#LTHEchat

Join us on Wednesday 28 October at 8.00pm (GMT) with our guest contributor, Yaz Iyabo Osho, University of Westminster (@yazosho.bsky.social). This #LTHEchat on Bluesky will explore how higher education can make CPD meaningful, worthwhile, accessible and possible, considering participation, recognition, culture and governance.

Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is ubiquitous in higher education. Colleagues are frequently encouraged to engage with it, but we do not always pause to consider what makes it meaningful.

CPD can encompass a one-off workshop delivered by an external organisation, a series of sessions linked to institutional priorities, a staff development day, professional conversations, requirements linked to promotion, a response to a sector priority, or learning undertaken alongside a role. It can also provide space to reflect.

Across the sector, CPD is often positioned as a response to an identified issue. If institutions need to respond to AI, address awarding gaps or act on concerns raised by data, CPD is often expected to form part of the solution.

But what actually makes CPD meaningful?

This question sits at the heart of an ongoing research project I am undertaking on academic professional development, CPD engagement, culture and governance across higher education, involving colleagues in a range of roles. These issues are not associated with any one institution; they recur across a sector in which CPD is organised, positioned and recognised in different ways. My particular focus is CPD related to teaching, learning and academic practice, rather than organisational development or compliance-related training.

Attendance and engagement

The project is not simply asking whether colleagues attend CPD. Attendance matters, of course, but it tells us very little on its own.

People attend CPD for many reasons. They may be genuinely interested, need practical support with an immediate issue, be encouraged by a line manager or peer, see a connection to career development, or want to become more effective in their role. They may feel a responsibility to their students, particularly when disparities have been identified and CPD forms part of the response. They may also attend because participation is required.

Equally, colleagues may not attend for reasons unrelated to motivation or commitment. Workload, timing, relevance, role expectations, culture, line management, recognition, confidence and institutional messaging can shape whether CPD feels possible, useful or worth prioritising.

This is why we need to move beyond a narrow focus on attendance and ask what enables colleagues to participate in the first place, and what conditions make academic professional development meaningful, valued and connected to practice.

CPD as institutional culture

CPD does not sit outside institutional culture. It is shaped by governance, recognition, communication, workload, leadership and local academic norms. It is also shaped by who is seen to “own” it.

In some UK institutions, CPD is led by centres for teaching and learning or academic development teams. In others, it sits partly with HR, organisational development, digital education, quality teams, schools, departments, professional services, external bodies or senior leaders. Often, it sits across several of these spaces at once.

This can foster productive collaboration, but it can also lead to fragmentation. Who sets expectations, protects time, communicates value, recognises engagement and acts when participation is low?

Academic development as inquiry

This is where the question of CPD connects to my wider thinking about academic professional development as a space for inquiry.

CPD is not simply a programme of activities or a collection of resources that sits alongside academic work. Webster-Wright (2009) distinguishes the delivery of professional development from support for authentic professional learning. CPD is one place where we can see how professional learning, institutional culture and educational change potentially come together.

This connects with my developing approach to Research-Informed Academic Professional Development, which treats academic development not only as provision, but as a way of connecting evidence from staff practice and student experience with institutional learning and decision-making (Osho, 2026).

The tension between compliance and meaning

Across higher education, there can be a gap between recognising CPD as important and creating the practical conditions that enable colleagues to participate. Workload allocation, timing, line management support and recognition all influence whether CPD can be integrated meaningfully into academic work during a semester. Recent sector research reflects these concerns. Dineen et al. (2026) identify time, institutional structures and culture, thoughtful incentives, and responsiveness to staff and teaching needs as important conditions for meaningful engagement. The interim findings from my own research point in a similar direction.

There is also a tension between culture and compliance. Mandating CPD may increase attendance, but does it actually deepen engagement? Equally, relying entirely on voluntary participation may privilege those who have the time, confidence and institutional support to engage, and who already see CPD as relevant to their role and professional identity.

Interim findings from my sector-wide research reflect this tension. CPD was most commonly described as expected but not mandated (41%), while 32% of respondents reported that it was not required and 20% said that it was mandated. Early analysis also suggests that protected time and recognition may be more closely linked to colleagues’ perception of CPD as worthwhile than to mandating or monitoring participation.

These findings point to a wider sector challenge. Attendance may tell us who was present, but it does not necessarily tell us whether colleagues had meaningful opportunities to engage, apply their learning, or connect it to their professional development. The more useful question may therefore be how institutions create the conditions for colleagues to participate in CPD and recognise it as part of academic practice, rather than as an external requirement or occasional intervention.

Meaningful CPD therefore requires more than provision. It needs to be relevant to colleagues’ roles and recognised through workload, PDR or appraisal, and career development. This raises a wider governance question: how can institutions make CPD accessible, worthwhile and possible?

Continuing the conversation

This discussion sits alongside an ongoing research project exploring academic professional development, CPD engagement, culture and governance across the sector.

I would welcome survey responses from colleagues involved in teaching, learning, academic development, CPD, organisational development, quality, educational leadership, staff development, or related areas. Click the survey link.

This LTHEChat invites us to think together about the issues raised in this blog and your own experiences in the sector. The aim is not to decide on a single perfect model of CPD, but to open a conversation about how academic professional development is understood, valued, recognised and supported across higher education.

References

Dineen, K., O’Mahony, C., Gallivan, S., Kluijtmans, M., Stensaker, B., Leschke, J., Frølich, N. and Zhang, T. (2026) ‘Engagement in staff development for learning and teaching in higher education: experiences from a leadership perspective’, Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, pp. 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603108.2026.2740015

Osho, Y.I. (2026) ‘Academic professional development as a space for inquiry’, SRHE Blog, 15 October. https://srheblog.com/2026/10/15/academic-professional-development-as-a-space-for-inquiry/

Webster-Wright, A. (2009) ‘Reframing professional development through understanding authentic professional learning’, Review of Educational Research, 79(2), pp. 702–739. https://doi.org/10.3102/0034654308330970

Bio

Dr Yaz Iyabo Osho is a Reader in Education and Director of Academic Professional Development at CETI, University of Westminster. Her research interests include inclusive and anti-racist pedagogy, academic professional development, CPD governance, belonging, and the experiences of Black students and academics in higher education. She is currently developing a scholarly framework for Research-Informed Academic Professional Development and is a member of the #LTHEchat organising team.

Join us on Wednesday 21st of October at 8.00pm (GMT/BST) with our guest contributors, Anna Mills, College of Marin (@annamillsoer.bsky.social) and Carl Whithaus, University of California, Davis. This #LTHEchat on Bluesky will explore how peer and AI feedback can strengthen students’ agency, critical AI literacy and evaluative judgement while keeping human voice and relationships at the heart of learning.

It is easy to feel that AI is out of our control and out of our students’ control. And in many ways, it is. But what if we could take back some control and help our students to do so? This is what we are attempting in the Peer & AI Review + Reflection (PAIRR) Project. We hope that educators find a sense of agency in defining a limited role for AI in supporting learning according to our values and knowledge. Our approach builds on established best practices in writing instruction by introducing critical reflection on AI feedback alongside peer and instructor feedback.

We hope to help students build a sense of agency as they discuss readings about AI, writing and ethics; as they chat back to AI feedback rather than simply accepting it; and as they engage in metacognitive reflection on peer and AI feedback. With PAIRR, AI becomes a tool for thinking about their writing rather than a shortcut. Students stay in control of their words as they strengthen their voice, judgment, and revision skills. One student commented, “My opinion has been changed since using AI in [this course]. I realised that I can use AI to give me feedback instead of directly editing my paper in order to get insight on how to make my paper better without losing my voice.” 

Even as it builds a sense of agency in relation to AI, PAIRR also offers students extra writing support in the form of supplementary AI feedback. It helps students understand what human audiences need from their writing and what human readers are getting from what they have written. Comparing peer and AI feedback helps students see how they feel about human versus AI feedback, what each might offer them, and what each might lack. We emphasise that writing is human communication, and that AI cannot replace the human audiences or peer and teacher relationships that motivate us.

When one of our research articles won an award from the Computers and Composition journal, we felt that the judges’ words expressed what we were aspiring to. The judges wrote that the PAIRR model “resists both technological solutionism” and “reactionary refusal,” “offering a rigorously tested framework for integrating AI ethically while preserving the relational, contextual value of human expertise in the writing classroom.”

