Author: Nathalie Tasler
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Just because #AcWriMo2022
Have you ever written something: just because? Just because the words needed out. Just because you could feel your thoughts churning but were not able to grasp them, hold on to the maelstrom of shapeless cognition? That’s me today. The last weeks were full of meetings, and teaching, and movement, and falling down the stairs…
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Writing about your Teaching Practice: Your DIY Writing Workshop
Finding your SoTL Writing Voice This post is based on a CPD session I ran today, for colleagues and PGR students who are new to SoTL and trying to figure out just where to begin with it. I am going to share the writing prompts with you. So if you want to use this to…
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Mindfulness is NOT a panacea for anxious students
Maybe not all mindfulness techniques but some of the most common: deep breathing, and body check are not as simple or risk free as you might think: How Deep Breathing Can Worsen Trauma Responses | Psychology Today It is a dreich rainy first November here in Scotland. And at 7 am I am contemplating my…
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Writing Creates More Writing
This year for Academic Writing Month I decided to blog more. That’s it. No specific goals, no three posts a week etc. I didn’t want to immediately inhibit the writing process by setting unrealistic expectations. It’s mid-semester here, there are teaching observations, teaching, running network, struggling with chronic health issues, all of which is usually…
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SoTL Development: A Pragmatic Approach
The following infographic reflects the stages of the process I often observe in my practice supporting SoTL, and which we use in our institution to support colleagues familiarising themselves with SoTL. It also made me think more about SoTL as practitioner inquiry: institutionally we are speaking about educational inquiries–rather than educational research–which is a horse…
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Looking Beyond: Thoughts on Teaching Models
Dr Vicki Dale and I are running a very hands-on postgraduate course around creative pedagogies. One of the core messages I think we still have to make stronger: take a step back from discipline specific pedagogies. Teaching methods are in the least interdisciplinary–although I vote for transdisciplinarity! So I am making a public plea: teaching…
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Thoughts About Ethics and SoTL: 01
Warning Rant While there is still no sector-wide agreement about the exact definition of SoTL/Scholarship and while this remains contested, debated, and perpetually redefined and tweaked, thousands of educators in Higher Education are engaging in undertaking SoTL, in their own way. Sometimes haphazardly, cautious, tentative and sometimes full of valour and zest. This article for…
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SoTL: Quick Tips
This is a (not comprehensive) list of things that keep coming up in my role supporting SoTL, fellowship applications and teaching on the PGCAP. This is the fifth blog post I have been fretting about today and decided to just press publish now. Note: Editing will probably happen. SoTL is all about your own practice:…
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#AcWriMo 2022
This has been a very slow blogging year. I made up for it with several publications, including lead editor for an open access book and starting our oSoTL journal. The second edition was just published and edition three plus a special edition are in the works. So trying to get my blogging mojo back for…
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Why Most Productivity Advice is Pointless
…or thinking about rivers ‘We are all tired.’ These words reverberate through higher education, no matter the country. We are all tired. Normally in October I have a plan for the academic year, the next quarter and the month. This is one of my key strategies to stay on top of the ADHD-fall out—being highly…
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Just Do It: SoTL
Why ‘Just Do It’ is one of the worst voices in your head When you read the tiles in the image (Why not today?) try reading them out loud and first emphasise the word today, and the second time emphasise the word not. Why NOT today? It makes all the difference doesn’t it? So why…
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An Experiment in Format
This last half year has been challenging with weird and wonderful health issues, busy workload and all around “the world is doomed pre-apocalyptic mood-ness”. However, as long as there is life there is hope. Right? So I have about 50 posts in draft status and work on various OERs. Watch this space. Are you by…
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What is in Teaching?
Some Evening Thoughts You are, you are in teaching. The whole you. Your past, your present, your envisaged future. When your learners bring something to you, challenge you, question you, ask you. They are bringing themselves to you. They are making themselves vulnerable—even if it might not feel like it to you in that moment.…
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No. It’s not just a bad day.
Good Morning Imagine Blue Monday. You wake up and you just feel a bit achy, and a bit mhe, and you really struggle to force you and yourself out of bed. It’s a grey day and the rain hits you horizontally as you leave the house. There is so much water in the lid of…
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Biggest Take Away from 2021: Question your Childhood beliefs of yourself
Biggest take away from this year: don’t let childhood beliefs hold you back! I finally got a proper asthma diagnosis and treatment, and it has changed my life! Until this year I never told my GP all the symptoms because I put them down to not being fit, not being sporty. And I had a…