of those working with students, and in the learning experiences of those students. Yet arguably this transformation has not gone far enough, being limited to those programmes or courses that have successfully worked with a Learning Developer rather than necessarily across the institution. So how can that level of transformation - essentially in how we 'do' higher education - be brought about? Ideally, by expanding the role of the Learning Developer to be embedded in the disciplines and working directly with lecturers to support student-centred teaching and assessment, and to help those lecturers best understand how to develop their students’ writing. You may not agree with this approach, in which case we’d love to hear from you!  The resources we mentioned: Journal of English for Research Publication Purposes https://benjamins.com/catalog/jerpp  The Language Scholar https://languagescholar.leeds.ac.uk/about/  Lea, M. and Street, B. (1998) ‘Student writing in higher education: an academic literacies approach’, Studies in Higher Education, 23 (2), pp.157–172. Available at: DOI: 10.1080/03075079812331380364 (Accessed: 10 October 2019). Lillis, T. and Scott, M. (2007) 'Defining academic literacies research: issues of epistemology, ideology and strategy', Journal of Applied Linguistics , 4(1) pp.5–32. Available at: http://oro.open.ac.uk/17057/ (Accessed: 10 October 2019). And the papers we talked about: Wingate, U. (2019) “Achieving transformation through collaboration: the role of academic literacies”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education (15). https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.v0i15.566  Wingate, U., & Tribble, C. (2012). The best of both worlds? Towards an English for Academic Purposes/Academic Literacies writing pedagogy. Studies in Higher Education, 37(4), 481-495. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2010.525630 

Writing a doctorate can be a lonely experience, but when compounded by a global pandemic, the desire for connection and community became almost overwhelming for one group of people. Their solution lay in writing together. Despite never having met before, the 10 authors of this paper decided to join forces and create something together that was far richer as a result than anything they could have produced on their own. This act of writing worked to shape their identity as a group, by providing a point of contact, allowing individual voices to be heard, and building a trusted space for sharing ideas. By becoming in a sense their own data, they got to know themselves and each other much better, and collective autoethnography has become the standard methodology for the group. The sense of collective ownership of the group has become a sustaining element, giving it life and prompting all the members to go further and write more.  The resources we mentioned Pat Thomson’s blog - Patter https://patthomson.net/  Elbow’s free writing technique comes from Elbow, P. (1998). Writing without teachers. 2nd Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Syska, A. & Buckley, C. (2022). Writing as liberatory practice: unlocking knowledge to locate an academic field. Teaching in Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2022.2114337 Johnson, I. P. (2018) Driving learning development professionalism forward from within. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. doi: 10.47408/jldhe.v0i0.470And the paper we talked about Bickle, E., Bishopp-Martin, S., Canton, U., Chin, P., Johnson, I., Kantcheva, R., Nodder, J., Rafferty, V., Sum, K., & Welton, K. (2021). Emerging from the third space chrysalis: Experiences in a non-hierarchical, collaborative research community of practice. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 18(7), 135-158. https://doi.org/10.53761/1.18.7.9 

There is joy in writing - real joy! - in its immanence and its ‘nowness’ and its ability to collect and articulate thought. We often see writing as the means to an end, a way of conveying a message, but for Helen, writing has its own identity and its own reason for existing. As Foucault argues, what we do is who we are. We may even write a friendship into existence. Through writing, Helen encourages us to blast the academic discourse open so we can fully work with ideas and respond to the world in which we find ourselves. How do you do that? Be brave. Take the risk and write the work you feel should be out there. We have to seek out the spaces where we can find joy, collaborate, share, and talk about our writing. We also need to create space for other ways of expressing knowledge. Writing is very much like LD in that sense; it’s a space for us to meet, share and learn. If that process is painful, then interrogate that pain, which is probably linked somehow to the expectations we have of ourselves and of our writing. Try writing for the sake of it - you too might find that joy! The resources we mentioned Cixous, H. (1991) Coming to writing and other essays. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Lipsitz, G. (1998) The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Manning, E. and Massumi, B. (2014). Thought in the act: passages in the ecology of experience. University of Minnesota Press Pelias, R. (2004) A methodology of the heart. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press St. Pierre, E. (1997a) ‘Methodology in the fold and the irruption of transgressive data’, Qualitative Studies in Education, 10(2), pp.175-189. St. Pierre, E. (1997b) ‘Circling the text: nomadic writing practices’, Qualitative Inquiry, 3(4), pp.403-417. St. Pierre, E. (2004) ‘Deleuzian concepts for education: the subject undone’, Educational Philosophy and Theory, 36(3), pp.283-296. Tillmann-Healy, L. (2003) ‘Friendship as method’, Qualitative Inquiry, 9(5), pp. 729-749 Syska, A. and Buckley, C. (2022) Writing as liberatory practice: unlocking knowledge to locate an academic field. Teaching in Higher Education https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2022.2114337 Winterson, J. (1989) Sexing the cherry. New York: Grove Press And the paper we talked about Bowstead, H. (2011) Coming to writing. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education (3). https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.v0i3.128 