The PAIRR model

Where does PAIRR come from, and how does it work? Peer and AI Review + Reflection (PAIRR) is a pedagogical model that was developed and tested at the University of California, Davis in 2023–24. In 2025 we were awarded a $1.5 million grant from the California Education Learning Lab, and that is when other campuses joined. We are now working with eight public colleges and universities across California. Here are the five steps in our model:

1.     We start by planning classes with a clear AI policy aligned with the instructor’s values, goals and learning objectives. The class discusses this AI policy, and students engage with selected readings intended to build critical AI literacy:

• The first reading comes from the open textbook AI and College Writing: An Orientation, and it introduces students to thoughtful use of AI feedback while retaining their voice and critical thinking.
•   We share a statement that educates about our very real concerns about AI: environmental impact, labour, bias of all kinds, linguistic justice and equity, privacy, intellectual property and datafication. The statement explains why we choose to work with AI anyway and how engaging with AI might help us build capacity for civic engagement in shaping AI futures.
• We offer a linguistic justice and equity reading that helps students think about why they might want to privilege their own writing voice over the polished standard English voice that AI often promotes.
  

2.     Then, once students have written a first draft of a major assignment, they complete peer review workshops in class. Peer review comes before AI because we believe humans belong at the centre of response. (Some instructors, particularly in online classes, have reversed this order and use AI feedback first. We recognise that the sequence of peer feedback first may not work best in all cases, and we want teachers to adapt PAIRR to make it work in their own courses. Still, we recommend peer review first, because at its base PAIRR – and peer review in general – is about the human interaction, about the writer receiving feedback from someone like their intended audience. AI can help with that, but can’t replace the value of the human).

3.     Students then get AI feedback on their draft and chat with the AI about it. This can work on various platforms, but currently we use MyEssayFeedback, a not-for-profit platform designed by faculty that incorporates our approach in its user interface and reduces our administrative labor by syncing with the learning management system and giving participation credit automatically.

After they read the initial feedback, students are required to ask at least two follow-up questions. They can “chat back” however they like, but we also offer suggestions. Dropdown menus show them types of requests and sentence starters they could use. Here are a few of our suggestions:

●      Be frank and push back if you’re not sure you agree

●      Ask for clarification on a specific point

●      Ask it to help you explore what you’re not sure about

●      Ask about an assignment requirement it didn’t mention

●      Ask about your writing style’s unique strengths and how to bring in more of your voice

The aim is for students to treat AI as a thinking partner rather than an answer machine. These options and more can be found in the PAIRR packet.

4.     After that, students compare the peer and AI feedback, reflect on what fits their goals for the assignment and what doesn’t, and make a plan for revision. We share reflection questions that invite them to step back and consider what they agree with and what they don’t, how the feedback affects their sense of their voice, and how they plan to revise.

5.     Finally, students revise and write a revision reflection, deepening their metacognitive awareness of how feedback affects them and their strategic thinking about how to engage with it in future. This reflection is absolutely key. It encourages students to think critically about their own writing and revising processes and about AI’s role within those processes. It’s empowering because students have agency not only on this particular assignment, but in terms of thinking about when they do and do not want to use AI when they are working on writing tasks.

Opting out

We respect students who do not want to use AI, and we offer them an alternative assignment. We encourage them to schedule an additional writing centre or tutor meeting, or we may offer them the option to talk through their draft with a friend or family member. Then they write a reflection on the different kinds of feedback they received.

Results

In our 2023–24 pilot, we used the method with 654 students in a range of courses, from first-year writing to writing-intensive courses in other disciplines, including STEM. 57.6% of students preferred combined AI and peer feedback to AI feedback alone. Our takeaway was that AI works best when paired with human feedback, not on its own. AI and peer feedback often reinforced each other, and when they differed, they tended to offer complementary perspectives. Students found that AI could be helpful, but they still valued human feedback the most. As one University of California, Davis student put it, “I think the value of peer review is definitely important to understand how other people, who don’t have access to all your mind’s information, perceive your writing.” 

The PAIRR feedback prompts

The quality of AI feedback depends on which AI system you use, but it also depends on how you direct the system. In PAIRR, when students request AI feedback, we make sure the instructor’s assignment and rubric are included to give context about what students are asked to do. We also describe the kind of feedback we as writing instructors think will be most helpful to students. Through two years of collaborative design and testing, we developed two core feedback prompts:

·       The Reader-Response Prompt instructs the AI system to emphasise the intrinsic meaning of writing as human communication. It describes strengths and areas for consideration in terms of how a human reader might respond: what value a reader might find in the writing, where they might be confused, where they might need something different. It uses phrases like “… might resonate with readers.”  

·       The Criteria-Based Prompt is more directive: both prompts respond to the assignment criteria, but the Criteria-Based Prompt centres three to four direct suggestions for improvement instead of describing two areas for consideration in terms of likely reader reactions.

Both prompts give feedback on strengths as well as considerations for revision. Both include quotations and details from the draft to support each comment. And both strongly discourage the chatbot from writing for the student.

We are currently experimenting with a version of each prompt that gives contradictory suggestions for revision. Our framework already encourages students to question all the feedback they get. But we recognise that as these systems get more sophisticated, their errors are harder to spot. Students still need practice identifying flaws and experiencing those moments when they realise, “No, that’s not what I wanted to do,” or “It’s not getting this part right.” Contradictory but plausible feedback provides that practice: students can’t take every suggestion, so they have to recognise that AI advice can sound good and still be wrong for them.

We’re hoping to develop a full prompt library based on the work that instructors using PAIRR are doing. We want these prompts to be rigorously tested, and we want them to help students develop as writers. PAIRR is very much a shared endeavour by faculty hoping to shape AI technologies in ways that benefit students and encourage them to think about how they are writing and revising.

Trying or adapting our approach

To see what kind of feedback you get, you can copy and paste our PAIRR prompts into any chatbot with a draft and assignment. You can also use the PAIRR custom bot we built on the PlayLab platform (PlayLab is a nonprofit that offers these for free and does not use the data to train AI systems) or try one of our contradictory feedback bots. If you don’t have a student essay you have permission to use, generate an AI sample draft to get feedback on. You are welcome to comment on, edit, or use an excerpt from one of our prompts; the CC BY NC 4.0 licence allows for all of that!

An invitation to engage

Please connect and let us know what you think! Everything we create is an open educational resource. We want to keep developing this model with input from others and share it as part of larger discussions of how educators can best navigate AI in writing.

AI Use Statement

We came up with the ideas and drafted the piece. We used AI for editing and style suggestions as well as global feedback and a reference list. We reviewed all AI suggestions.

Acknowledgements

PAIRR is the work of a large team across nine campuses. We thank the whole team and especially Marit MacArthur, Julie Gamberg and Sophia Minnillo, who presented the August 2026 PAIRR webinar this post draws on. PAIRR is supported by the California Education Learning Lab, with additional support from the Association for Writing Across the Curriculum, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the UC Davis Center for Artificial Intelligence and Experimental Futures (CAIEF).

Questions

1. What AI literacy readings or videos do you recommend or assign to students?  What kind of readings or videos do you wish for?
2.  If you teach with AI, how do you respond to students who raise ethical concerns about AI and/or prefer not to use it?
3. What is your impression of how insightful and useful AI feedback can be? Do you ask AI for feedback on your own work? Why or why not?
4. Try asking for feedback using one of the PAIRR prompts and a draft of your own writing or else a sample draft that fits your own assignment. What are your impressions?
5. What kinds of feedback do you think need to come from human instructors? What kind of feedback should come from peers? What is the place of AI feedback in your mind, if any?
6. How do you think we can help students build habits of questioning AI outputs rather than trusting them, even when those outputs sound sophisticated and plausible?

References

Gamberg, J., MacArthur, M., Mills, A., Sinha, A. and Sperber, L. (n.d.) AI is problematic. Why does PAIRR use it? An ethics statement for the Peer & AI Review + Reflection Project. UC Davis University Writing Program.

Mills, A. AI and College Writing: An Orientation. LibreTexts.

