#LTHEchat

Join us on Bluesky for #LTHEchat on Wednesday 29th April at 8pm BST with guest Jenni Rose (@jennirose21.bsky.social) to discuss how we can support students’ critical thinking through self-feedback.

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Introduction

We all want our students to think critically. It’s embedded in our learning outcomes, our professional body requirements, and our assessment criteria. Yet, despite decades of focus on critical thinking, graduates consistently arrive in practice without these capabilities. Whether your students are training to become accountants, engineers, nurses, journalists, lawyers, or social workers, they need to move beyond seeking ‘right answers’ to exercising professional judgement in ambiguous situations. Perhaps part of the problem is that we do not always consider the intellectual development that must happen before students can demonstrate critical thinking.

What’s missing from our approach to critical thinking

Perry’s Scheme of Intellectual and Ethical Development (Perry, 1970; 1999) offers a crucial insight that critical thinking isn’t just a skill to be taught, it’s a capability that emerges when students reach particular stages of intellectual development (Rose and Moore, 2024). Before students can consistently demonstrate critical thinking, they must progress through earlier positions where they develop the foundational capacities for independent judgement.

Consider a typical first-year student who arrives seeking “the right answer”, a mindset Perry termed ‘dualism’ (position two). These students see knowledge as a collection of facts to be memorised, and view teachers as authorities who possess correct answers. This dualistic thinking appears across disciplines, whether students expect clear legal precedents, defined clinical procedures, single correct equations, or specific marking criteria. Students become passive receivers of knowledge, with teachers positioned as all-knowing authorities (Freire, 1996). In this environment, students naturally adopt dualistic thinking, seeing answers as simply right or wrong based on what their teacher has told them.

From dualism, students move to multiplicity (position three), where they recognise that multiple viewpoints exist but lack tools to evaluate them, creating what Evans et al. (2010) call disequilibrium in meaning-making. Critical thinking only emerges at pure relativism (position four) and contextual relativism (position five), where students construct evidence-based arguments, view teachers as sources of thinking frameworks rather than answers, and ultimately evaluate knowledge within context to exercise sophisticated professional judgement (Rose and Moore, 2024).

This developmental lens reveals why simply teaching critical thinking skills often fails. We’re asking students to demonstrate capabilities that depend on intellectual positions they haven’t yet reached. It’s like expecting someone to run before they can walk.

Are we measuring what we think we’re measuring?

This developmental framework also illuminates a troubling question about our assessments. Traditional assessments such as essays, exams or case analyses require students to demonstrate critical thinking within constrained formats and time pressures. But what if these assessment methods inadvertently prevent students from showing the intellectual development they’ve achieved?

A recent study with first-year accounting students revealed that 55% of students who completed formative assignments demonstrated higher intellectual positions in reflective tasks than in their academic essays (Rose and Stoner, 2026). Students capable of sophisticated evaluative thinking when reflecting on their own work reverted to more dualistic approaches when writing formal essays. While this research focused on accounting education, the implications extend across disciplines and asks if our traditional assessment formats are systematically underestimating students’ intellectual capabilities?

This matters because we make crucial decisions based on these assessments. We conclude students “can’t think critically” when perhaps they can’t demonstrate it within our particular assessment constraints. We design interventions to “teach critical thinking” when students may need support developing the intellectual foundations that enable critical thinking to emerge.

How self-feedback supports development

If intellectual development precedes critical thinking, how do we facilitate that development? One promising approach draws on Nicol’s (2021) theory of inner feedback, operationalised through structured self-feedback activities.

Self-feedback involves students comparing their work to information in resources such as exemplars, peer work, videos, AI-generated content and explicitly articulating their evaluative responses through guided prompts. It is more effective when students do something before comparing (Nicol and Rose, 2025), so that they can cope with the uncertainty of the blank page before refining. This process moves students from passive knowledge reception (characteristic of dualism) toward active evaluation and contextual judgement (characteristic of relativism).

The developmental power lies in what self-feedback requires students to do. They must:

• Articulate evaluative judgements rather than seek ‘the right answer’
• Justify their evaluations with evidence (position four)
• Make contextual judgements about quality (position five)
• Develop autonomy rather than relying on teacher authority

In the same study of 80 first-year accounting students, 86% progressed by at least one position on Perry’s scheme (Rose and Stoner, 2026) by using self-feedback pedagogy. More remarkably, 74% showed at least glimpses of pure relativism (the threshold for critical thinking) by the end of the intervention, compared to just 14% at the outset. This substantial development occurred autonomously, without direct teacher feedback and perhaps accelerating intellectual growth precisely because students weren’t relying on teachers as arbiters of correctness.

While this research was conducted in accounting education, the principles apply across disciplines. Self-feedback activities can be adapted to any field where students need to develop evaluative judgement whether comparing their laboratory reports to exemplars, evaluating rubrics, or looking at peers’ screen play writing (Rose et al., 2024).

Making thinking visible through dialogue

This approach resonates with Freirean dialogic pedagogy, where students develop knowledge through “invention and reinvention, the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue with the world and with others” (Freire, 1996, p.53). Self-feedback enables this inquiry by creating structured opportunities for students to:

• Engage with diverse viewpoints (building comfort with multiplicity)
• Articulate their evaluative thinking (developing metacognition)
• Practice independent judgement (supporting autonomy)
• Build confidence in their reasoning (reducing reliance on authority)

When students complete self-feedback comparing exemplar essays, they encounter multiple valid approaches to the same question. When comparing their work to peers, they recognise their thinking as one perspective among many. These experiences support progression from dualism (seeking the single right answer) through multiplicity (overwhelmed by many answers) to relativism (confident in evaluating multiple answers contextually).

What this means for our teaching

If intellectual development precedes critical thinking, and self-feedback facilitates that development, several practical implications emerge.

We need to start early and scaffold carefully. Introducing self-feedback early can help establish trajectories of intellectual growth across a degree. Structured prompts can also help students articulate evaluative thinking that is only just beginning to emerge. These prompts can be drafted with generative AI (Rose, 2025) and then refined by the teacher.