After a long and varied career teaching in a range of educational contexts with a diverse student population, Dr Amanda French is troubled by our relationship with writing. It’s a task often approached as a neutral operation but trying to teach it in this technical, mechanistic way - with all that potential for seeing it as a skill in deficit - is closing off for students that sense of writing as a social act. It’s a part of who we are and how we think; it allows us to be part of and develop the discourse and to connect to each other. So, while it can act as a vehicle for thought, it’s not (or shouldn’t be) the product in itself. We can think of it as part of a rhizomatic environment, people entangled with their situated writing, and learning developers can be at the centre of that in helping students unpack it and figure out how to express not only what they want to say, but who they are. The main message is, don’t be scared of writing! Start by writing anything down and write every day. The most sustainable approach is to allow for a slow, gradual accretion of confidence, almost like an artisanal approach, and in doing so you become part of a wide and diverse community. The resources we mentioned Julia Molinari (2022) What Makes Writing Academic: Rethinking Theory for Practice Rowena Murray (2014) Writing in social spaces Helen Sword https://www.helensword.com/ Pat Thomson https://patthomson.net/ The Thesis Whisperer https://thesiswhisperer.com/ Sara Ahmed (2014) The cultural politics of emotion And the paper and book we talked about French, A. 2020. Academic writing as identity-work in higher education: forming a ‘professional writing in higher education habitus’, Studies in Higher Education, 45:8, 1605-1617, DOI:10.1080/03075079.2019.1572735 French, A. 2022. A Philosophical Approach to Perceptions of Academic Writing Practices in Higher Education. Routledge

Professor Alison James, free range educator, coach and play enthusiast, describes herself as a fellow explorer and a companion to those wishing to explore play and creativity in higher education. Academic identity can often resist play because of traditional conceptions of what academia is or should be, and it can take real bravery and courage to try something new and playful. People find their way to play through various routes: encountering it in a training session, through curiosity, by trying and failing with traditional methods, and that visceral feeling that comes from experiencing something themselves and wanting to do more with it. Writing can take the same approach, in that it is best experienced socially, with peer support, conversations, sharing, and making your ideas visible. True literacy, after all, is about being able to learn, unlearn and relearn. So make space for some play, and we can all take ourselves and our work more lightly! The resources we mentioned Engaging Imagination https://engagingimagination.com/ Helen Sword - The Writer’s Diet https://writersdiet.com/ Helen Sword, zombie nouns https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNlkHtMgcPQ Professors at Play https://professorsatplay.org/ Stephen Nachmanovitch (1993) Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art Johnny Saldaña (2009) The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers And the paper and book we talked about James, A. R. (2013) “Lego Serious Play: a three-dimensional approach to learning development”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (6). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.v0i6.208. James, A., & Nerantzi, C. (Eds.). (2019) The power of play in higher education: Creativity in tertiary learning. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

In this podcast, Sunny Dhillon takes us on a long journey, through philosophy, pedagogy and personal training, in a testament to the power of metaphor. Although wellbeing sounds like an innocuous, even desirable goal for students and for higher education to pursue, Sunny’s thesis is that it is ill-advised to be well adapted to a society that is so sick. In our individualised, neoliberalised form of responsibility, it can be difficult to see that ‘wellbeing’ might in fact mean deliberately discomfiting ourselves and embracing the ambiguity of true inquiry. This pedagogy of discomfort is all about having difficult conversations, challenging accepted viewpoints, and resisting the hegemonic discourses around the notions of success and wellbeing in academia. Taking decolonisation in his sights as the next means by which higher education seeks to address the problems of retention and student satisfaction without necessarily tackling the systemic sources of those problems, Sunny proposes that learning developers have an important role to play, being both outsiders and insiders and having the ability to create space for these difficult conversations. The resources we mentioned Mumford method: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/Arts/Documents/MumfordMethod.pdf Etymologist: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/3234647.Mark_Forsyth Decolonisation article: https://journals.sfu.ca/pie/index.php/pie/article/view/1377 Personal blog - https://dsdhillon.medium.com/ And the paper we talked about Dhillon, S. (2018) “Whose wellbeing is it anyway?”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. doi: 10.47408/jldhe.v0i0.460.

