Drawing as a Way of Knowing: Visual Practices as the Route to Becoming Academic

This case study illustrates what happened when we took a playful approach in a first year undergraduate academic skills module and a graduate Facilitating Student Learning module asking our students to “draw to learn.” We found that they not only enjoyed the challenges we set them, but also that they “blossomed” and approached their academic writing with more confidence and joy. Hence we argue for a more ludic approach to learning and teaching in Higher Education to enable Widening Participation students and their tutors to become the academic writers they want to be. In particular “blind drawing” seems to be a powerful tool for diminishing the fear of failure and for fostering deep understanding as well as self-confidence

Re-genering academic writing. Case Study 4: Digital Storytelling

This is Case Study 4 of 5, as introduced in ‘Re-genering academic writing’ on pp. 181–90, which includes an overview of the context for all five pieces

Editorial: Collaboration in higher education: Partnering with students, colleagues and external stakeholders

Welcome to this Special Issue of the Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice (JUTLP). This editorial provides an overview of Collaboration in Higher Education. Humans are social, inter-dependent beings, needing to be and communicate with each other. Being with other people provides an opportunity to grow and develop, creating a sense of self and identity. Together we construct, structure and restructure the stories that build the larger narratives of who we are, what we do and how we live, act and behave as people, professionals and larger communities. It is through our collaborations that we come together, and construct meaning and ourselves. As Higher Education continues to exclude and sideline, as it constrains and removes spaces and places for collaboration between service staff, faculty and students within institutions, between institutions, and with other stakeholders, there is a need to rediscover the power of collaboration. The articles included, build on practical experience, research data, personal and collective reflections, to outline how the contributors have navigated this tension to create spaces of voice and hope. Presented are case studies that are boundary crossing: across disciplinary boundaries; cross-institution collaboration; cross-boundary working; pedagogical co-creation and the re-conceptualising of learning; and students as partners, co-researchers and co-authors. Together they showcase refreshed notions of collegiality and collaboration in Higher Education that support new and more nuanced, and dynamic models of co-creation. We hope the Special Issue helps seed an ecology of collaborative practice for social justice – a more humane academia

Re-genering academic writing. Case Study 1: Collages

The starting point of our re-genering experiment was to bring together two of our core research interests: our belief in the emancipatory power of ludic and multimodal practice and our desire to empower those widening participation students often labelled as ‘deficit’. We, as learning developers and educationists, started by welcoming and valuing students for who they were, rather than remediating them because of what they were not. Our teaching started with their strengths and assets: their commitment and engagement; and what they could do and what challenge they could rise to without the need for the specific cultural and academic capital typically already possessed by the traditional, middle-class student. The present article and mini-case studies (see also ‘Cabinet of Curiosity’ pp. 211–15, ‘Games and Board Games’ pp. 261–66, ‘Digital Storytelling’ pp. 275–78 and ‘Multimodal Exhibition’ pp. 291–303) present some of the ludic work we have undertaken with our students. This article contains Case Study 1

Re-genering academic writing. Case Study 2: Cabinet of Curiosity

This is Case Study 2 of 5, as introduced in ‘Re-genering academic writing’ on pp. 181–90, which includes an overview of the context across all five pieces

The power of freedom : setting up a multimodal exhibition with undergraduate students to foster their learning and help them to achieve

The present paper explores the opportunities created by an emancipatory approach to learning and teaching when combined with embedded peer mentoring. First year undergraduate students - most from non-traditional backgrounds - were set the task to explore learning spaces at their university and to present their findings in creative ways in a Multimodal Exhibition during Enhancement Week. They were supported by second year students on their course who acted as coaches, role models, and critics. Our experience - and feedback by students - showed that serious learning is taking place when students are given "the freedom to learn"

Becoming Writers: Transforming Students' Academic Writing

The present paper builds on Elbow’s (1998) idea of ‘free writing’ and other creative approaches to writing as we explore methods to foster students’ academic writing skills. Rather than focussing on a deficit student in need of ‘fixing’, we introduce and reflect on the usefulness of free- and creative writing exercises as we explore how we can enable students to find ‘a voice’ as we support them on the way to becoming successful academic writers. In this context, we argue for academic/study skills support that takes students ‘serious’, and builds on their existing strengths, knowledge – and writing skills

Decolonising academic writing: book review

This short article reviews the book Supporting Student Writing and Other Modes of Learning and Assessment. A Staff Guide (2021) incorporating author and reviewer voices. A synopsis of the work is provided, together with recommendations of how the book might be used to decolonise academic writing

Supporting university staff to develop student writing: collaborative writing as a method of inquiry

There is a feeling in the Learning Development community – and in academia more generally – that discipline staff see the academic writing of students as a problem better ‘fixed’ by others. However, staff at a writing workshop held within a learning and teaching conference revealed positions that were more nuanced, inflected, compassionate and ‘responsible’ than this. Writing collaboratively around the words produced by staff at our workshop, led to new insights into ways that staff could support student writing as an emergent practice. We decided to collect and share the many ways that discipline staff might be encouraged to harness writing in their own curriculum spaces: a staff guide on supporting writing and other forms of learning and assessment emerged. In this paper we discuss collaborative writing as a method of inquiry as we explore the contested terrain of academic writing, challenge the notion of ‘writing skills’, and model a more emergent form of exploratory writing

Collaboration in higher education: a new ecology of practice

Collaboration in Higher Education focuses on the opportunities and challenges created by engaging in collaboration and partnership in higher education. As higher education institutions become ever more competitive to sustain their place in a global, neoliberal education market, students and staff are confronted with alienating practices. Such practices create an individualistic, audit and surveillance culture that is exacerbated by the recent COVID-19 pandemic and the wholesale 'pivot' to online teaching. In this atomised and competitive climate, this volume synthesises theoretical perspectives and current practice to present case study examples that advocate for a more inclusive, cooperative, collaborative, compassionate and empowering education, one that sees learning and teaching as a practice that enables personal, collective and societal growth. The human element of education is at the core of this book, focusing on what we can do and achieve together: students, academic staff, higher education institutions and relevant stakeholder