Minnillo, S., Gamberg, J. and Whithaus, C. ‘A prompt that nudges AI to speculate on human readers’ responses to a draft’, in Gupta, A. and Gogan, B. (eds) Writing Studies Prompt Library: Expert Approaches to Generative Artificial Intelligence Prompting. Writing Across the Curriculum Repository. WAC Clearinghouse.

PAIRR Project (n.d.) PAIRR feedback prompts.

PAIRR Project (n.d.) PAIRR packet.

Sperber, L. (2026) ‘Now that we have AI, we can ditch human feedback! ✨ AI feedback should be used in a human-centered process, with peer feedback’, in Bad Ideas About AI and Writing. WAC Clearinghouse.

Sperber, L., MacArthur, M., Minnillo, S., Stillman, N. and Whithaus, C. (2025) ‘Peer and AI Review + Reflection (PAIRR): A human-centered approach to formative assessment’, Computers and Composition, 76, 102921.

Bios

Anna Mills is a leading voice on AI in higher education across platforms like LinkedIn, Substack, and BlueSky (@annamillsoer.bsky.social). She has taught writing in California community colleges for 20 years, authored two popular OER textbooks, and serves on the Modern Language Association Task Force on AI in Research and Teaching. Her writing appears in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, and Computers and Composition. As a volunteer advisor, she has helped shape MyEssayFeedback.ai, and she serves as co-Principal Investigator for the Peer & AI Review + Reflection (PAIRR) project. 

Carl Whithaus is a Professor of Writing and Rhetoric at the University of California, Davis. He studies writing technologies and digital cultures and works on a variety of projects related to writing in the sciences, engineering, and agriculture. His books include Swarms, Viral Writing, and the Local (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2025), Multimodal Literacies and Emerging Genres (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2013), Writing Across Distances and Disciplines (Routledge, 2008) and Teaching and Evaluating Writing in the Age of Computers and High-Stakes Testing (Erlbaum, 2005). He serves as a Principal Investigator (PI) for splash! milk science update and for the Peer and AI Review + Reflection (PAIRR) Project.

Join us on Wednesday 14th of October at 8.00pm (GMT/BST) with our guest contributor, Doug Specht, University of Westminster (@dougspecht.bsky.social). This #LTHEChat on BlueSky will look at Happiness vs Satisfaction.

Some years ago a second-year student appeared at my office door without an appointment. I had just failed his essay and I was braced for a complaint. Instead he said, “I just want to say thank you for failing me.” He had been scraping through each assessment for a year and a half, happy to pass but quietly dissatisfied, because he knew he was not doing his best work. The fail gave him the push he needed. He left with a better degree than the one he had been heading for, and a far more satisfying one.

That conversation has stayed with me because it separates two things we often run together. Happiness is made of short moments of pleasure or relief. Satisfaction is slower and lasts longer. The two are connected, but they work on different timescales, and they can pull in opposite directions.

I wrote about this for THE Campus in 2022, as the sector came out of the pandemic and into a political climate of “low value” degrees and headline satisfaction scores. My worry then was that universities were drifting towards keeping students happy in the moment: generous marking, events that sit outside the learning, investment in things nobody uses, all to head off complaints real and imagined. That drift has not gone away. If anything, generative AI has added a new version of the same temptation, since it can now remove almost every difficulty from a task at the click of a button.

None of this is an argument for toughening students up or making university unpleasant. Satisfaction includes wellbeing, and we must keep looking after the real needs of our students. It is an argument for repositioning our own practice around the long term. In the original piece I suggested three ways to do that: keep the whole learning journey in view, not just the next deadline; use “good friction”, the deliberate and well-explained difficulty that keeps learners invested; and design assessment that is authentic and tied to learning, so that even a disappointing mark becomes a moment of learning.

In this chat I would like to test those ideas against your experience. Where does the pressure to please come from in your context? Which kinds of struggle are worth protecting? And what would change if we designed our courses for the satisfied graduate rather than the happy student in week six?

Biography

Dr Doug Specht is Head of the Westminster School of Media and Communication and Reader in Cultural Geography and Communication at the University of Westminster. His work in education focuses on curriculum and assessment design, student success, and how universities respond to generative AI, and he co-authored the HEPI FUTURES framework on capabilities for a human-AI world. His research looks at how knowledge is made and shared, from maps and data to media and public understanding. Doug is a National Teaching Fellow and Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and holds Chartered Teacher and Advanced Teacher Status. He is also a Chartered Geographer.

BlueSky: @dougspecht.bsky.social

Links

• Should we be aiming for student happiness or student satisfaction? (THE Campus): www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/should-we-be-aiming-student-happiness-or-student-satisfaction

• Capabilities for a human-AI world: the FUTURES framework (HEPI): www.hepi.ac.uk/reports/being-indispensable-capabilities-for-a-human-ai-world-the-futures-framework/

Questions

Q1 – Think of a moment at university that made you unhappy but left you satisfied. What made the difference, and could it happen for your students now?

Q2 – When colleagues say “keep the students happy”, what do they usually mean? Whose happiness, and measured how?

Q3 – Which everyday decisions in your practice are shaped more by fear of a complaint or a low NSS score than by what students need to learn?

Q4 – What does ‘good friction’ look like in your teaching or assessment? Share one deliberate difficulty you would defend to a student.

Q5 – Generative AI can remove almost every struggle from a task. Which struggles are worth protecting, and how do we explain that to students?

Q6 – If we designed for long-term satisfaction instead of short-term happiness, what is one thing you would stop, start or keep doing next term?

Join us on Wednesday 7th of October at 8.00pm (GMT/BST) with our guest contributor, Catherine O’Mahony, University College Cork, (@catherineomahony.bsky.social). This #LTHEChat on BlueSky will explore dual coding and visualising thinking.

Introduction
Dual coding theory suggests that learners process information through two linked channels: a verbal and a visual system. When the same idea is presented in both forms, learners more readily encode that information in long term memory.

In practice, this means pairing explanations with meaningful visuals such as diagrams, timelines, flowcharts, concept maps, or annotated sketches.

When we design teaching in such a way we lessen the cognitive load of encoding new information in long term memory as we lessen the likelihood of either the visual or auditory sensory channels being overloaded.

Visual metaphors are commonly used to help students understand complex concepts. Equally, visual activities can be used to make learning more active, to make thinking visible, and surface new connections. For example, the Iceberg Model is a systems thinking tool to help students look past surface problems to find hidden root causes.

We can also model retrieval practice through visual methods by encouraging students to create concept maps or timelines to reveal their understanding and strengthen their retention of concepts and information.

Visual methods can enable students to share aspects of their cultural background. For example, conversations flow when students see photographs of babies in Scandinavian countries sound asleep in snow covered streets outside cafes. Graphic jams, where students create rapid fire drawing in response to one word prompts, can uncover cultural norms around the value of education, economic models etc.

Visualising thinking should not be at the expense of accessibility. Using alt-tags for images or narrating slides and visual prompts all help as will sharing resources ahead of any live event.

Resources
1. Visualising thinking www.youtube.com/watch?v=425QeUuXqrs
This 3 minute video summarises cognitive load theory and dual coding, and considers the implications for teaching and learning.

2. This short resource on “More engaging teaching through visualising thinking“, was created with graphic harvester Maia Thomas following on from a series of on-site and on-line workshops we ran on visualising thinking for Higher Education staff. It provides suggestions on how to run create similar learning activities with staff and students as well as some disciplinary examples www.ucc.ie/en/media/support/cirtl/ResourcesforStaff_VisualisingThinking.pdf

3. In this podcast the Learning Scientists explore the final of 6 strategies for effective learning, dual coding
www.learningscientists.org/learning-scientists-podcast/2018/2/7/episode-12-dual-coding

4: Website designed to support the development of visual, spatial and tactile knowledge and skills in any discipline https://blogs.brighton.ac.uk/visuallearning/

5: Student blog on the experience of visual note taking
https://noblechloe.wordpress.com/first-year-learning-logs/visual-notes/

6: A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

Biography
Dr Catherine O’Mahony (she/her) leads the Centre for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning at University College Cork, Cork, Ireland. As Director, she sets the strategic vision for professional development in teaching and learning across the university. Over the years she has led institutional, national and international projects on topics ranging from student engagement and sustainability education to undergraduate research, inclusive practice, and educational leadership.