Throughout a chequered career, Professor Debbie Holley has striven to make a difference for students, with a strong thread of belonging and wellbeing running throughout all her roles. Her overriding interest in technology has led her to challenge and investigate the inequalities of the digital divide, particularly since nothing seems to have changed much in the last ten years. Disadvantaged students still struggle with access, not necessarily because of the technology itself but as a result of the structural inequalities that determine who uses what and how, and how confident they feel in doing so. For us in the Learning Development community, we must not assume that everyone can access and use all the resources we create and provide. However, there’s a lot we can do with learning design that need not require extensive training or institutional investment. Most students have a mobile phone so let’s think about bitesize learning. Isn’t this the better starting point? Publications discussed: Biggins, D., Holley, D. and Zezulkova, M., 2017. Digital Competence and Capability Frameworks in Higher Education: Importance of Life-long Learning, Self-Development and Well-being. EAI Endorsed Transactions on e-Learning, 4 (13), e1. DOI: 10.4108/eai.20-6-2017.152742 Holley, 2019. https://wonkhe.com/blogs/everything-you-think-you-know-about-universities-and-technology-is-wrong/ Holley & Oliver, 2011. Negotiating the digital divide: narratives from the have and the have-nots Kirby, A. (2009) Digimodernism: How New Technologies Dismantle the Postmodern and Reconfigure Our Culture. New York and London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Resources mentioned: Abegglen, S., Burns, T., & Sinfield, S. (2021). Supporting Student Writing and Other Modes of Learning and Assessment. A Staff Guide. Environmental Design. http://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/6970/1/Writing-guide-2021_2021.05.25.pdf Pauline Ridley, Drawing to learn https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/visuallearning/drawing/

How do you prepare students for the mysterious world of university? Sandra and Tom used their own experiences and the stories of other students to create strategies that empower learners to have a meaningful learning journey in HE. Learning Development is about demystifying practices so people can navigate them on their own terms. What Sandra and Tom want to add to that is happiness – helping students learn how to enjoy learning and find their voice in a creative, reflective space, because when students write about their learning for themselves in their own voices, they become confident in writing itself, and their academic writing improves. It’s about creating a space for students to flourish, and where they can understand that feeling fear isn’t the same as being a failure. As Sandra says, ‘that’s the joy of being a learning developer: finding HOW we can help the students’. And how can we help ourselves with our writing? For Sandra and Tom, it’s simple: ‘When we say “write to learn” we really mean it…Quite often we do something that we don’t know yet what we want to say about it. So we’ll open a Google doc and we’ll all plunge in.’ So be brave, work with other people, and be kind. Publication discussed: Burns, T. & Sinfield, S. 2022. Essential study skills: The complete guide to success at university (5th ed.). Sage. Resources mentioned: D.W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality (2005) The Cornell note taking system https://lsc.cornell.edu/how-to-study/taking-notes/cornell-note-taking-system/ Pattern note taking https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/al/globalpad-rip/openhouse/academicenglishskills/reading/note/example2/ Dave Middlebrook, The Textmapping Project http://www.textmapping.org/ Read more about textmapping in: Abegglen, S., Burns, T., Middlebrook, D. and Sinfield, S. (2019) ‘Unrolling the text: Using scrolls to facilitate academic reading’, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (14). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.v0i14.467. Jim Davis, ‘Don’t waste student work’, TEDxOttawa (2011) Sally Mitchell (2010) ‘Now you don’t see it; now you do: Writing made visible in the university’, Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1474022210361452 Theresa Lillis (2001) Student writing: Access, regulation, desire. Routledge. Peter Elbow’s books on writing http://peterelbow.com/books.html Molinari, J. (2022) What makes writing academic: Rethinking theory for practice. Bloomsbury. Abegglen, S., Burns, T., Sinfield, S. (2021) Supporting Student Writing and Other Modes of Learning and Assessment. A Staff Guide. Calgary: University of Calgary. http://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/6970/1/Writing-guide-2021_2021.05.25.pdf