We should diversify our assessment formats. If 55% of students demonstrate higher intellectual positions in reflective self-feedback than essays, we need assessment portfolios that capture development across contexts. Written self-feedback responses, reflective commentaries on peer work, and evaluative annotations of exemplars might reveal capabilities that traditional essays miss.

Finally, our pedagogy needs designing for autonomy. The intellectual development required for critical thinking involves moving from dependence on authority toward autonomous judgement. Pedagogical approaches that position students as active agents in their learning – comparing, evaluating, articulating judgements – support this shift more effectively than approaches that position teachers as answer-providers. 

This focus on intellectual development connects to wider conversations about student empowerment and learning communities. We want students to develop the intellectual capacities that enable genuine participation in their disciplinary communities, including the capacity to question, evaluate, and exercise professional judgement.

References

Evans, N.J., Forney, D.S., Guido, F.M., Patton, L.D. and Renn, K.A. (2010) Student development in college: Theory, research and practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Freire, P. (1996) Pedagogy of the oppressed. Translated by D. Macedo. New York: Continuum.

Nicol, D. (2021) ‘The power of internal feedback: Exploiting natural comparison processes’, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 46(5), pp. 756–778.

Nicol, D. and Rose, J. (2025) ‘When should students engage with exemplars? Comparing the impact of pre-task versus post-draft exemplar analysis on student performance and self-feedback quality’, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2025.2534870

Perry, W.G. (1999) Forms of intellectual and ethical development in the college years. New York: Routledge.

Rose, J. (2025) Teacher prompt for creating a self-feedback worksheet. Available at: https://zenodo.org/records/17611231

Rose, J. and Moore, W. (2024) ‘Encourage intellectual development in students to improve work readiness’, Times Higher Education.

Rose, J. and Stoner, G. (2026) ‘Measuring and enabling engaged first-year students’ intellectual development towards critical thinking’, Accounting Education (under review).

Rose, J., Dewsnip, H., McBride, J., McDonagh, L. and Walker, L. (2024) Active self-feedback guide for staff. Available at: https://assets.manchester.ac.uk/staffnet/files/itl/active-self-feedback-for-staff/

Speaker Bio

Jenni Rose is a Senior Lecturer in Accounting and Academic Lead for Employability at Alliance Manchester Business School, University of Manchester. Jenni was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2025 (the first for AMBS) and holds Principal Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. Her innovative work on self-feedback has trained over 1,000 educators across multiple continents. As Chair of the ICAEW Academia and Education Committee, she supports the professional development for 20,200+ accounting educators globally. Jenni co-founded the University of Manchester Teaching and Scholarship Network (450+ members) and co-edited the Accounting Streams open-access textbook (83k+ interactions across 131 countries). Her research focuses on intellectual development, active self-feedback methodologies, and dialogic pedagogy in accounting education.

Join us on Bluesky for #LTHEchat on Wednesday 22nd April at 8pm BST with guests Heather Pennington (@heatherpennington.bsky.social) and Rachel Johns (@johnsrm.bsky.social) to discuss anti-racist curriculum, and what it really requires.

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Across higher education, the phrase anti‑racist curriculum is increasingly visible in strategies, conversations, and staff development initiatives. Many of us recognise its importance and urgency; yet, as with any ambitious institutional goal, questions often arise about what this work actually involves, how to begin, and how to sustain meaningful change over time.

Anti‑racist curriculum development is more than an aspiration or a well‑meaning statement. It demands that we look closely at the histories that shape our disciplines, the voices and epistemologies centred- or marginalised- in our reading lists, and the assumptions embedded in our assessment practices. It also requires us to attend carefully to the lived experiences of our students and colleagues. This work involves both structural change and everyday practice, and it can be challenging and sometimes uncomfortable. But it is necessary if we are committed to creating learning environments where all can thrive.

Although there is no single route or universal template, educators across sectors are experimenting with creative, critical, and relational approaches to curriculum transformation. For some, this means re‑examining foundational concepts or questioning disciplinary traditions; for others, it means collaborating with students to understand experiences of inclusion and exclusion; and for many, it involves reframing what counts as knowledge, and how success is recognised.  

Anti‑racist practice is not a checklist, a compliance exercise, or a quick rebranding of existing approaches. Anti‑racist curriculum work invites educators to examine the assumptions, histories, and power structures that shape their disciplines. As Advance HE’s Anti‑Racist Curriculum (ARC) project argues, this involves challenging the myth of neutrality and interrogating the pathways through which particular narratives become privileged while others are marginalised or silenced.  This requires educators to recognise how our own positionality shapes both what we teach and how we teach it, and to reframe curricula with students’ experiences, identities and aspirations firmly at the centre.

Anti‑racist pedagogical scholarship echoes this. Kishimoto (2018) emphasises that anti‑racist teaching is fundamentally about process: creating learning environments grounded in reflexivity, shared power, and explicit acknowledgement with race and racism. This includes questioning traditional authority structures, co‑creating aspects of the curriculum with students, and embracing learning as a mutual—rather than academically hierarchical—endeavour. Similarly, Wagner (2005) suggests that the process of learning, not simply the outcomes, matters most-a principle that has important implications for designing assessment practices that prioritise learning journeys over standardised expectations.

Engaging in anti-racist work can surface discomfort and resistance. It asks us to question established norms, examine our assumptions, and confront aspects of institutional culture that may feel deeply embedded. Yet it also opens up powerful possibilities: learning spaces where diverse voices are valued as central rather than peripheral; modules where global perspectives shape disciplinary boundaries; and learning spaces where students can see themselves reflected, affirmed, and empowered.Developing an anti‑racist curriculum is an ongoing, iterative practice; one that requires openness, humility, and collective commitment. It is shaped through conversations, collaborations, and the willingness to question long-held assumptions. Over time, it is these everyday acts of re-imagining and adjusting our practices that gradually create meaningful and sustainable change.

References

Advance HE (2021) ARC Explained. Available at: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/sites/default/files/2021-10/ARC%20Explained.pdf  (Accessed: 18^th December 2025).

Kishimoto, K. (2018) ‘Anti‑racist pedagogy: from faculty’s self‑reflection to organising within and beyond the classroom’. Available at: https://servicelearning.duke.edu/sites/servicelearning.duke.edu/files/documents/Anti-racist%20pedagogy_%20from%20faculty%E2%80%99s%20self-reflection%20to%20organizing%20within%20and%20beyond%20the%20classroom%5B3%5D.pdf  (Accessed: Accessed: 18^th December 2025).