Most recently she has implemented a cross-campus curriculum change initiative, is leading work on innovative teaching and mobilities for the UNIC European University Alliance, a partnership of nine higher education institutions, and has co-developed a national professional recognition framework for teaching and learning with educational leaders in Irish Higher Education. She serves as Co-Principal Investigator on STAFF-DEV, an Erasmus+ funded project led by the European University Association focused on staff development in teaching and learning, alongside a broader portfolio of research activities.

Questions

Q1: When have you personally understood something more deeply because you saw it drawn, mapped, or modelled alongside an explanation? What was it about the combination that helped?

Q2: When you externalise your own reasoning visually e.g. mapping an argument, what are you modelling beyond content? What tacit expert moves become available for students to see?

Q3: Make a quick sketch using the Iceberg Model. Place a teaching challenge above the waterline and root causes below. Share sketch with alt-text description. What did drawing make visible that writing did not?

Q4: Do you use visual methods in your teaching and how are they received? What approaches would you like to use?

Q5: Whose needs might be overlooked when we rely heavily on visuals? How could you design for inclusive learning from the start?

Q6: What is one small change you could try with students in the next month relating to dual coding and visualising thinking? What would tell you it was worth continuing?

Join us on Wednesday 30th of September at 8.00pm (GMT/BST) with our guest contributor, Colum Cronin of Marino Institute of Education, Dublin, (@columfromcork.bsky.social). This #LTHEChat on BlueSky will explore how the design of time and space shapes student engagement, participation and belonging.

When students don’t engage, we tend to look at the student first. Why didn’t they come? Do they care enough? Are they motivated? But perhaps we are looking for reasons in the wrong place.

Before we ask what’s happening with the student, it might be worth looking at the architecture around them.

Not just the physical space, but the design of the experience: when something happens, where it happens, what else sits alongside it, how much time people have, what participation requires, and what the environment tells them is important.

Some students have lost interest, and no timetable will change that. In the UK, the proportion of undergraduates attending all their scheduled classes fell from 63% in 2006 to 48% in 2025 (Turner & Stephenson, 2026). It would be easy to read that as a generation that has stopped caring. Yet the same report finds that in-person contact is still central to a good experience.

So why aren’t they in the room? A Guardian callout asked students exactly that a couple of years ago (Otte, 2024). Many talked about paid work getting in the way. Others had worked out that with online lectures, they could watch recordings in less time than attending live and still get the grade without being there. One first-year student described how hard it was to make friends when “you don’t know who will show up”. We cannot control rising rents or the cost of living, which puts additional pressure on many students to prioritise paid work. A timetable that leaves no gaps for anything outside the classroom, alongside limited opportunities to meet people outside of their course group, or to engage with clubs and societies, includes elements of the academic architecture that we can influence. Students make choices, but they do so within a week we have designed. 

“Hidden curriculum” usually makes people think of the unwritten rules of academic life, like how to email a lecturer or what office hours are actually for. I propose stretching it to include something more concrete: the timetable, the gaps between classes, the sequence of early experiences, and even the layout of the campus. We tend to treat these as administrative decisions, but they are signals that students read. The timetable teaches students whether their time is valued, whether connection is expected, and whether the institution sees them as members or as attendees. Together these elements make up what I think of as the hidden curriculum of time and space, the unspoken lessons students learn about their value and their place in the institution.

You see it most clearly with commuters. In Ireland, Eurostudent VIII found an average one-way journey time of 52 minutes for students living with their parents, compared with 17 minutes for those in student accommodation (Erskine and Harmon, 2023). Across a twelve-week semester, that difference is about 70 hours. In England, students travelling 45 minutes or more each way were more likely than others to report practical, academic and social problems, and to miss out on the wider student experience (Savanta, 2026). Add part-time work or caring responsibilities, and time on campus stops being elastic. It gets planned and rationed against bus schedules, train times, and lost shifts.

Some of that disconnection shows up as loneliness. Citing the work of Dr Gareth Hughes, Morgan and Gilani (2026) have recently argued that feeling lonely during a big transition is normal, and that universities should make connecting possible rather than treating student loneliness as a problem to fix. I agree. My argument isn’t really about loneliness. It’s about opportunity. A student cannot join a society whose meeting time clashes with the last bus home. We can’t shorten the bus route, but we do have some say over what happens in the middle of the day. Anything scheduled at the end of the day risks losing commuters who are already watching the clock. But there is something we can do in the middle of the day: create space for the incidental conversations that tend to get squeezed out by a full timetable. We can think about what happens between things, not just the things themselves. If a student travels 90 minutes to campus and then moves from one lecture to another with barely enough time to cross the building and find the next room, and with no break in which to talk to anyone, it becomes harder to argue that the journey was worthwhile.

Earlier this year, the Irish Government proposed asking institutions to examine whether classes could be condensed into fewer days to reduce commuting (Burne, 2026). At first glance, it sounds compassionate, and it would certainly mean less time on the road. But it raises a more interesting question: what are we asking students to come to campus for? If the campus is somewhere students mainly come for lectures and leave straight afterwards, fewer days may well look like a win. If it’s also where friendships form, societies meet, tutors become familiar faces and ideas get tested, fewer days mean fewer opportunities for those things to happen. We’ve invested heavily in student spaces and informal learning hubs, and I’m glad we have done so. But space without time is just furniture. More events won’t fix that if there are no gaps in the week to go to them. 

At Marino Institute of Education, a small college of education in Dublin, we have tried to give some of that time back to students. Every Tuesday and Wednesday, the period from noon to 1pm is protected across all undergraduate programmes as Student Life Hour. Positioned in the middle of the day, with lunch straight after, this simple change offers a predictable two-hour window twice a week to make their own. Instead of another engagement initiative, we created space and time in which engagement could happen. We simply stopped timetabling during those hours, which signalled that being on campus outside class was legitimate, and left the choice to students. As one first-year student put it, “It is on my timetable, so I can stay.” They might study or meet a friend for coffee. Clubs and societies use it too, and some that had struggled with attendance have started running regular events. Our Neurodiversity Group started meeting weekly during that hour, something an evening slot would have put out of reach for commuters. Tutors started running into students in communal spaces, and conversations that used to need an appointment just happened. And we’re seeing the knock-on effects in the broader college community. I’ve written more about this, and a couple of other changes, in Waypoint (Cronin, 2026). 

None of this is an argument for stringent compulsory attendance or against supportive approaches like lecture capture. Flexibility is what makes study possible at all for some students. I don’t have a good answer to what the equivalent of the corridor conversation looks like for students who are rarely or never on campus, and I’d like to hear from the people who design for them.

The question I’d like to bring to Wednesday is what conditions we have actually created for engagement to happen. My hunch is that much of what we call apathy may be students reading the week we’ve built for them and making sensible decisions.

Questions

1. Think back to when you were a student. Where did the conversations that mattered most happen?

2. When students leave as soon as class ends, what explanations do we reach for first, and what might we be missing? 

3. When attendance drops, how do we respond? And what might that tell students about why being in the room matters? 

4. If a student travels an hour each way, what would make the day worth the journey? 

5. For students who are rarely or never on campus, what’s the equivalent of the conversation after class, and who’s designing it? 

6. If you could protect one hour in every student’s week, what would you do with it? Would you leave it empty?

References

Burne, L. (2026) ‘Accommodation crisis: Colleges to be asked to cut number of days students must be on campus’, Irish Examiner, 23 February.

Cronin, C. (2026) ‘The hidden curriculum of time and space: why belonging is designed before it is felt’,, Waypoint: A Reflective Journal of Student Advising and Development in Tertiary Education, 3, Available at: https://journal.ukat.ac.uk/waypoint/article/view/23,

Cullinan, J., & Flannery, D. (2026). ‘Commuting and college student wellbeing’. Education Economics, 34(5), 674–693. 

Erskine, S. and Harmon, D. (2023) Eurostudent Survey VIII: Report on the Social and Living Conditions of Higher Education Students in Ireland 2022. Dublin: Higher Education Authority. 

Morgan, M. and Gilani, D. (2026) ‘Part Two: From loneliness to belonging: what can universities actually do?’, HEPI Blog, 20 September.

Otte, J. (2024) ‘”I see little point”: UK university students on why attendance has plummeted’, The Guardian, 28 May.

