Author: Helen Wilkes

Learning Connections 2019: Spaces, People, Practice

Luke McCrone, PhD student

I attended the Learning Connections 2019: Spaces, People, Practice conference held on 5-6 December 2019 in University College Cork (UCC), Ireland.

The conference set out to answer two central questions:

  1. How can we connect across disciplinary boundaries, and break down barriers between academia, administration, community and industry to strive for optimal student learning in Third Level Institutions?
  2. How can learning in different spaces– physical, active, virtual, off campus, enable all students, as global citizens, to think through and solve big problems?

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Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education Conference: Reclaiming Study Practices

Luke McCrone, PhD student, Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship

I attended the Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education Society conference held on 18-20 September 2019 in Leuven, Belgium. The conference focused on ‘Reclaiming study practices’ and followed an alternative format to usual.

The idea of the conference was to provoke thought about the present state and future modalities of those study practices that define university life for both staff and students: academic writing, lectures, academic research, seminars etc. (more…)

Developing Pedagogical Expertise Across Institutions: event report

Camille Kandiko Howson, Associate Professor of Education, Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship

The Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship hosted a one-day event on ‘Developing Pedagogical Expertise Across Institutions’ on Friday 27 September 2019. Leaders of teaching and learning from across the country debated and discussed a national framework for developing pedagogical research. The day featured a presentation on the Office for Students (OfS)-funded project “Maximising Student Success through the Development of Self-Regulation”, by Professor Carol Evans from the University of Birmingham. Carol identified ways to support students’ ability to become independent learners, which is challenged by regulatory pressures to treat education as a service, and how to develop research-informed integrated assessment. (more…)

European Conference on Technology-Enhanced Learning, Delft

Vily Papageorgiou, PhD student, Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship

On 16-19 September 2019, I attended the 14th annual European Conference on Technology-Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL) which took place at the University of Technology in Delft, The Netherlands. This year’s theme was ‘Transforming Learning with Meaningful Technologies’. The aim of this conference was to engage researchers, practitioners, educational designers and developers, university leaders, entrepreneurs and policy makers to address current challenges and advances in the field of educational technology. (more…)

StudentShapers and the annual RAISE 2019 conference

Dr Mike Streule, Director, StudentShapers

Early September sees the annual RAISE (Researching, Advancing and Inspiring Student Engagement) conference, this time held at the Newcastle University. Two interesting keynotes provided further food for thought and debate, especially as StudentShapers at Imperial develops beyond its initial stages, and our new curricula are implemented. (more…)

Imperial’s contribution to international discussion about developing medical education

Dr Jo Horsburgh, Principal Teaching Fellow in Medical Education

Last week colleagues from department of Primary Care and Public Health and I attended the Association of Medical Education in Europe (AMEE) conference in Vienna.

Attendees from across the world meet to share and discuss the latest innovations, thinking, and research in medical education. This year’s themes included Threshold Concepts and Activity theory with keynote talks from Professor Ray Land (University of Durham) and Prof Yrjö Engeström (University of Helsinki). In addition to a wide range of workshops and symposia, the conference also provided us with an excellent opportunity to meet with our collaborators from Australia, South Africa and the Netherlands to discuss shared projects. (more…)

Making transatlantic HE connections at Imperial

Dr Camille Kandiko Howson, Associate Professor of Education

On 11 July 2019 the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship hosted a group of 24 Executive Doctoral students studying higher education management from the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, USA. The students are mid-career professionals who have full-time roles ranging from Assistant Provost & Director of University of Florida Online at the University of Florida to Senior Associate Dean of Technology-Intensive Education at Georgetown University and Legislative Director, Council of the District of Columbia, and undertake their doctoral studies at the same time. (more…)

Enhancing engagement in medical education

Nikki Boyd, Senior Teaching Fellow in Medical Education

This year’s Annual Scientific Meeting for the Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME), ‘Sustainability, Transformation and Innovation in Medical Education’ was held from 3-5 July at the SEC in Glasgow.

Building on my interest and experience in promoting inclusive learning environments, I facilitated a ‘Pop-Up Event’ on the second day of the conference on the topic ‘Sustaining medical students’ engagement and well-being through positive and inclusive learning and behaviour management strategies’. The aim of the ‘Pop-Up’ feature is to enable specific opportunities to network and share ideas with those interested in the same issues, and I was privileged to be joined in my session by colleagues from universities in Saudi Arabia and South Africa (as well as from across the UK) from a broad range of medical education backgrounds, all of whom shared a passion for sustaining student well-being and enhancing the learning experience. (more…)

A spotlight on Imperial innovation in Newcastle

Dr Tiffany Chiu, Senior Teaching Fellow, Educational Development Unit

Last week, I and other Imperial staff attended the Advance HE Teaching and Learning Conference at Northumbria University in Newcastle. This year’s theme was ‘Teaching in the Spotlight: Innovation for Teaching Excellence’. The aim of this conference is for practitioners and researchers to share and explore innovative teaching practices and pedagogies in different areas of focus in higher education, which contributes to teaching excellence and the quality of student learning. The area of our contribution was under the strand ‘Innovative practice that aids transition and retention’. (more…)

The scientific iceberg

Sophie Rutschmann, Senior Lecturer, Department of Medicine

This time last year, I was in the midst of my first educational research project. As a student on the MEd ULT, I had completed my ethical approval, was finishing my interviews and transcribing them. I remember thinking that this was the tricky part, but I now know it was just the tedious one. Analysing the data, doing justice to the personal experience my participants had openly shared with me, and importantly trying to answer my research question in the least unbiased way were the challenges yet to come. I later also realised that, had I read more of the relevant literature before, I could have written sharper interview questions or picked a much narrower topic to investigate. In hindsight, I was merely re-discovering the struggles inherently associated with research, just in a new field. But by that stage, not too much could be done, so I ploughed on. (more…)