Wagner, A. (2005) ‘Unsettling the Academy: working through the challenges of anti‑racist pedagogy’. Race, Ethnicity and Education 8(3): pp. 261-275. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248970647_Unsettling_the_Academy_Working_through_the_challenges_of_anti-racist_pedagogy  (Accessed: Accessed: 18^th December 2025)

Speaker Bios

Heather Pennington

Rachel Johns

Questions

Q1. How do you define anti‑racist curriculum within your own disciplinary context, and what values or principles underpin that definition?

Q2. What examples, however small, have you seen of anti‑racist practices in teaching, assessment, or curriculum design that have positively influenced student experience?

Q3. What kinds of resistance, barriers, or discomfort tend to surface when pursuing anti-racist curriculum work, and how might educators navigate these constructively?

Q4. In what ways can students contribute meaningfully and be genuine partners in shaping anti‑racist curriculum change? What forms of partnership feel authentic rather than tokenistic?

Q5. What ongoing support, resources, structures, or communities of practice are needed to help educators sustain anti‑racist practice over time?

Q6. What one concrete step could you take-or encourage a colleague to take-in the next month to advance anti-racist curriculum development in your context? 

Join us on Bluesky for #LTHEchat on Wednesday 15th April at 8pm BST with guest Danielle Hinton (@hintondm.bsky.social to discuss Brookfield’s Four Lenses!

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Introduction

Educators in Higher Education often find it challenging to move from describing their teaching to articulating the impact of their decisions. This emerges repeatedly in postgraduate teaching qualifications, professional recognition (e.g., HEA Fellowship or National Teaching Fellowship), promotion cases, and peer observation. Across these contexts, reflective writing is expected to show critical thinking, synthesis, and a clear link between choices made and their influence on student learning.

Stephen Brookfield’s Four Lenses (1995; 2017) – Student, Autobiographical, Peer and Theoretical offer a practical and powerful structure for developing richer reflection. They help us step outside our familiar narratives, surface assumptions, and build more credible, evidence-informed accounts. As Brookfield notes, “seeing how we think and work through different lenses is the core process of reflective practice” (Brookfield, 1995).

Triangulating across lenses strengthens our claims of impact and moves reflection beyond storytelling into scholarly, thoughtful inquiry. This #LTHEchat invites you to explore how triangulation can deepen reflective teaching skills, identities and support more confident accounts of impact.

Triangulation as a Scholarly Habit

Each lens refracts our teaching differently, offering a unique hue in the spectrum. Where these colours converge or contrast, we begin to see the fuller pattern of our work. Using diverse forms of evidence is like adjusting how the prism catches the light – subtle shifts that reveal deeper detail, sharpening our understanding of what our teaching truly looks like in practice.

Scholars of reflective practice remind us that:

• Using diverse forms of evidence – student feedback, emotions, behaviour patterns, peer insights, theory – creates stronger, more credible reflections.
• Reflection is social and contextual, not a solitary activity. Peer dialogue and collaborative reflection add nuance.
• Relying on a single perspective risks blind spots and limits criticality.
• We have many tools to actively support reflective development (e.g., Edinburgh’s Reflection Toolkit; Advance HE’s scholarly guides). As educators, we must be lifelong reflective learners.

Together, these insights remind us that triangulation is not an optional extra – it is a scholarly habit essential for evidencing teaching impact.

Why We Get Stuck Writing About Impact?

Many educators describe common barriers:

1. Confusing action with impact  – Reflection often focuses on what we did rather than what changed for learners.

2. Anxiety for early-career colleagues – Understanding that there is no single “right way” to reflect; accessible models encourage honest conversations about teaching.

3. Local norms shape what counts – Disciplines and institutions differ in how they define meaningful impact and credible evidence.

4. Narrow views of evidence – Impact can be affective, behavioural, peer-validated, or theoretical—far beyond formal feedback.5. Lack of structure – Without a framework, reflection easily slips into description rather than analysis.

Applying the Four Lenses to Evidence Impact

Each lens generates distinct forms of evidence and challenges different assumptions. Used together, they help us move from observation → interpretation → impact.

1. Student Lens

The student lens foregrounds how learners actually experience our sessions, drawing on patterns in questions, engagement data, feedback, emotional tone, and discussion activity. This evidence highlights learner-centred effects, helps us see where clarity or confidence has shifted, and often uncovers surprises that challenge our assumptions. Sentence stems such as “A pattern in student questions suggested that…” or “Student feedback indicated that…” can help frame these reflections.

2. Autobiographical Lens

The autobiographical lens encourages us to explore our own identities, histories, and assumptions as educators. Through reflective logs, values mapping, emotional responses, and decision documentation, we begin to surface the reasoning behind our choices and notice how our positionality shapes our practice. Useful prompts include “Reflecting on my positionality as a…” and “My initial assumption that… became visible when…”.

3. Peer Lens

The peer lens brings in external perspectives from colleagues through observation, debriefs, mentoring, teaching circles, moderation, conversations and online opportunities such as #LTHEchat exchanges. These insights can reveal blind spots, validate ideas, and offer alternative approaches while strengthening our sense of scholarly community. Sentence stems might include “A colleague noted that…” or “Peer discussion revealed…”.

4. Theoretical Lens

The theoretical lens situates our practice within broader pedagogic and disciplinary debates. Drawing on pedagogic literature, research, learning theory, policy frameworks, sector guidance and resources (eg. Advance HE, ICED, HERDSA, POD Network) allows us to justify decisions, articulate our reasoning, and connect our reflections to wider scholarly conversations. Prompts such as “Drawing on X theory, I interpreted this as…” or “Research on Y suggests that…” help anchor insights in theory.

Bringing the Lenses Together: Triangulation in Action

As we bring these lenses together, our education practice becomes less like a single beam of light and more like a spectrum revealed through a prism. Each lens refracts our practice in its own way, offering colours we might otherwise overlook. When we allow these perspectives to converge – student experiences, our own assumptions, peer insights, and theoretical frames –  we begin to see the fuller pattern and evidence of our impact. Triangulation helps us move beyond recounting events toward understanding why they mattered, illuminating the deeper shifts in learning and practice. In embracing this prism-like approach, we strengthen not only our reflections but our confidence in the story our teaching truly tells.