Savanta (2026) Experiences and Risk Among Commuter Students in Higher Education. Survey for the Office for Students, 28 July.

Turner, G. and Stephenson, R. (2026) What Matters Most? 20 Years of the Student Experience. HEPI Report 200. Oxford: Higher Education Policy Institute.

Questions

Q1 – Think back to when you were a student. Where did the conversations that mattered most happen?

Q2 – When students leave as soon as class ends, what explanations do we reach for first, and what might we be missing?

Q3 – When attendance drops, how do we respond? And what might that tell students about why being in the room matters?

Q4 – If a student travels an hour each way, what would make the day worth the journey?

Q5 – For students who are rarely or never on campus, what’s the equivalent of the conversation after class, and who’s designing it?

Q6 – If you could protect one hour in every student’s week, what would you do with it? Would you leave it empty?

Bio

Originally from Cork and based in Dublin, Colum Cronin is Student Engagement Officer at Marino Institute of Education and co-lead of the Centre for Belonging in Education. He has more than twenty years of experience across Irish higher education, with previous roles at DCU, UCD and Trinity College Dublin focused mainly on international students, and is a former board member of the Irish Council for International Students. He is currently an EdD candidate at DCU, researching the hidden curriculum of time, space and agency in student transitions.

His work starts from the idea that belonging is designed long before it is felt, and that disengagement is far more often a problem of architecture than of apathy. An award-winning podcaster and presenter, he can be found across social media @columfromcork

Join us on Wednesday, 23rd of September at 8:00pm (GMT/BST) with our guest contributor, Francis Awolowo from Sheffield Hallam University, @ifawolowo.bsky.social. This #LTHEChat on BlueSky will consider “What might higher education look like if belonging were not an accidental outcome, but an intentional part of how we teach?“

Introduction

Students can be admitted to university, attend our lectures, submit assessments, achieve good grades, and graduate, yet never truly feel that they belong.

That thought has stayed with me throughout my career as an educator.

Higher education has rightly invested considerable energy in widening participation, inclusion and student success. But I increasingly find myself asking a different question: is being included the same as belonging?

I do not think it is.

Access gets you through the door. Inclusion gives you a seat at the table. Belonging is knowing that your presence at that table matters.

For me, belonging is not simply about feeling comfortable. It is about being seen, valued and taken seriously. It is being able to bring something of yourself into a learning space without constantly wondering whether you need to become someone else to succeed.

My thinking about this has been shaped profoundly by my work with Black students and, particularly, through leading the ASPIRE programme, which sought to widen access to doctoral education. Again and again, I saw extraordinarily talented students whose challenge was not a lack of ability or ambition. Sometimes what was missing was access to relationships, networks, encouragement and that important voice saying: you can do this, and there is a place for you here.

This matters because belonging is linked to students’ engagement, persistence, and academic experiences. It is also deeply relational. Research on compassionate and inclusive pedagogy similarly reminds us that caring interactions can create psychological safety, strengthen engagement and nurture belonging.

But perhaps we need to go further.

From belonging to teaching for belonging

I am increasingly interested in what African philosophies might contribute to this conversation.

Ubuntu is often captured through the expression “I am because we are.” At its heart is an understanding of humanity as relational: who we become is shaped through our relationships with others. Educational scholarship drawing on Ubuntu has therefore emphasised interconnectedness, humaneness, social responsibility and attentiveness to others.

This challenges one assumption that can quietly underpin higher education: that success is primarily an individual endeavour.

What if learning is also something we accomplish with and through one another?

Ubuntu pedagogy offers possibilities for classrooms characterised by solidarity, cooperation, respect and coexistence rather than simply individual performance. Alongside this, I draw on Omoluabi, a Yoruba philosophical idea concerned with character, dignity, responsibility and what it means to be a good person in relationship with others.

Together with compassionate pedagogy, these ideas lead me towards a simple proposition:

Perhaps our responsibility as educators is not only to teach students what they need to know, but to create the relational conditions in which they can become who they have the potential to be.

That does not mean lowering standards.

Compassion is not the opposite of rigour.

Care is not the absence of challenge.

Belonging does not mean making students comfortable all the time.

Indeed, good education should sometimes unsettle us. It should challenge assumptions, invite disagreement and require intellectual struggle. But there is an important difference between being challenged within a community and feeling that you are constantly required to prove your right to be part of that community.

The question, then, is not whether universities should care about belonging. The more difficult question is what we are prepared to change because we care about it.

Our curriculum?

Our assessment?

Whose knowledge we recognise?

The relationships we build with students?

The way we give feedback?

How we understand academic excellence?

Or perhaps even how we understand our role as educators?

Recent work on Ubuntu continues to argue for its potential to create learning environments centred on interconnectedness and community, while work on compassionate pedagogy has similarly highlighted the challenge of translating an ethos of care into everyday institutional practice.

So, for this #LTHEchat, I would like us to imagine something together.

Not simply a more inclusive university.

But a university in which more students can genuinely say:

I am here.
I am seen.
I matter.
I belong.
And I can thrive here.

Questions

1. When have you felt that you truly belonged in an educational or professional space? What created that feeling?

2. What is the difference between being included in higher education and genuinely belonging there?

3. How much responsibility do educators have for creating belonging  and what can we actually do through our everyday teaching?

4. Can students truly belong if they rarely see themselves, their histories, cultures or ways of knowing reflected in the curriculum?

5. Does higher education value care, kindness, and compassion as seriously as it values academic rigour, and should it?

6. If you could change one thing tomorrow in your teaching, course or institution to help more students move from simply being present to genuinely belonging, what would it be?

Biography

Dr Ifedapo Francis Awolowo is a multi-award-winning educator, researcher and Senior Lecturer in Financial and Management Accounting at Sheffield Hallam University. A National Teaching Fellow and Principal Fellow of Advance HE, his work explores belonging, compassionate pedagogy, racial equity and widening access to doctoral education. He is the project lead of ASPIRE, an award-winning programme that has supported Black students to develop research confidence, networks and pathways into doctoral study. His approach to education is informed by the African philosophies of Ubuntu and Omoluabi, placing relationships, humanity and collective flourishing at the heart of learning.

He is the author of Breaking Barriers to Doctoral Education: The ASPIRE Model for Mentorship and Racial Equity and is passionate about reimagining higher education as a place where every student can not only participate, but genuinely belong and thrive.

Join us on Wednesday, 16th September at 8:00pm (BST) with our guest contributors, Alyson Lewis (@alysonklewis.bsky.social‬) and Heather Pennington (@heatherpennington.bsky.social) for a thought-provoking BlueSky chat entitled ‘Entering into Transnational Education (TNE) partnerships potentially means new ways of thinking, being and doing… or does it?’ We will explore what effective TNE partnership working looks like in practice, whose knowledge shapes the curriculum, the challenges colleagues face, and how professional learning, recognition and reflective practice can support more equitable and responsive approaches.

Why this conversation?

Transnational Education (TNE) is an increasingly prominent feature of the higher education landscape, often framed in terms of growth, internationalisation and, inevitably, income generation. Yet beyond these drivers sits a complex and often under-examined set of pedagogical, relational and ethical considerations. Here, we invite colleagues, whether new to TNE or experienced in developing and delivering it, to pause and reflect on what it really means to work across contexts. In particular, we ask: Does entering into TNE partnerships genuinely involve new ways of thinking, being and doing, or do we sometimes reproduce familiar practices in unfamiliar settings?

What is Transnational Education (TNE) and why does it matter?

TNE is typically defined as ‘the delivery of an educational programme in a country other than that in which the awarding body is based’ (Universities UK, 2025a). ‘Host country’ or ‘Receiver’ are terms used to describe where the student is studying and ‘home country’ or ‘Provider’– are used to describe the main institutional campus which is in a different geographical location to where the student is studying (Eldridge and Cranston, 2009; Holubek, 2025). TNE can encompass a wide range of models including flying faculty, branch campuses, joint or dual awards, validation arrangements and distance learning provision to name but a few (Dai and Garcia, 2019; Smith, 2014). Regardless of the type of partnership and delivery model, they all share the following: “the movement of people, knowledge, programmes, providers, policies, ideas, curricula, projects, research and services across national or regional jurisdictional borders” (Knight, 2007, p.2). 

