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This paper presents an analysis of a hundred and one handwritten essays by master students in Informatics. The students reflected on their experiences of working with pen and paper for reading and writing as a mandatory assignment for the duration of a five-week intensive course. Taking an inductive approach, reflexive thematic analysis was used to identify patterns of meaning across the full dataset. The essays elicited insightful student reflections on learning, knowing, and being. One overarching theme, New connections, and four sub-theses were identified: Handwriting as note making, Being present for learning, Freedom to think, and Materiality of reading and writing. This study contributes to an improved understanding of the affordances of paper and laptops in the lecture room, based on a student-centred approach, and reflects on how student perspectives can be implemented during lectures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Amongst academics working with postgraduate students, there has recently been increasing interest in ways of supporting advanced academic literacy (AAL). This is a concern for us at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, where we teach a diverse group of postgraduate students, most of whom are subject practitioners in higher education but newcomers to the study of education. We argue that the development of AAL cannot be taken for granted - it needs to be mediated and practised in situated tasks. Our concern is how most effectively, within our context, to encourage awareness of the underlying, often unarticulated norms for participation in this complex social interaction with a disciplinary community to which our students are newcomers. In this article we demonstrate that the use of reaction papers provides opportunities for legitimate peripheral participation in both the cognitive and social processes of AAL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Perceptions of the role and efficacy of written feedback in teaching and learning among teaching staff in British higher education institutions have not been extensively researched. In the present study 48 lecturers in one university and from a cross-section of disciplinary backgrounds were interviewed with respect to their lived experiences with writing assessment feedback. Like most universities, theirs has a stated commitment to academic excellence by, among other things, ensuring timely and useful feedback on assignments. The findings suggest, however, that institutional policies and departmental practices related to formative assessment in this respect are not having the intended effect. Teachers have varied perceptions and beliefs about the purposes of written feedback, and are uncertain about what it achieves and what use students make of it. Far from enhancing written feedback, innovative practices and procedures have created new problems for teachers. There is a clear need for continuing research in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A common theme in the literature on learning technologies is the way in which they can facilitate engagement both within and outside of the classroom. However, a lack of a scholarly consensus on what constitutes engagement renders problematic the issue of how one makes meaningful sense of the data presented in studies. This paper presents an integrative review that explores student engagement with learning technologies and identifies major themes and trends within the field. When viewed against the evidence-based claims of individual studies, common ubiquitous narratives concerning learning technologies are problematised. The paper concludes with suggestions for future research in this area in the light of its findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents an analysis of the forms of meaning making in Teaching in Higher Education between 2005 and 2013. Unlike other papers which have reviewed higher education journals the analysis was based on reading full papers. Previous analyses of journals have commented on the a-theoretical nature of much research into higher education. As we encourage critical work it was important to read in order to identify the practices of authors. Exemplars of different forms of meaning making were identified and these are discussed in greater depth. They included: description, reflection and reflexivity, explicit theorising and diverse forms of theoretically informed empirical analyses. The paper argues for a view of theorisation as an active, agentic, social practice. The paper suggests that there are rich knowledge making practices in the field. Rather than an a-theoretical activity analysing and theorising teaching in higher education in its all its necessary relations appears to be flourishing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will re-visit the origins and early use in South African curriculum writing of the concept of 'coherence'; it will go on to show how Suellen Shay and her colleagues fleshed out the concept and created an instrument for its empirical analysis; it will then step back and examine the contribution and some problems that were brought to light; examine briefly how Shay's later work continued to wrestle with the notion of 'practice', particularly in light of curricula that were judged to display conceptual coherence; and will suggest one possible solution in the seminal paper by Bernstein (2000). Finally, the paper will reflect on two implicit definitions of 'curriculum', a 'strict' one and an 'extended' one and suggest why they should be distinguished. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The development of learning practices that enable students to transfer knowledge across contexts, is a dominant topic in Physics Education Research. Assessment is a key activity in the learning process. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the value of analysing introductory physics assessments using the Semantics dimension of Legitimation Code Theory. We discuss the tools used to analyse the test and exam question papers of two consecutive calculus-based introductory physics modules. An analysis of past question papers over 5 years revealed various weaknesses. The outcomes of an intervention based on critical self-evaluation of question papers, using the same tools, are presented. The results indicate that the intervention increased focus on core concepts and context and supported learning that enables transfer. We argue that the use of semantic gravity to analyse assessments is a useful starting point for change in educational practices in order to support transfer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to a question posed by [Shay, Suellen. 2012. "Educational Development as a Field: Are We There Yet?" Higher Education Research and Development 31 (3): 311–323. doii:10.1080/07294360.2011.631520] about the status of knowledge building in the field of Educational Development. In her paper, Shay critiques knowledge produced in the field arguing that it is 'codified practice' [Gamble, Jeanne. 2001. "Modelling the Invisible: The Pedagogy of Craft Apprenticeship." Studies in Continuing Education 23 (2): 185–200. doii:10.1080/01580370120101957; Gamble, Jeanne. 2004. "Retrieving the General from the Particular: The Structure of Craft Knowledge." In Reading Bernstein, Researching Bernstein, edited by J. Muller, B. Davies, and A. Morais, 189–203. Abingdon: Routledge; Gamble, Jeanne. 2006. "Theory and Practice in the Vocational Curriculum." In Knowledge, Curriculum and Qualifications in South African Further Education, edited by M. Young and J. Gamble, 87–103. Pretoria: HSRC Press] rather than applied theory which could succeed in reconceptualising problems rather than simply trying to address them. This paper draws on a review of research produced in the field in recent years in South Africa to argue that, although some work does result in the reconceptualision of problems the higher education, it is limited in that (i) it has been produced by a relatively small group of practitioners located at a few universities and (ii) draws on theory developed in the Global North. The paper then proceeds to offer some tentative suggestions for the way future work aimed at knowledge building could proceed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a new visualisation of tensions in developing and delivering undergraduate higher education. It links qualitative research on academics' perceptions of education in one English research-intensive university to known models of knowledge, curricula, pedagogies, student engagement and identities to propose a new conceptual framework. Reworking the 1980s Clark triangle, with its apices of academic oligarchy, state authority and market denoting system tensions, a common apex now merges state and market agendas, and societal pulls are introduced at the third. The paper acknowledges today's complex higher education environment and responds to critiques about the original triangle's static nature, recognising oscillation within the space and adding a fourth apex representing students' identities. The adapted model, supported through academics' lived experiences, makes explicit the spectrum of choices and desired educational outcomes. It offers an important aid to debates on the purpose of higher education and learning and teaching policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies the need for a pedagogical re-orientation in UK higher education to prepare graduates to overcome wicked problems. In addition to key knowledge sets, graduates need attributes of critical self-reflection, risk-awareness and management, collaboration, creativity, agility, reflexivity – enabling the ability to manage the unknown. In response, researchers have acknowledged the importance of pedagogies that are risk-oriented, creative, and reflective to remedy modernist banking methods. This paper acknowledges that while such pedagogies are underutilised, an antagonistic dichotomy between modernist banking methods (bad) and enquiry and risk-oriented approaches (good) is unhelpful as both approaches are necessary. This paper develops a metamodern framework to guide pedagogic practices to facilitate a disposition among learning strategists and practitioners which embraces oscillation between banking and radical pedagogic approaches. In turn this enables the development of student sensibilities, empowering them to challenge the growing wickedness with which they must do battle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doctoral researchers are our present and future knowledge-makers. Social justice requires democratic opportunities for knowledge creation, and to this end doctoral supervision theory and practice have become increasingly inclusive, flexible, culturally responsive, and person-centred over time. However, consideration of trauma and trauma-informed practice has remained absent from this work. This conceptual paper signals the need to recognise that doctoral cohorts will include those with lived experiences of trauma. The paper then presents a rationale for developing trauma-informed