Bibliography

• Brookfield, S. D. (1995). Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher. Jossey-Bass.
• Brookfield, S. D. (2017). Becoming a Critically Reflective Teacher (2nd ed.). Jossey-Bass.
• Goldman, A., Moed, D., & McMahon, C. (2025). Extending beyond the self: Leveraging Brookfield’s four lenses for critical reflection in WIL. University of Toronto.https://www.researchgate.net/publication/379238164_Extending_beyond_the_self_Leveraging_Brookfield’s_four_lenses_for_critical_reflection_in_WIL 
• Harvey, M. et al (2020). Reflection for Learning: A Scholarly Practice Guide for Educators. Advance HE. https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/reflection-learning-scholarly-practice-guide-educators 
• Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues. (2023). Reflective Practice in Initial Teacher Education. https://www.jubileecentre.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Reflective_Journal_Briefing_Paper.pdf 
• McCabe, G. and Thejll-Madson, T. (2026). Reflection Toolkit. University of Edinburgh. https://reflection.ed.ac.uk/

Speaker bio

A long‑standing contributor to #LTHEchat by night, by day I’m a Principal Educational Developer at the University of Birmingham (UoB). I’m passionate about accessible scholarship and community‑driven pedagogic development, sharing models, frameworks, and curated SoTL resources to support educators across the sector. Founding member of the Brookfield Appreciation Society headquartered at UoB’s PGCHE.

Questions

Q1. What do you or others find hardest about articulating impact in reflective writing about educational practice?

Q2. Which of Brookfield’s Four Lenses do you lean on most – student, peer, autobiographical or theoretical – and which could help you triangulate better?

Q3. What helps you move from describing events to interpreting their significance?

Q4. Which evidence – student, peer, autobiographical, theoretical – best helps you show impact?

Q5. How do you use triangulation to show change and evidence educational impact?

Q6. What tools, prompts, or stems help you get “unstuck” when reflecting?

Join us on Bluesky for #LTHEchat on Wednesday 25th March at 8pm GMT with guest Deeba Parmar (@deebaparmar.bsky.social) to discuss Academic Wellbeing, Emotional Energy and Caring Leadership!

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Higher education continues to navigate significant challenge. Change is constant, expectations are high and the pace can feel unrelenting. In these moments it is often the visible outputs that take priority: delivery, performance, metrics. Yet beneath all of this sits something less visible but equally powerful. Care.

Care is sometimes misunderstood in university settings. It can be seen as soft or secondary, something that sits alongside the “real” work. But in practice care is what enables that work to happen. It shapes how people show up, how they engage and whether they feel able to contribute. In times of challenge care is not a luxury. It is a form of strength.

Academic wellbeing is often framed through the lens of individual resilience. While this has its place, it risks placing responsibility on individuals without fully recognising the environments they are working within. A well academic community is one where wellbeing is relational. Where people feel belonging. Where their contributions are recognised. Where there is space to be stretched and supported. This matters deeply in a sector where many colleagues carry substantial emotional as well as cognitive load.

Thinking about emotional energy can help. Every interaction, every meeting and every teaching moment draws on and contributes to the emotional climate of a space. Over time this accumulates. Research in the UK shows that relational and pastoral support in universities is often hidden, unevenly distributed and not formally recognised in workload models. This affects many colleagues but especially women and racially minoritised staff who frequently hold this work without acknowledgement (Advance HE, 2024). 

If care is a form of energy, then leadership plays a vital role in shaping how that energy is created and sustained. Caring leadership does not mean lowering expectations or avoiding difficult conversations. It is about how expectations are held. With clarity. With fairness. With empathy. With a strong sense of context. Caring leadership notices who is contributing, who is quiet, who is carrying more than they are saying and who may need support to take part fully.

Often this care appears in very small moments. Taking time to notice and appreciate effort rather than just outcomes. Creating room for real dialogue rather than relying only on transmission. Being intentional about inclusion rather than assuming it will happen on its own. Speaking up for colleagues when they are not present. These moments may feel small but they shape culture in powerful ways.

There is also something important about how we recognise relational work in learning and teaching. Much of what makes education meaningful is grounded in relationships. The trust between educators and students. The support between colleagues. The feeling of being part of a community. Yet this work is rarely reflected in the metrics that dominate our sector. Naming it, valuing it and giving it visibility helps reinforce its importance.

Care must also be sustainable. There is a real risk that in recognising the importance of care we inadvertently create more burden for the people who already give so much. Wellbeing cannot rest on individuals alone nor can it be carried by a small group of generous colleagues. It needs to be embedded across our cultures, our systems and our leadership practices. Supportive structures, thoughtful development opportunities and fair recognition all contribute to this.

Across UK higher education many of us work in roles that cross boundaries. We work in teams that blend academic, professional and specialist expertise. We contribute to teaching, research, student experience, operations, community and strategy. Sometimes our work fits established categories. Sometimes it does not. Recent research shows that across UK universities colleagues who work in these blended or less defined spaces often contribute significantly while navigating questions of belonging and recognition (Whitchurch, 2026). This is not about a single group but about the reality of modern higher education where roles, responsibilities and identities overlap and shift. 

In challenging times it can be tempting to focus only on what feels urgent and measurable. But it is often care that sustains people through these periods. Care builds trust. Trust enables change. Care creates the conditions in which people feel able to contribute, take thoughtful risks and grow. Care is not the opposite of rigour. It is what makes rigour possible.

Perhaps the challenge for us in UK higher education is to see care not as something extra but as something essential. To recognise it. To value it. To share responsibility for it. Because when care is present people do more than cope. They thrive.

Advance HE (2024) How do “care” or “pastoral support” activities contribute to core strategic outcomes in higher education? Available at: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/news-and-views/how-do-care-or-pastoral-support-activities-contribute-core-strategic-outcomes-higher (Accessed: 9 March 2026)

Whitchurch, C. (2026) ‘Achieving Inclusion: University staff working in third space between academic and professional spheres of activity’, Social Inclusion, 14, Article 9596. Available at: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/socialinclusion/article/download/9596/4251 (Accessed: 14 March 2026). 

