Category: Research

Twenty-two recommendations for inclusive teaching and their implementation challenges

By Dr Iro Ntonia, Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship

 

Inclusivity in teaching and learning within the HE context is a nuanced and layered concept. It is commonplace for HEIs to rely on toolkits and recommendation checklists, however oftentimes the true meaning of inclusive practice, and the complexities of implementing an authentically inclusive and equitable approach are often lost in translation from checklist to practice. In a research project led by Katie Stripe (Senior Learning Designer, Education Office), we reflected on our own practice and explored alongside practitioners what the perceived barriers for implementing an inclusive teaching and learning approach may be. We recently published our findings in the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education (DOI: https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi28.1034  ) and are currently exploring avenues for disseminating our conclusions. (more…)

An Evening of Thought-provoking Educational Research: Catch up on Imperial’s MEd ULT Presentation and Prize-giving Event

We are excited to share the highlights of our inspiring and enjoyable, presentation and prize-giving event where we showcased the outstanding work of our students and celebrated their academic achievements. For those who missed the event or wish to relive the moment, we’re pleased to announce that the recording is available on Panopto. 

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Active emotions, active engagement: Interactive presentation for the Global Festival of Active Learning, 26th April 2023

By Nikki Boyd and Kate Ippolito, Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship

We were delighted to facilitate a one-hour interactive, online presentation entitled ‘Active emotions, active engagement’ for the 3rd Festival of Active Learning: hosted by The Active Learning Network and held from 23rd-27th April 2023. The ALN represents “a group of people from around the world who share an interest in active approaches to learning” and the annual (now ‘Global’) Festival of Active Learning provides an opportunity for those within and beyond the network to share and celebrate ideas and research relevant to active approaches to learning.

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Combining worlds: a mixed method for understanding learning spaces

By Luke McCrone, Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship

This blog reports on a mixed method approach combining qualitative methods with space occupancy datasets recently published in a research article in the International Journal for Qualitative Methods. The mixed method was developed in my doctoral research (supervised by Professor Martyn Kingsbury) which explored how undergraduate students perceive and engage with different learning spaces and the transitions between them. (more…)

Festival of Learning and Teaching 2023

By Sheri Djafer, Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship

The in-person three day event which took place on the South Kensington Campus, brought over 150 people together discussing ‘Transition and Transformation’. With many external keynote speakers invited to present, the event gathered the attention of many members of the Imperial community from across College.

This years theme for the event ‘Transition and Transformation: Thinking, Experiencing and Being in STEMMB’ was inclusive of perspectives College wide as it invited many speakers from different Faculties to participate and share practice. (more…)

Intercultural Feedback Literacy – A new concept in the context of diverse and internationalised higher education

Dr Richard Bale, Senior Teaching Fellow in Educational Development, CHERS

How can we make our feedback practices more inclusive? What does it mean to be feedback literate from student and educator perspectives? What does it mean to be interculturally competent? How do culture and language affect how feedback practices are conceptualised and enacted? These are some of the questions that Dr Monika Pazio Rossiter and I grapple with in our recent paper: Cultural and linguistic dimensions of feedback: a model of intercultural feedback literacy, published in Innovations in Education and Teaching International. (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…)

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…)

A PhD in educational research: making the transition

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

If someone had told me 6 years ago that I would one day be studying for a PhD in Higher Educational research at Imperial College, I would have smiled back at them in disbelief.

My acceptance of one of the first PhD studentships under the Centre for Higher Education Research and Scholarship illustrates an important point: educationally speaking, we have come a long way in a relatively short period. Yet being new to this field has required me to adapt. Given that educational research adopts paradigms from psychology, sociology and philosophy, the approach to methodology, data collection and analysis is initially alien to a geoscientist like myself. Learning about these fields has made me recognise the transformative potential of putting yourself out of your disciplinary comfort zone. (more…)