Small group work: dodging potential pitfalls to reach the pedagogic possibilities

Small group work is a common learning format in higher education.  Whilst numerous positive learning outcomes are associated with this approach, there are also pitfalls scattered along the way that can undermine the entire process.  In this Viewpoint paper, I reflect on my experiences of teaching a small group work module.  It discusses new strategies I have employed to nurture communication and interaction within the student groups, and considerations I took when constructing them.  My challenge was to build a positive socio-cultural context for learning to take place, as the learning environment can exert considerable influence on the experiences students have whilst trying to work cooperatively with their peers

Self-directed learning: a toolkit for practitioners in a changing higher education context

Although self-directed learning (SDL) first emerged as a pedagogic model over forty years ago, recently it has been all but mandated as a fundamental principle of higher education.  This paper examines recent literature from the Quality Assurance Agency and Higher Education Academy, published research and research projects by the author.  These sources inform discussion about implications for teachers of SDL in contemporary practice, with particular reference to changes in the student profile in higher education: where might it be most appropriate, how might it be facilitated, and what cautions might need to be exercised?  The paper concludes with a basic toolkit of principles and ideas for practitioners who may be interested in implementing SDL in their own teaching.The concepts presented in this paper were initially given in presentations delivered at the Liverpool John Moores University 2014 Learning and Teaching Conference (16-17 June), and the Higher Education Academy 10th Annual Conference (2-3 July 2014), Aston University, UK

Mind the gap! Students’ expectations and early experiences of higher education

This paper presents outcomes of a research project which explored the correlation between Level 4 (first year) students’ expectations of what higher education might be like, and their early experiences of it.  A focus group of students enrolled on different programmes in the School of Art and Design at LJMU revealed that there was generally close alignment between their expectations and experiences appertaining to the subject matter of their programme; however, disparities existed in several other areas.  Some of these related to their course, such as pace of learning and personal tutoring, but most were associated with the wider higher education experience.  The paper discusses these in the context of wider research on retention, and concludes with recommendations for addressing the disparities

Book Review of David Boud, Rola Ajjawi, Phillip Dawson and Joanna Tai (Eds.) (2018) Developing Evaluative Judgement in Higher Education

The context that this book sets itself within is portrayed as one of increasing uncertainty.  It presents a future in which graduates must develop skills for lifelong learning, adaptation and autonomy.  It is argued that, contrarily, traditional assessment methods in higher education foster dependency, with teachers as experts – sole arbiters of judgements about the quality of work – curtailing key skills demanded by a constantly changing employment landscape. The editors’ definition of evaluative judgement, taken from Tai et al. (2018: 471), is “the capability to make decisions about the quality of work of self and others.”  There are three particularly notable keywords at work here.  First, that evaluative judgement is a capability, a skill, and not an activity; second, that it concerns quality – distinguishing the good from the less good with reference to a standard; and third, that it is applied to work, and not the self.  At its core, this is an expansion of the established ambition in higher education for engaging students as active agents in their learning, through facilitating opportunities for them to participate in making and articulating judgements over their own work and that of others.  Evaluative judgement is an empowerment of students to become active participants in understanding quality and developing connoisseurship regarding their work and their learning, thereby demystifying and potentially democratising teachers’ assessment of their work – a laudable aim in itself.[Review continues

Book Review of Naomi Winstone and David Carless (2019) Designing Effective Feedback Processes in Higher Education: A Learning-focused Approach

Many in higher education have advised of the need to move from transmission-based approaches to those in which students are active participants in their learning. Assessment and feedback, especially, have been much slower – even, seemingly reluctant, to adapt.  Encouragingly though, pedagogic discourse and research on feedback is now shifting away from teachers’ actions towards those of students and, more specifically, how they engage with and use messages about their work. [Review continues

Children\u27s Television Workshop

I do not know what you think about television. But like it or not, it will not go away. You can not pray it away, wish it away, you can not legislate it away. We had better learn to live with it

The influence of hierarchy and layout geometry in the design of learning spaces

For a number of years, higher education has moved away from didactic teaching toward collaborative and self-directed learning.  This paper discusses how the configuration and spatial geometry of learning spaces influences engagement and interaction, with a particular focus on hierarchies between people within the space.  Layouts, presented as diagrams, are analysed in terms of teacher-to-student and student-to-student power dynamics and against an established framework of learning space principles.  The paper observes that some arrangements have underlying hierarchies which subtly reinforce traditional teacher-centred power dynamics and concludes that spatial geometry and hierarchy should be considered key parameters in learning space design

Corporatised identities ≠ digital identities: algorithmic filtering on social media and the commercialisation of presentations of self

Goffman’s (The presentation of self in everyday life. Anchor Books, 1959) dramaturgical identity theory requires modification when theorising about presentations of self on social media. This chapter contributes to these efforts, refining a conception of digital identities by differentiating them from ‘corporatised identities’. Armed with this new distinction, I ultimately argue that social media platforms’ production of corporatised identities undermines their users’ autonomy and digital well-being. This follows from the disentanglement of several commonly conflated concepts. Firstly, I distinguish two kinds of presentation of self that I collectively refer to as ‘expressions of digital identity’. These digital performances (boyd, Youth, identity, and digital media. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2007) and digital artefacts (Hogan, Bull Sci Technol Soc 30(6): 377–386, 2010) are distinct, but often confused. Secondly, I contend this confusion results in the subsequent conflation of corporatised identities – poor approximations of actual digital identities, inferred and extrapolated by algorithms from individuals’ expressions of digital identity – with digital identities proper. Finally, and to demonstrate the normative implications of these clarifications, I utilise MacKenzie’s (Autonomy, oppression, and gender. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2014; Women’s Stud Int Forum 72:144–151, 2019) interpretation of relational autonomy to propose that designing social media sites around the production of corporatised identities, at the expense of encouraging genuine performances of digital identities, has undermined multiple dimensions of this vital liberal value. In particular, the pluralistic range of authentic preferences that should structure flourishing human lives are being flattened and replaced by commercial, consumerist preferences. For these reasons, amongst others, I contend that digital identities should once again come to drive individuals’ actions on social media sites. Only upon doing so can individuals’ autonomy, and control over their digital identities, be rendered compatible with social media

Who cares for academics? We need to talk about emotional well-being including what we avoid and intellectualize through macro-discourses

This paper explores academics’ wellbeing through analysing published sensitive disclosures, bringing to journal space the pain, rawness, and emotional suffering of individuals’ experiences. We confront the taboos of speaking openly about mental health and emotional wellbeing in academic institutions, with masculine structures and encroaching neoliberal discourses that create hostile atmospheres unsupportive of vulnerability and uncertainty. We also challenge existing discourses about academics’ wellbeing, implicitly burdening individuals as responsible for their pain and creating walls of shame, rather than building new healthy structures. By spotlighting the voices of academics’ emotional disclosures, intensified by embodied social inequalities, we plead for openness in formal academic outlets for sharing pre-existing emotional struggles and new wounds created by cruelly competitive, winnertakes-all structures, fortified by neoliberal ideals. Led by individuals’ voices and experiences, we make recommendations for supporting academics as an attempt to extract academia from its current perverse state and commit to repair and transformation