Whitchurch, C. and Healy, G. (2024) ‘The concept of third space as an enabler in complex higher education environments’. London Review of Education, 22 (1), 42. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/LRE.22.1.42.

Speaker Bio

Dr Deeba Parmar is Head of Learning and Teaching Enhancement at BPP University, Fellow of the Institute for Equity and Principal Fellow (PFHEA). She is passionate about relational practice, academic wellbeing and creating learning environments where colleagues and students feel seen, supported and able to thrive. Her work focuses on caring leadership, emotional energy in higher education and the everyday practices that shape healthy academic cultures. Deeba is especially interested in aspects of equity, equality, diversity and inclusion, reward and recognition and student voice.

Join us on Bluesky for #LTHEchat on Wednesday 18th March at 8pm GMT with guest Hannah Robinson to discuss the Use of Humour in Higher Education Teaching.

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Have you ever found yourself making a joke or laughing at yourself during your lectures? Research evidence shows most academics report that they use humour with their students. The use of humour in education has been reported to effect different areas of students’ educational experiences such as their wellbeing, the classroom environment, relationships, and learning outcomes. 

Despite possibly seeming straightforward, humour is much more complex than a single category. Research into humour in education has identified humour styles which could be linked to different outcomes on students’ educational experiences and educators’ wellbeing. 

Our research has built on this understanding. A 24-item Higher Education Humour Styles Questionnaire (24-HEHSQ) was developed which identified eight humour styles used by academics: course-related, course-unrelated, festive, affiliative, enhancing, self-defeating, sarcastic, and personal characteristic humour. Although humour has distinct humour styles, these are not used in isolation. When using humour, in education or otherwise, people will often use a combination of these different styles. 

Course-related and Course-unrelated humour

If you make jokes in your teaching, are they used to support your students learning? Or are they used to lighten the mood and make students laugh? This distinction between these uses of humour is the difference between course-related and course-unrelated humour. 

If you are using humour related to your teaching or the module content, then you are using course-related humour. On the other hand, if there is no link to learning or academic skills then it is course-unrelated humour. Course-related humour is suggested to support learning and understanding, whereas course-unrelated humour may lead to confusion over what students should be learning. 

Festive Humour 

Have you ever played an April Fools’ prank on your students? Or had them play one on you? This is a common example of festive humour, which refers to humour used related to holidays and special occasions such as April Fools’, Christmas, or birthdays. In academic subjects where holidays or special occasions are taught, course-related festive humour could also be used to explain key ideas to students. 

Affiliative Humour

When you use humour, is it mostly positive or negative? Any positive uses of humour are defined as affiliative humour. It incorporates humour such as dad jokes, wit, and banter. This could be to improve relationships, make others laugh, or to create a positive environment. 

Enhancing Humour

When you or your students are stressed or overwhelmed, have you used humour to lighten the mood? This is an example of enhancing humour. In previous definitions this humour style was defined as self-enhancing, referring only to humour to improve an individual’s own wellbeing. But in an educational environment humour is found to be used to improve students’ wellbeing too. 

Self-defeating Humour

Have you ever made a mistake or error and used humour to handle it? If so, you were using self-defeating humour. This style involves using humour at your own expense, laughing at your own flaws or mistakes. Some studies suggest this humour style could be viewed as an unproductive use of time by students. 

Sarcastic Humour 

This humour style is one I find myself using in my own teaching, but is also frequently reported by educators across academic levels. Sarcastic humour refers to light-hearted teasing, sarcasm, and banter. 

This is the humour style with the most mixed findings in the literature with some students responding positively due to perceiving it as a little bit different and interesting. In contrast, some students describe sarcasm as being inappropriate for educators to use. The mixed reports from students suggest the nuances of how sarcastic humour is used and individual student humour preferences, could dictate how positively it is received. 

Personal Characteristic Humour

Have you ever used stereotypes to explain a concept using humour? If so, this would be an example of personal characteristic humour. This humour style involves using humour with topics relating to an individual such as stereotypes, gender, ethnicity, or sexuality. This style has limited inclusion in research, as it was adapted from aggressive humour. 

This humour style can be viewed as a negative or harmful humour style due to it including protected characteristics. In the literature students have reported feeling offended from this use of humour. However, when used correctly it could have positive outcomes by being used to spread awareness of important issues.  

Current Research

The ways that humour is used is becoming more understood in the literature. Despite this there is still very little discussion of humour in educational institutions or support for the integration of humour into teaching. As there are mixed outcomes reported on students’ experiences, it is important that educators have the tools and resources available to better understand humour and how it can be used. My current research is currently piloting a humour toolkit with academics teaching in higher education in the UK. This toolkit was co-created with academics to support the reflective use of humour. It includes informational videos on humour, reflections from students, scales to identify humour styles and preferences, and activities to integrate into learning or use to reflect on humour use. 

Questions

Q1 How do you feel about academics using humour in higher education teaching?

Q2 When you were a student, what were your experiences of educators using humour?

Q3 Are there any uses of humour you think are more beneficial to use in education?

Q4 Are there any uses of humour you think should be avoided in education?

Q5 How can we minimise the risk of negative outcomes of humour in education?

Q6 What resources or institutional support would help with the productive uses of humour in education?

Speaker Bio

Hannah Robinson is a PhD researcher at University of Staffordshire, and Psychological Experimental Officer at Arden University. Her research area focuses on humour use in an educational environment.

Join us on Bluesky for #LTHEchat on Wednesday 11th March at 8pm GMT with guest Rachel Forsyth to discuss GenAI in higher education.

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In many conversations about generative AI in higher education, the products themselves take centre stage. It is very hard to think about services based on Large Language Models (LLM) without getting into discussions about big tech, data protection, ethical software development and environmental impact. Of course, those discussions are essential, especially when public money is being spent on these products and services, but for many of us they have to run in parallel with the reality that there are lot of these things around already, and we have to find ways to talk about them which help us to explain our positions more clearly. We can’t look away, even if we really, really want to. So in this #LTHEchat, let’s try, just for an hour, to focus on what we value in higher education and consider the impact of LLM-based services on four core principles: student-centeredness, trust, relevance, and agency. 