Here are some of the reasons as to why TNE matters. Arguably, it matters to different people for different reasons:

• transformative professional learning opportunities of living and working abroad (Smith, 2014); 
• career promotion/progression and increasing institutional visibility (Smith, 2014);
• opportunities to collaborate on research and develop intercultural learning (Liu et al. 2023);  
• economic growth to the UK – the 2026 international education strategy expects education exports to grow to £40 billion per year by 2030 (UK Government, 2026); 
• important source of financial security to universities;
• boosts a university’s branding and reputation internationally;
• positive impacts on a host country’s higher education system and skills market (Universities UK, 2025b).

The global demand for UK TNE is burgeoning “with over 650,000 students now studying UK programmes abroad – a 70% increase in the last decade” (Universities UK, 2025c). As TNE grows, so do the potential risks to quality hence the QAA’s revised UK TNE Quality Scheme.  The scheme is designed to support institutions in enhancing the quality of their TNE provision, aimed to reassure partners about the UK’s approach to quality and provides practical support in achieving high-quality TNE (QAA, 2026).

The demand for UK TNE has led to an introduction of a new TNE network launched in June 2026, hosted by Universities UK International (UUKi), aiming to be a valuable source of support for the sector. Information about joining the network can be found via the following UUKi website link. 

Experiencing TNE in practice

Flying faculty/short-term sojourners is a very common TNE delivery model and involves staff from the home country flying to the host country to deliver short, intensive teaching blocks (e.g. between 2 to 4 weeks) (Solwa et al. 2025). Alyson brings experience as a former fly-in lecturer on a TNE programme in China, where the work was, at times, “more extreme, intense and disorientating” (Smith, 2017, p.8), yet also deeply rewarding. In her current role, alongside Heather, she supports colleagues navigating TNE delivery and partnership development. Across these experiences, a consistent theme emerges: TNE can be both a significant source of professional learning and a space of uncertainty and challenge. On the one hand, it offers valuable opportunities for development, prompting educators to reflect on their pedagogic approaches, assumptions and values (Smith, 2014). On the other hand, challenges arise around communication, decision-making, curriculum design and differing expectations across contexts. Also, Smith (2014) reminds us that too often the impact on the physical body for fly-in lecturers is not recognised by institutions.

Fast-paced, intense teaching blocks can lead to students feeling overwhelmed, experiencing cognitive overload and language barriers, and having limited time to build rapport with their fly-in lecturers, thereby hindering the learning experience (Solwa et al. 2025). Despite these challenges, students value the subject expertise of the fly-in staff, the diverse student-centred approaches and are highly satisfied.  

One way of ensuring high-quality TNE provision is to prioritise the professional development of TNE staff because it involves “the negotiation of different cultural norms and pedagogical values and practices” (Tran et al. 2021, p.530). The work of Tran et al. (2021) highlight a shortage of effective formal support systems to help staff work across contexts and recommend “building teachers’ resilience in terms of emotional wellbeing to assist them in navigating transnational experiences” (ibid, p.531). Smith (2017) recommends that “it can be extremely beneficial to talk through how your transnational teaching has gone” (ibid, 2017, p.23). Evidence consistently shows that TNE staff received little preparation before, during and after their intense teaching block (Jais et al. 2015). 

A space for critical reflection

In our roles, and in collaboration with HR staff, we have facilitated pre-departure briefing sessions focusing on living and working in Central Asia and negotiating cultural norms and pedagogical practices with staff – ensuring we don’t overlook how our approaches are shaped by the specific legal, cultural and institutional contexts in which they have developed.  

In terms of post professional learning Tran et al. (2021) report that support after a TNE experience is virtually non-existent, ignored and overlooked – fly-in staff and the wider university are missing out on building upon the rich learning experiences that TNE offers. In practice, we have found that compared with the pre-departure sessions which were seen as more desirable to run we’ve not experienced the same level of commitment and support (at senior strategic levels) in running post events such as a TNE round table reflection event – which aimed to bring staff together who have contributed to the design, development and delivery of TNE to reflect, share, evaluate and contribute to future preparation and support. 

In short, professional development for TNE points to the importance of developing a more critically reflective stance; one that makes explicit the “why” behind our approaches. In doing so, we may be better positioned to adapt our practices thoughtfully, in dialogue with local contexts, rather than reproducing them unchanged.

We have found it helpful to frame this work through reflective questioning:

• What assumptions underpin my approach to teaching and inclusion?
• Which aspects of my practice are shaped by specific policy or cultural contexts?
• How might these be interpreted differently elsewhere?
• What conversations do I need to have with local colleagues and students to better understand these dynamics?

Such questions also open up broader considerations around power and knowledge:

• Whose perspectives are embedded within curricula?
• What forms of participation are privileged?
• How can we avoid positioning our own approaches as the norm?
• Why has there been a pushback to organising a round table reflection event for all staff involved with TNE?
• Why are some colleagues/departments of an institution side lined in TNE work? 

Beyond solutions: learning through dialogue

There are, of course, no simple answers to these questions. Supporting colleagues working in TNE contexts requires moving beyond prescriptive guidance towards ongoing, dialogue and collaborative forms of professional learning. It also involves recognising uncertainty, not as a necessary part of practice- something to be resolved, but as an integral part of working meaningfully across contexts.

Entering into partnerships, whether TNE or otherwise, often surfaces deeper questions about our values and practices and those of the institution we work. In this sense, TNE is not just about delivering programmes elsewhere, it is also an opportunity to learn more about ourselves, our assumptions and our ways of working. 

Join the conversation

This LTHEChat provides a space to share experiences, raise questions and learn from one another. Whether you are new to TNE or bring extensive experience, we invite you to contribute your perspectives: 

What would it mean to approach TNE work as a genuinely collaborative and evolving process?

References

Dai, K. and Garcia, J. (2019) Intercultural Learning in Transnational Articulation Programs: The Hidden Agenda of Chinese Students’ Experiences.  Journal of International Students, 9(2), 362-383. 

Eldridge, K., and Cranston, N. (2009) Managing transnational education: Does national culture really matter? Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 31(1), 67–79. 

Holubek, V. (2025). Rethinking the “Provider–Receiver” Dichotomy in Transnational Higher Education. European Education, 1–16. 

Jais, J., Smyrnios, K. X., & Hoare, L. A. (2015) Up in the air: An examination of the work–life balance of fly-in–fly-out academics. Higher Education Research & Development, 34(6), 1123–1137. 

Knight, J. (2007), ‘Crossborder Tertiary Education: An Introduction’, in Crossborder Tertiary Education: A Way Towards Capacity Development, pp. 21-46, Paris: OECD, World Bank and NUFFIC.

Liu, D., Wimpenny, K., DeWinter, A. and Harrison, P. (2023) Students’ perceptions and experiences of teaching and learning in transnational higher education in China: implications of the intercultural dialogue framework, Teaching in Higher Education, 28:7.

QAA. (2026) The UK TNE Quality Scheme [accessed 30 June 2026].

Smith, K. (2014) Exploring flying faculty teaching experiences: Motivations, challenges and opportunities. Studies in Higher Education, 39(1), 117–134.

Smith, K. (2017) Transnational education toolkit. York: Higher Education Academy. Transnational education toolkit | Advance HE (advance-he.ac.uk) [accessed 26 June 2026]. 

Solwa, B., Ayoubi, M. T., Massoud, H., Wimpenny, K., & Ayoubi, R. (2025) Benefits and drawbacks of the fly-in-faculty model in transnational education: a student-centric analysis of teaching pace, communication and faculty engagement. Cogent Education, 12(1).

Tran, L. T., Le, T. T. T., Phan, H. L. T., & Pham, A. (2021) “Induction and off you go”: professional development for teachers in transnational education. Oxford Review of Education, 47(4), 529–547.

UK Government. (2026) The UK’s international education strategy [accessed 30 June 2026].

Universities UK. (2025a). International facts and figures 2023 [accessed 30 June 2026].

Universities UK. (2025b) Developing equitable TNE partnerships: where to begin [accessed on 30.6.26].

Universities UK. (2025c). New analysis shows UK universities lead the world in delivering higher education overseas [accessed 30 June 2026].