How do you write when you hate writing? The answer might be to support others in writing and hope some of it comes back round to you! Kate Coulson, Head of Learning and Teaching Enhancement at the University of Northampton, is driven by the desire to show that LD is central, important and has an impact on students - for their sake, and for ours too. Impact is a broad and slippery concept, difficult to define, making it all the more important that we consider it and work towards it. But there’s no point having data and insights, if no one else knows about it. Part of the problem is having enough time to organise these thoughts into a publication, especially if you’re someone - like Kate - who would probably rather do anything else than write, even when that helps overcome the barriers that surround LD. One of those barriers is that we don't talk enough about what we know and what we do, which means no one else knows either.  Collaborative writing is not something that comes easily to Kate, and neither is writing for publication. If it's not a habit or a priority, it can seem impossible to do, although a deadline can help. For Kate, the most effective support is the writing retreat she set up and which runs every month. Colleagues love it and have found it productive, and even Kate has managed to write during some of the sessions. So she's made a space, set targets, and  has a group of people to hold her accountable. Now she just has to do it.  How about you? Publications discussed: Loddick, A., and Coulson, K. (2020) ‘The impact of Learning Development tutorials on student attainment.’ Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education 17. doi: https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi17.558 Coulson, K., Loddick, A., and Rice, P. (2021) ‘Exploring the Impact of Learning Development on Student Engagement, Experience, and Learning.’ In: Huijser, H., Kek, M., and Padró, F.F. (eds.) Student Support Services: Exploring impact on student engagement, experience and learning. Springer Singapore. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-3364-4_19-1 Resources mentioned: Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance (2016) Joli Jensen, Write No Matter What: Advice for Academics (2017)

A group of people working together can create great things. We are delighted to welcome Dr John Hilsdon, until recently Associate Professor and Head of Learning Support and Wellbeing at the University of Plymouth. John was one of the founders of ALDinHE following a successful symposium at London Metropolitan University in 2002, and in 2005 he was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship for his invaluable contributions to LD. We talk here about the classic 2011 book, Learning Development in Higher Education, co-edited with Peter Hartley, Christine Keenan, Sandra Sinfield and Michelle Verity. Collaboration and co-working has been a feature of John’s life as a learning developer, driven by initial feelings of isolation as a lone practitioner that prompted the founding ALDinHE, his establishment of the Journal for Learning Development in Higher Education, and the writing of this book. Its origins go back to the 1980s when John worked in FE and sought to make education relevant to his students. The learner’s context has to be the starting point, if they are to fulfil their potential. This belief, and the opportunities that arrived from Government in the early 2000s, led a 16-university consortium to create the LearnHigher CETL in 2005 which culminated in this book, intended both to help colleagues and future colleagues, and get other academics to understand LD. The book was a way to express philosophical and practical ideas and reflect on the values that guide us. In that sense, the book represents the thinking of the collective but also reflects where those collaborators were grounded in practice, and the key issues that felt pressing. Does John feel that it had the desired impact? It’s certainly considered an essential resource, and its frequency of citation is testament to that, although whether it’s permeated management consciousness is another question. However, it does remain the only book explicitly on LD, and can be built on in future. This idea inevitably leads us to thinking about how learning developers can shape the future of their work. The answer, for John, sits firmly with individual agency. Context will dictate how much power we have but there is always the option to exercise some agency. Speak out and ask questions, he says, if only because it’s difficult for those in authority to suppress them! We ask about developing LD from a field of practice into an academic discipline: John is sanguine about such ambitions, preferring to concentrate on how we work in relationship with colleagues and students. After all, good collaborative work is recognised as such when people feel able to express themselves and know their contribution is valued. John’s real desire lies in the idea of a Learning Development university, where people come to undertake interdisciplinary, project-based and collaborative work. Even if that seems a little out of our reach, we can still offer students learning conversations that are relevant in our new post-pandemic context. We can even play and create, and find connections. No matter what else might happen, we can still do that. And here’s where writing can come in. It’s about being in dialogue with multiple others, sharing ideas and interpretations. It’s a hugely complex psychosocial construct - no wonder encouraging students to write is at the heart of LD practice. We help students succeed every day by starting from the ground up. If that isn’t worth writing about - creatively, and with courage - then what is? The resources John mentioned: Bill Readings, The University in Ruins (2010) Peter Elbow, Writing Without Teachers (1973) The Critical Thinking Model: https://www.plymouth.ac.uk/uploads/production/document/path/1/1713/Model_To_Generate_Critical_Thinking.pdf And the Wrasse project: https://wrasse.plymouth.ac.uk/ And the book we talked about: Hartley, P., Hilsdon, J., Keenan, C., Sinfield, S. and Verity, M. (eds.) (2011) Learning Development in Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan.

A brief introduction to the Learning Development Project podcast.