Sam Illingworth and I wrote GenAI in Higher Education: Redefining Teaching and Learning (open access from Bloomsbury) to support education-led discussions about these products, and we try to come back to these four principles in every section, whether we are talking about ethics, student engagement, assessment or teacher use of GenAI.   

Student-Centeredness focuses on how students can still engage with valued forms of knowledge, quality, standards, and expertise in higher education. If GenAI can summarise a text or propose ideas, does that mean students no longer need to develop those skills?  How do we ensure that learning remains rooted in meaningful disciplinary thinking, rather than in polished language extrusion (Bender, 2025)? How do we assess what students have actually learned (Fawns et al, 2026), when GenAI products may mask their authentic work? Can some LLM-based products reduce some barriers to traditional learning? Seeing GenAI through a student-centred lens forces us to explain to students what we think (and feel) about its impacts on them and their learning, and why we make certain decisions about assessment. 

Trust becomes especially important in a moment when staff and students alike may feel unsettled. Trust is built not through surveillance or suspicion, but through environments where students feel comfortable taking risks, admitting uncertainty, and trying things out. If GenAI destabilises some of our familiar assessment practices – which is by no means guaranteed, since many universities are returning to the familiar examination halls – perhaps it is also an invitation to rethink how we communicate expectations, and how we reassure students that learning is not simply about getting things “right” and offering up a perfect essay.

Relevance encourages us to connect learning to students’ lives, interests and social contexts. GenAI is already present in many workplaces, creative practices and everyday tools. Pretending it doesn’t exist risks making higher education feel disconnected or outdated. But that in itself isn’t a reason for adoption. A relevance-first approach asks: How can we help students situate GenAI within their discipline? How can we support them to evaluate its limitations, biases and consequences? How do we keep the curriculum anchored in the real worlds students inhabit whilst explaining why they need to learn to do some things themselves, even if that learning is uncomfortable or feels like drudgery at times?

Finally, Agency reminds us that neither staff nor students should be passive recipients of technological change. Both groups need autonomy and voice in shaping how GenAI is explored, questioned or resisted. For students, this might mean being transparent about how and when they use GenAI products, understanding that digital products and services may not always be risk-free, developing their own judgement about when it supports their learning and when it undermines it. For staff, agency includes the freedom to make pedagogical decisions that align with their values, not simply with technological trends, but also to consider whether some GenAI products and services might actually improve something in their practices.

Seeing GenAI through these four pillars gives us all some agency over our actions in relation to GenAI. Rather than asking whether students are “using AI correctly”, we might ask whether our practices enable them to think critically, act ethically and engage deeply with their disciplines. Is there any way that GenAI might help us to focus on creating spaces where human judgement, curiosity and connection still come first.

Our recent research on trust-building between teachers and students (Felten et al, 2024; Glessmer et al, 2025; Forsyth et al, 2025) shows that the responses of teachers, librarians, learning developers and others who have direct contact with students matter very much to them: they need and want to hear our critical and informed responses to the real challenges and opportunities students see in GenAI. We can’t look away. 

References 

Bender, E. M. (2025). We do not have to accept AI (much less GenAI) as inevitable in education. AI and the future of education, 41. 

Fawns, T., Boud, D., & Dawson, P. (2026). Identifying what our students have learned: a framework for practical assessment validation. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2026.2620053  

Felten, P., Forsyth, R., & Sutherland, K. (2023). Building Trust in the Classroom: A Conceptual Model for Teachers, Scholars, and Academic Developers in Higher Education. Teaching & Learning Inquiry: The ISSOTL Journal, 11. https://journalhosting.ucalgary.ca/index.php/TLI/article/view/77047  

Forsyth, R., & Glessmer, M. (2025). How teachers build trust with students in the presence of GenAI Proceedings LTH: s 13: e Pedagogiska Inspirationskonferens, 4 december 2025, Lund. https://www.lth.se/fileadmin/cee/genombrottet/konferens2025/C1_Forsyth_Glessmer.pdf 

Glessmer, M. S., Persson, P., & Forsyth, R. (2025). Engineering students trust teachers who ask, listen, and respond. International Journal for Academic Development, 30(1), 106–119. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2024.2438224 

Illingworth, S., & Forsyth, R. (2026). GenAI in Higher Education: Redefining Teaching and Learning. Bloomsbury. https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/genai-in-higher-education-9781350535787/  

Questions

Q1 How does GenAI prompt us to re-examine what “valued forms of knowledge” look like in areas you teach or support students in?

Q2 What does a valid and secure assessment look like in your area of interest right now?

Q3 In what way(s) can our everyday interactions between educators and students foster trust rather than anxiety in how students approach GenAI?

Q4 How do we connect learning to the real social, personal and professional contexts students inhabit?

Q5 What opportunities can we create for students to make informed choices about when and how to use GenAI in ways that support, rather than replace, their learning?

Q6 How can institutions ensure that educators retain autonomy in deciding how GenAI fits (or does not fit) within their pedagogical practice?

Speaker Bio

Rachel Forsyth is a senior educational developer at Lund University. She works in a unit which focuses on digital tools in education, and is mainly involved with pedagogical development, assessment design, and academic trust-building. More relevantly, this is her third time facilitating #LTHEChat but she is no quicker at typing than she was in 2014, unfortunately.

Join us on Bluesky for #LTHEchat on Wednesday 4th March at 8pm GMT with guest Dr Olivia Kelly to discuss how algorithmic bias can influence what students see on social media and what our role as educators should be. As students consume increasing amounts of information through algorithm-driven platforms, educators face new challenges: misinformation, echo chambers and AI-curated feeds. This chat explores whether HE institutions and educators should teach students how algorithms influence what they see and ultimately what they believe.

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More and more students now have their worldviews shaped not by textbooks or lectures but by endlessly scrolling feeds, carefully tailored by algorithms they rarely think about. Algorithmic systems increasingly mediate how students encounter information, particularly through social media platforms. Recent scholarship highlights the structural impact of these systems on youth information practices. Ahmmad et al.’s (2025) systematic review shows that social media algorithms consistently reinforce ideological homogeneity, limit viewpoint diversity, and intensify polarization among young users. This resonates strongly with concerns in HE where students often rely on algorithmically curated content as a primary source of news, learning materials and public discourse.

