Category: Academic Development
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The “Quiver of Arrows” Work Hack
Photo by Antoni Shkraba on Pexels.com Does any (or all) of the above sound familiar? Do you get decision paralysis, overwhelm, or procrastination? I tick all the above, and no strategy or mental image has helped so far. Until a conversation with a colleague clicked something into place. One visualization that was to help was…
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Tip: Covering a Colleagues Teaching Last Minute. And their PowerPoint doesn’t make sense!
Most of us have been there. The threated call! “Could you cover my teaching for me? Because, *insert valid reason here*. Here are the slides for this session.” Here is a strategy that worked really well for me. I had a look at the slides beforehand, yet some of the slides still did not make…
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Raunächte: Join the End of Year Reflections
Raunächte: Harsh Nights Raunächte begin at winter solstice1–today–and they coincide with the university being closed for the holidays. During this time, work is in this in-between space, it does exist and doesn’t at the same time. It’s rules are suspended waiting to begin anew in January. The twelve nights of Raunächte2 are created by the…
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Can you help me break my quiz?
The quiz This is particularly for colleagues who either undertake SoTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) project or colleagues who support it. Also if you are from social sciences, or education your perspective will be helpful! There is a persistent habit of jumping straight from a project idea to methods, regularly without even formulating a…
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AcWriMo2022: Debunking 4 SoTL Myths
SoTL is Educational Research SoTL is intrinsically linked to your teaching practice. Whatever this practice may look like from traditional classroom teaching, to supporting learning, and supervision. You are a core part of this process, both in influencing pedagogy as well as in gathering data, analysing it and implementing changes. You might however, beg, borrow,…
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Writing is Comfort Work
Somewhere on the wilderness of the World Wide Web I stumbled across this contemplation about comfort work by Austin Kleon. The idea was so relatable it made me contemplate not only how I work but also if framing things under this light might help with motivation during challenging times. First things first. Austin Kleon defines…
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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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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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#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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Is it because the spaces never close?
Just coping, not quite fine In a conversation with my students (who are also peers and colleagues) today we were talking about how we all struggle at the moment. What emerged from the conversation is that we all felt things should be easier this year. We have pivoted online, we know how everything works. And…
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Pumpkin Apple Cinnamon Jam
Autumn Jam Recipe Ingredients 1kg pumpkin 1kg apples Lemon juice Canning sugar or pectin 1 Tablespoon cinnamon Prepare Jam peeled, seeds taken out, cut in pieces add cinnamon to taste (I think I used a generous tablespoon full) add jam sugar (or pectin if you want to avoid additional sugar), instructions on how much per…
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#LTHEchat 217: Symbiotic versus Parasitic Aggregation–Good Practice for Social Media
The lovely Dr Linnea Soler and I were trying to understand how to ethically aggregate knowledge, share and amplify colleagues voices through social media. We wrote this blog post sharing our initial findings and thoughts about it.
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Of Jewelry Making and Curriculum Design
good point Danielle about good design degrading – I think that must be true for most things, but then some Celtic jewellery is still incredibly beautiful today, so there's something enduring about good design, even if some of it changes over time #LTHEchat — Virna (@VirnaRossi) June 9, 2021 In the #LTHEchat above Virna Rossi…