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This LTHE chat is designed for colleagues who are both new to TNE and those with experience of developing and operationalising partnerships. Each question begins with a broader topic in bold and is an inclusive invitation to draw upon your own experiences, knowledge and perspectives – whether directly linked to TNE or from related contexts, making your contribution valid and useful to the conversation.

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Bios

Questions

Q1 – What does an effective TNE partnership look like in practice? Who should be involved in its design, delivery and review, and how can these relationships be supported?

Q2 – Whose knowledge and perspectives are represented in TNE curricula? How can partners share curricula while ensuring local relevance and sensitivity to context?

Q3 – What challenges have you experienced, or would you anticipate, when working in TNE? What practical approaches can help address them?

Q4 – How can we support colleagues who are new to TNE? What forms of professional learning and development are most useful?

Q5 – How should colleagues’ contributions to TNE be recognised and rewarded, including those working away from their home context? What is currently overlooked?

Q6 – What might meaningful reflective practice look like within TNE partnerships? How can it support shared learning and ongoing improvement?

Join us on Bluesky for #LTHEchat on Wednesday 24th June at 8pm BST with guest Abbi Shaw (@abbis.bsky.social) to discuss professional identity, recognition, and collaboration in higher education. Together, we will explore how Digital Education Specialists understand and communicate their contribution, the role of professional development and networks in shaping professional identity, and how colleagues across academic and professional services roles perceive and work alongside digital education professionals in supporting the student experience.

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Introduction

In 2022, as a Digital Education Specialist (DES) studying for an MA Education: Leading Innovation and Practice, I conducted a research study into the professional identity of DES during 2021/22. The study focused on the period in which universities were returning to campus after Emergency Remote Teaching (ERT) had required teaching, learning and assessment to take place almost entirely online. More than 40 UK DES participated in a survey and 12 took part in follow-up interviews.

My findings suggested that this period exacerbated many existing complexities around DES professional identity. Participants reported challenges around visibility, recognition and influence, while the return to campus appeared to heighten some of the barriers to institutional integration that had developed during the pandemic period.

Four years on, digital education is no longer viewed as an emergency response. Blended, online and digitally enhanced learning have, in most institutions, become expected features of higher education. Yet questions remain about how the expertise of those supporting this work is recognised, understood and valued.

For this week’s #LTHEchat, I want to revisit some of the themes from that research and explore how DES professional identity is understood today, both by those who work in digital education and by colleagues across higher education. I am particularly interested in the role that continuing professional development (CPD), professional accreditation and sector networks play in helping DES articulate and communicate their contribution.

I started my research from the idea that DES often experience challenges to the formation, visibility, and perception of their identities, whether personally, institutionally, or both (Akerman, 2020; White, White & Borthwick, 2021). Whether it’s differences in the language used, or power dynamics between academic, and professional roles, it is difficult for institutions to reach, and sustain, blended learning maturity without actively ensuring DES are fully-embedded into the everyday academic space (Mihai, Questier & Zhu, 2021). A clear understanding of DES’ professional identity – both amongst DES themselves, and in their institutional context – and the ability to communicate the possibilities that identity and practice have to offer is therefore key in fostering a positive environment in which DES can best perform.

The need for DES’ professional identity to be constructed: how are we doing?

DES’ professional identity necessitates construction: it is rarely inherent (Altena et al., 2019; Scott et al., 2019; Lawrence, 2022). The work itself is often unseen, or is not perceived as actively being work: DES perform not only the production of resource and support, but also act as a translation, education, and development role which must take place between colleagues. An individual’s sense of professional identity is thus inevitably influenced by the nature and context of these interactions with colleagues (Beaton & Hope, 2022). It’s too easy for DES to be labelled “techy people”, whose indefinable work, which may or may not take place solely in binary code, is perceived as relevant only to the organisation of files and folders, and the removal of the irritating error message, rather than relevant to the classroom, the design of the assessment, and the structure and delivery of the course as a whole. The pedagogic legitimacy and inclusion afforded DES by both colleagues, and institutional structures and approaches truly matters (Watermeyer et al., 2021).

As a consequence, the need for DES to be in the committee, the steering group, the procurement panel, the many, many meetings in which the work of the modern university is done, has, previously, been difficult to evidence if an institution’s clear understanding of the nature and purpose of the role of DES has yet to be developed. Historically, whether in the literature, or my own research, the message from DES themselves has been that, either institutionally, or locally, they have found themselves critically underestimated or misunderstood by those whose understanding matters most. If it is the case that blended, online and digitally-enhanced learning are fully-established parts of normal UK Higher Education offerings, have we also fully established the purpose, presence and fullness of the DES this learning necessitates?

The potential for CPD and collegiality to support the development and projection of DES’ professional identity

A notable dimension to DES’ professional identity is its inherent connectedness (Walker & Macneill, 2015). DES’ work is fundamentally similar across UK higher education, resulting in a multitude of sector-wide networks, such as ALT and the advisory agency Jisc, as well as many regional and disciplinary networks, not to mention, of course, the online networks that events such as this very #LTHEchat develop. Engagement with such networks enhances the capacity of DES to understand themselves, and communicate in more personalised, contextual terms (Beaton & Hope, 2022), consequently fostering individual and collective professional identities (Walker & MacNeill, 2015;  Arnold, 2022).

Moving on from networks to objective, and transferable accreditations, that most commonly identified as being of benefit to DES is CMALT (Certified Membership of the Association for Learning Technology), awarded following peer assessment of a reflective portfolio of work. ALT recently introduced Associate, Senior, and Principal levels to facilitate career development of DES. Similarly, fellowships of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA – also available in Associate, Senior and Principal) can be useful for DES. Ostensibly designed for academic roles in UK HE, these accreditations focus on approaches to teaching, allowing DES to consider themselves and their practice academically, improving their ability to communicate in academic language (Nutt, 2022). Completing such frameworks is one of the few ways DES and other third space professionals can evidence career development in the pursuit of promotion (Shotts & Shaw, 2022). 

To access professional development, however, DES must exist in an environment that recognises the existence of relevant opportunities, and is willing to finance and accommodate them (McIntosh & Nutt, 2022). Further, DES and other third space roles often need to create their own opportunities to participate in projects and clear examples of their individual practice, as, where their possible contribution to academic work and the student experience is not understood,  they are more likely to encounter “glass walls” (Campbell-Perry, 2022:118) which prevent their collaboration with academic colleagues. 

Whilst professional portfolios and connections with the wider DES networks support the development of professional identity (White et al., 2021), the fact perception of DES relies upon the projection of a constructed identity suggests to me such engagement with professional development ought to be a priority for DES at all levels, as well as for their institutions. 

My findings were in line with the literature, in that professional development did support the development of professional identity, and, in turn, that this developed identity allowed DES to advocate for themselves, and ensure their work was more highly visible within their institution. Participants who had completed professional portfolios often appeared more confident in discussing their work, leadership and impact. They were generally better able to explain their contribution in ways that colleagues could understand. By contrast, some participants who had not engaged with these frameworks expressed frustration about how their work was perceived, while simultaneously finding it more difficult to articulate the nature of that work themselves.

This raises an interesting possibility. Professional development may not simply enhance expertise; it may also help DES communicate that expertise more effectively.

Looking ahead

My research corroborated the idea that professional identity is not something DES automatically possess. Rather, it is something they continually construct, communicate and negotiate within their institutional context. Professional networks, accreditation and reflective CPD appear to play an important role in supporting that process.

If that remains true today, investment in DES development is not simply beneficial for individuals. It may also help institutions better understand, recognise and make use of digital education expertise.

I’m keen to continue to explore whether DES have grown any closer to feeling fully situated and understood in their roles, whether CPD has played a clear role in this, and whether non-DES participants feel, themselves, clear around their DES’ colleagues role, and their overall ability to contribute, ultimately, to the student experience.

Questions

1. Would you say you have a strong sense of professional identity? What does the phrase mean to you, in the context of your role?

2. How important is others’ perception of you, in terms of your own professional identity? 

3. Have you undertaken any professional development work, such as Fellowship of the HEA, or CMALT? If so, has/how has it supported/developed your ability to communicate your work to colleagues in different areas?

4. If you are a Digital Education Specialist, do you feel your role is well-understood by your academic colleagues? If non-DES, do you have a clear understanding of your institution’s DES, and how they can support your work and contribute to student experience?