The concept of algorithmic literacy (understanding how algorithms shape what we see) has gained traction as a critical extension of digital literacy. Gagrčin et al. (2024) argue that although awareness of algorithms is rising, the field lacks a unified framework for teaching algorithmic literacy in formal educational settings. Their review emphasizes that algorithms across platforms optimize for engagement, not educational value, making students especially vulnerable to selective exposure. The rise of generative AI also complicates the information landscape. García-López & Trujillo-Liñán (2025) warn that while generative systems enable personalized learning, they introduce risks such as loss of cognitive autonomy and institutional misuse of student data, reinforcing the need for robust digital and algorithmic literacy frameworks in HE. As social platforms increasingly integrate GenAI into feeds and search interfaces, students face not only biased recommendations but AI-fabricated or AI-amplified misinformation.

Finally, public-facing research also shows that users themselves unintentionally reinforce algorithmic bias. Rathee et al. (2025) demonstrate that people often accept and perpetuate biased algorithmic recommendations, highlighting the dual interplay between system design and human behaviour. For educators, this underscores the importance of teaching students not only how algorithms work but how their own actions shape algorithmic outputs.

Together, these studies suggest an urgent need for HE to address algorithmic bias through explicit teaching of how social media shapes knowledge, moving digital literacy beyond skills toward critical, reflective understanding. As educators, we can no longer treat social media as peripheral to learning. Algorithmic systems shape how students interpret the world, encounter political ideas, understand scientific claims and engage with global events. When students are nudged toward certain viewpoints, whether subtly or aggressively, our commitment to fostering critical thinking requires us to step in.

Teaching about algorithmic influence is not about shaming students for their media use. Nor is it about demonizing technology. It’s about opening a window into the invisible forces that shape their digital lives, helping them see why certain narratives feel omnipresent and others almost invisible. Importantly, the goal is empowerment. Students who understand how algorithms work can push back, diversify their feeds and seek out credible sources. They become more intentional learners and more reflective digital participants. 

This #LTHEchat invites us to imagine what HE could look like if algorithmic awareness were embedded into our teaching practices. Not as an add-on, but as essential literacy for navigating contemporary knowledge environments.

References

Ahmmad, M., Shahzad, K., Iqbal, A., & Latif, M. (2025). Trap of Social Media Algorithms: A Systematic Review of Research on Filter Bubbles, Echo Chambers, and Their Impact on Youth. Societies, 15(11), 301. https://doi.org/10.3390/soc15110301

Gagrčin, E., Naab, T.K., & Grub, M.F. (2024). Algorithmic media use and algorithm literacy: An integrative literature review. New media and society, 28(1), 423-447. https://doi.org/10.1177/14614448241291137 

García-López IM and Trujillo-Liñán L (2025). Ethical and regulatory challenges of Generative AI in education: a systematic review. Front. Educ. 10:1565938. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2025.1565938 

Rathee, S., Banker, S., Mishra, A. & Mishra, H. (2025). Algorithms are Propagating Bias – Are we complicit?. Keller Centre for Research. https://kellercenter.hankamer.baylor.edu/news/story/2025/algorithms-are-propagating-bias-are-we-complicit 

Questions

Q1 What does “algorithmic bias” mean to you, and where do you see it most affecting students’ information environments?

Q2 Should algorithm awareness be formally embedded into digital literacy or academic skills curricula in HE? Why or why not?

Q3 How does algorithm-driven content contribute to misinformation or echo chambers among students, and what signs do you notice in your teaching?

Q4 To what extent do educators have an ethical responsibility to address algorithmic influence on students’ knowledge formation? Is this outside of our teaching role?

Q5 What practical activities, assessments, or discussions have you (or could you) use to help students critically evaluate algorithm-curated content?

Q6 As generative AI becomes more embedded in social platforms, what new challenges or opportunities might emerge for teaching about algorithmic influence in HE?

Speaker Bio

Dr Olivia Kelly is an Associate Lecturer at the Open University, whose work focuses on advancing engaging, high-quality learning experiences in higher education distance learning. Drawing on deep expertise in teaching practice and student support, she brings a thoughtful, research-informed approach to curriculum design and academic development. Olivia’s research interests focus on the role of Social Media in HE, having researched student community building on Twitter (X) for her Doctoral study. She currently leads The Open University’s Praxis Social Media Scholarship Hub focusing on social media related research in education and she recently completed a funded project using Discord with students. Olivia hosts a podcast interviewing researchers on various HE related topics to champion innovative pedagogies that enhance student success. Passionate about widening participation and building inclusive learning environments, she regularly presents at academic events.

https://bsky.app/profile/oliviakellyou.bsky.social

www.linkedin.com/in/dr-olivia-kelly-952860a9

Join us on Bluesky for #LTHEchat on Wednesday 25th February at 8pm GMT with guest Samantha Ahern to discuss “Shifting sands and professional identities in Higher Education”.

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Change in Higher Education always seems slow but is also always constant.  

Those that have been in the sector a while will have been through several regulatory changes, alongside internal changes within our institutions.

Humans are always at the centre of these changes. 

Technologies have always shaped how we interact, and our ways of working. We are currently seeing mass disruption across the board in teaching and assessment,

Research, professional services and our personal interactions.  This is alongside concerns around the financial sustainability of the sector. Many institutions, including my own, are undertaking 

initiatives that impact on the nature of our roles and our professional identities. Some of these changes are more optional than others.

Twice in my professional life I have had to reconsider my professional identity. The first was in December 2012, when I left the secondary classroom to join UCL.

Who was I if I was no longer a teacher?

The second time was Summer 2025 when my contract moved from our Digital Education team to the Centre for Advanced Research Computing.  I went from being a Senior Digital Research Trainer to a Senior PRISM.

A job title and description where education related activity is not the primary focus. Although my day-to-day role had not changed,  I had concerns around how the Job title would be perceived and difficulties reconciling 

my new professional identity. My first permanent job since graduating that didn’t feature education related words. I was very unsettled for a while and had a number of emotive discussions with various members of the ARC SLT.

In addition, I am working in an area where professional identities and career pathways are being shaped. That of digital research technology/technical professionals.  

Many of us are also by nature of our roles and expertise in third spaces.  As such, professional identities are regularly being renegotiated.

What is the interplay between our official job titles and our job roles? Which is more important with regards to our professional identities.

Questions

Q1 – Does your role align with your official job title? Does it matter?

Q2 – How does this relate to your professional identity?

Q3 – What drives / determines your sense of professional identity?

Q4 – Has your professional identity changed over time?

Q5 – What has helped you with a change of professional identity?

Q6 – How can we best support ourselves and each other in the current UK HE context?

Speaker Bio

Samantha Ahern is the Education co-lead and for the Centre of Advanced Research Computing (ARC), UCL.  She is a Fellow of the University of London Centre for Online and Distance Education, a Trustee of the Society of Research Software Engineering, and both a Carpentries Instructor and Trainer, and is a member of The Carpentries Board of Directors.  Samantha’s research has focused on learning analytics and student wellbeing. She completed her undergraduate degree in Computer Science at Kingston University, her MSc in Intelligent Systems at De Montfort University and both PGCE Secondary ICT and PGDip IT in Education at the Institute of Education, University of London.

Join us on Bluesky for #LTHEchat on Wednesday 18th February at 8pm GMT with guest Jacqui Thijm to discuss how can we empower students to be part of a larger university ‘It is not just about belonging, it is also about mattering’

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In recent years, belonging has become a central concept in UK Higher Education, with an increase in research on the topic, particularly over the last 5 years (Gilani and Thomas, 2025).

It is commonly presented as a key driver of retention, engagement, student success, and, more recently, linked to mental health. This is grounded in the idea that when students feel part of their university, they are more likely to persist and thrive.

This shift was an important one. It moved attention away from framing retention and attrition as individual student failings and towards recognising that institutions play a role in shaping students’ experiences. As a result, many universities have invested heavily in initiatives designed to “build” students’ sense of belonging.

However, belonging is often positioned as something that institutions do to students: something that can be provided, measured, or fixed. When students do not appear to belong, the assumption can be that something is lacking in the student—their confidence, engagement, or willingness to integrate. Looking at belonging in this way can miss how power, expectations and university systems affect a student’s sense of belonging. 

Much of the current thinking around belonging also reflects a narrow image of the “traditional” student: young, campus-based, and visibly engaged in university life (Joseph et al., 2024).  This does not reflect the realities of contemporary Higher Education, where many students study online, commute, work alongside their studies, or balance caring responsibilities. For these students, engagement may be quieter, less visible, and shaped by everyday interactions rather than campus presence.

This is where mattering offers a useful alternative lens. Mattering shifts the focus away from whether students have successfully integrated into institutional expectations and towards whether they feel noticed, valued, and taken seriously. Importantly, mattering is not something students must achieve. It is something that staff and institutions do through their everyday practices.

Mattering is shaped in small but significant moments: how a question is responded to, whether a student’s circumstances are acknowledged, how feedback is framed, or whether a student feels their contribution carries weight. In this sense, mattering can be understood as a relational pathway into belonging, rather than an outcome students are expected to reach independently.

When students feel that they matter in educational settings, this is reflected by both their peers and the staff with whom they interact; they feel they are important and valued by others, and this creates conditions where they belong in that space, be that a classroom, an academic advising space, or a peer group session. 

Belonging and mattering are closely connected, but they are not the same. A student may formally belong to a programme or institution and yet still feel invisible or peripheral. Paying attention to mattering helps shift the focus from student deficit to staff responsibility and relational practice.

By creating mattering and caring moments in the spaces where, as university staff, we meet, connect, and build relationships with students. This is in our day-to-day interactions in lecture halls, the library, online spaces, and in pastoral and student support conversations.  

In a sector increasingly driven by metrics, benchmarks, and belonging frameworks, this perspective offers a timely reminder: students’ experiences are shaped less by abstract concepts and more by how they are treated in everyday encounters across teaching, assessment, and support.

Mattering is shaped by what staff in higher education do through the relationships we form with students—sometimes intentionally, and sometimes in ways we may not even realise. These interactions, whether small or significant, can have a lasting influence on a student’s university experience. By framing our everyday interactions as acts of mattering rather than measures of belonging, we can be more intentional about creating caring environments where students are supported to thrive.

Belonging matters, but it does not happen on its own. Mattering shifts the focus from whether students fit in to how they are treated. It reminds us that feeling valued is created through everyday staff actions, not student effort.

It is in small moments—how we respond, listen, and acknowledge—that students learn whether they matter. When staff focus on mattering, we create the conditions for belonging to grow.

So, rather than asking whether students feel a sense of belonging, should we ask whether they feel they matter, and what can we, as university staff, do to foster a sense of mattering? -change/

Reference List

Gilani, D. and Thomas, L. (2025) ‘Understanding the factors and consequences of student belonging in higher education: a critical literature review’, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (34).

Joseph, C., Kelly-Ann, A., Taren, S., Roy, B., Philip, P., Cassandra, S. and Dianne, T. (2024) ‘Sense of Belonging in Higher Education Students: An Australian Longitudinal Study from 2013 to 2019’, Studies in Higher Education, 49(3), pp. 395-409.

Questions

1 – If a sense of belonging is framed as something students need to have to be a successful student, what might change if we instead focused on what we do as student-facing staff to foster belonging?

2 – How do our everyday interactions signal to students that they are noticed, valued, and taken seriously, that they matter?

3 – Where might institutional processes unintentionally undermine students’ sense that they matter?

4 – Is the work of belonging/mattering gendered? Who does the work of caring for students? Who do students want to do the mattering and caring roles?

5 – How can we create mattering moments in online spaces?

6 – Do you feel that you matter to students and colleagues? What makes you feel that way?

Speaker Bio

Jacqui Thijm is a doctoral researcher in Higher Education whose work examines student engagement, belonging, and mattering in contemporary HE. Alongside her research, she is an experienced lecturer and academic adviser, with a strong interest in inclusive pedagogy, relational student support, and research-informed practice.

https://bsky.app/profile/jacquithijm.bsky.social

www.linkedin.com/in/jacqui-thijm