5. How have you been involved with, or involved Digital Education Specialists in, academic research or projects?

6. Has your relationship (if any) to the digital education / learning technology community changed since 2023, and if so, how?

References

Akerman, K., (2020). ‘Invisible imposter: identity in institutions’, Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, 24:4, 126-130, DOI: 10.1080/13603108.2020.1734683.

Altena, Sharon, Ng, Rebecca, Hinze, Meredith, Poulsen, Simone, & Parrish, Dominique Rene (2019) ‘’Many hats one heart’: A scoping review on the professional identity of learning designers.’ In Yi Wei S, Chew, Mun C, Kah, & Alphonso, A (Eds.) Personalised Learning. 

Diverse Goals. One Heart: Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE 2019) Conference Proceedings. Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE), Australia, pp. 359-364.

Arnold, D., (2022). ‘Inside out and outside in: an exploration of peripheral third space.’ Third Space Perspectives. Blog. Posted 10th October 2022. https://www.thirdspaceperspectives.com/blog/inside-out-and-outside-in-an-exploration-of-peripheral-third-space.

Beaton, F. & Hope, J. (2022) ‘Exploring the Identities of Blended Professionals in Higher Education’. The Impact of the Integrated Practitioner in Higher Education: Studies in Third Space Professionalism. Ed. Emily McIntosh & Diane Nutt. Routledge, London.

Campbell-Perry, S. (2022) ‘The blended professional: barriers and boundaries to collaborative institutional cultures’, in McIntosh, E. and Nutt, D. (eds.) The Impact of the Integrated Practitioner in Higher Education: Studies in Third Space Professionalism. London: Routledge.

Denney, F. (2021). ‘A glass classroom? The experiences and identities of third space women leading educational change in research-intensive universities in the UK.’ Educational Management Administration & Leadership. doi:10.1177/17411432211042882.

Lawrence, J., (2022). ‘Career Trajectories in the Third Space.’ The Impact of the Integrated Practitioner in Higher Education: Studies in Third Space Professionalism. Ed. Emily McIntosh & Diane Nutt. Routledge, London.

McIntosh, E. & Nutt, D., (2022). ‘Introduction and literature review.’ The Impact of the Integrated Practitioner in Higher Education: Studies in Third Space Professionalism. Ed. Emily McIntosh & Diane Nutt. Routledge, London.

Nutt, D., (2022). ‘Rewarding Blended Working and Integrated Practice.’ The Impact of the Integrated Practitioner in Higher Education: Studies in Third Space Professionalism. Ed. Emily McIntosh & Diane Nutt. Routledge, London.

Quinsee, S., (2022). ‘Leadership in the Third Space.’ The Impact of the Integrated Practitioner in Higher Education: Studies in Third Space Professionalism. Ed. McIntosh, E. & D. Nutt. Routledge, London.

Shotts, J. & Shaw, M., (2022). ‘Recognising and Developing Talent.’ The Impact of the Integrated Practitioner in Higher Education: Studies in Third Space Professionalism. Ed. Emily McIntosh & Diane Nutt. Routledge, London.

Walker, D. & MacNeill, S., (2015), Learning Technologist as Digital Pedagogue, The Really Useful Ed Tech Book, 91-106.

Watermeyer, R., Crick, T., Knight, C. & Goodall, J., (2020). ‘COVID-19 and Digital Disruption in UK Universities: Afflictions and Affordances of Emergency Online Migration.’ Higher Education 81(3):623–41. doi: 10.1007/s10734-020-00561-y.

Watermeyer, R., Crick, T. & Knight, C., (2021). Digital disruption in the time of COVID-19: learning technologists’ accounts of institutional barriers to online learning, teaching and assessment in UK universities, International Journal for Academic Development, DOI:10.1080/1360144X.2021.1990064.

White, S, White, S and Borthwick, K. (2021) Blended professionals, technology and online learning: Identifying a socio-technical third space in higher education. Higher Education Quarterly. 75: 161– 174. https://doi.org/10.1111/hequ.12252.

Guest bio

Abbi Shaw is the Faculty Digital Education Manager for UCL Arts and Humanities, responsible for the strategic and good pedagogical use of teaching, learning, and assessment technologies across the Faculty’s broad range of disciplines. Abbi’s research interests include the professional identity of digital education specialists, and methods of effecting digital education change in UK higher education. Prior to joining UCL in 2020, Abbi, with an extensive background in vintage bookselling and digital commerce, worked in the Library and as a Learning Technologist at St. Mary’s University Twickenham. 

Join us on Bluesky for #LTHEchat on Wednesday 17th June at 8pm BST with guest Iwi Ugiagbe-Green (@profiwi.bsky.social) to reflect on how we can create brave, caring and purposeful spaces for conversations about inequalities in higher education.

Conversations about inequalities are important because, without naming inequalities, they cannot be acknowledged or addressed. Nor can their impact. For example, without naming race, racism does not exist (Kishimoto, 2018). Race is an example of a social construct: an idea that exists through collective agreement and operates as a system of power and discrimination. As American lawyer, professor and civil rights activist Professor Derrick Bell explains, ‘the reality is that we live in a society in which racism has been internalized and institutionalized’ (Bell, 1991).

Recent societal events have shown us that engaging in conversations about inequalities with intention, empathy and care is more important than ever. The ongoing and sustained injustices endured by minoritised and marginalised communities remind us of the importance of human-centred conversations, accompanied by a call to action, in understanding and addressing these inequalities. Afro-feminist scholars have explored how the philosophy of Ubuntu — ‘I am because you are’ — based on our interconnectedness with one another and the collective, can be used to mould and shape social relations that enhance, for example, race and gender justice (Tamale, 2020, pp. 221–229; Diouf et al., 2023).

What is clear is that, if our current political climate tells us anything, it is the importance of being intentional and active in listening to others with whom we might not agree, who may or may not look like us, and who may be very different from those with whom we would naturally communicate. It is important that we work together to try to come to a place of understanding, rather than simply reply.

To hold space in our universities for conversations that move us forward, we need to be intentional about adopting collective principles through which communities of care can operate. We also need to mediate difficult conversations in ways that give due regard to perspectives with which we may not agree.

We will spend an hour together sharing our experiences of mediating difficult conversations, giving space to different views, and exploring ways in which we might be able to talk about inequalities bravely. This is an opportunity to step into a space in which we may feel uncomfortable, but where we can also experience growth.

References

Bell, D. (1991) ‘Racism is here to stay: Now what?’, Howard Law Journal, 35(1), pp. 79–94.

Diouf, E., Dyer, U., Asali Ecclesiastes, A. and Gilbert, M. (2023) ‘Our Ubuntu: A Black feminist turn’, Agenda, 37(2), pp. 32–43. doi: 10.1080/10130950.2023.2229572.

Kishimoto, K. (2018) ‘Anti-racist pedagogy: From faculty’s self-reflection to organizing within and beyond the classroom’, Race Ethnicity and Education, 21(4), pp. 540–554. doi: 10.1080/13613324.2016.1248824.

Tamale, S. (2020) Decolonization and Afro-Feminism. Ottawa: Daraja Press.

Speaker bio

Iwi has worked in higher education since 2000. Her first ten years were in a range of financial administration and accounting roles before she transitioned into academia in 2010. Since then, she has delivered sustained educational excellence in higher education and established a track record of successfully leading innovative, impactful and strategic projects that enhance student opportunity, experience and outcomes. She is recognised nationally and internationally as an intentionally inclusive leader whose praxis is rooted in Ubuntu: ‘I am, because we are’.

Iwi describes herself as an academic activist: a positive agitator who is unapologetic in her commitment to student success. She is very proud and grateful to have recently been promoted to Professor of Equity in Education and to be the 84th Black woman professor in the UK. She was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship in 2025.

Questions

1. What interactions do you have with people whose experiences, values or social views differ from your own? 
2. How do you mediate those difficult conversations whether in life or in your educational practice?
3. How do you create conditions of safety for your students?
4. What do you do in your practice to help students feel that they matter, belong and are taken seriously?
5. What would a genuine system of care in your university look like?
6. How do you protect your own wellbeing while engaging in emotionally demanding work around equity, inclusion and social justice?