approaches to doctoral supervision, theorising this approach in relation to wider inclusive education efforts in higher education, Universal Design for Learning, and the social model of disability. Intersections with current trends in doctoral supervision literature and practice are considered, and core principles of trauma-informed practice are identified that can inform work in the specific context of doctoral supervision. The paper offers a fresh perspective on inclusive doctoral education and directions for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educators are responsible for developing generic graduate capabilities, but the theoretical justification for teaching techniques is infrequently articulated. This conceptual paper aims to provide theory-informed principles to guide teaching practice in developing future-focused generic capabilities. The paper describes future-focused generic capabilities and then considers how cognitive constructivist, transformational and social learning theories inform the development of these capabilities. From these theories, four principles (4Es) for teaching generic capabilities are identified: students need to 1) be Enthused to develop personally relevant generic capabilities, 2) have opportunities to Explore by intellectually and emotionally connecting learning to processes, topics and situations, 3) develop by purposefully Extending their capabilities within varied and progressively more complex contexts, and 4) be given opportunities to Exhibit their capabilities. We contend that the development of generic capabilities can be informed by this set of principles. By unearthing and researching them, educators can become more versatile, informed, and impactful. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Activity theory is a relatively young methodology for researching higher education teaching practices. Beyond systemic analyse of workplace activities and their development, activity theory used in its full interventionist capacity can foster practitioners’ transformative agency to initiate practice change. Nevertheless, this is not an easy process. This paper shares activity theory research into the digital teaching activity of anatomy teachers within an Australian university. Using the lens of this project, the paper exposes several methodological dilemmas experienced by the researcher. Beyond the issue of the methodological level of activity theory used, these dilemmas relate to the authentic determination of both the unit of analysis and the object of the activity, the type of intervention (i.e. full Change Laboratory or modified), and the complexity in analysis using a concept-rich theory. Sharing these dilemmas invites further research to examine inherent contradictions in the human activity of conducting activity theory research focussed on university teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the colonial era, Latin American universities have been subjected to narratives about what it means to be a university. Drawing on the concept of coloniality, this paper examines curricular and teaching practices in higher education that aim to decolonise Latin American universities, a particular topic that has been under-investigated. By means of a systematic literature review and a thematic analysis, 40 papers authored by at least one scholar affiliated to a Latin American university were examined. The analysis identified three levels of educational practices (macro, meso and micro) that revolve around the principle of intercultural indigenous education. Further, six essential criteria (cultural, epistemological, relational, ecological, economic, political) in decolonising university education are proposed. The paper concludes by offering insights about decolonising curricula and teaching practices in universities and the ways in which decolonial educational initiatives based on critical border thinking and socialisation of power might transform Latin American universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Doctoral supervision is a subtle but complex form of teaching in higher education, where supervisor-to-candidate expectations including support around the literature are important, but supervisory practices and candidate starting points can be disparate and expectations are not always discussed. This paper uses autoethnographic reflections and a practitioner inquiry to explore: How involved should supervisors be in the literature search and literature review writing? This issue arose following the transition from a postgraduate candidate to an academic involved in supervising and teaching postgraduate candidates, co-facilitating supervisor development programmes and researching doctoral supervision. This paper proposes that the involvement of supervisors in the literature search or review could be classed as operating on a conceptual model: the 'sliding scale'. Readers are asked to consider the different tensions in this practice and invited to address them using the 'sliding scale' to encourage conversations with candidates in higher education supervision or teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the market discourses of technological disruption, higher education institutions have routinely been positioned in deficit models and of anachronistic approaches to teaching at odds with the types of educational futures being presented by commercial organisations. Predominantly, automation technologies in the form of artificial intelligence are being promoted as the future of teaching. In this paper, on the other hand, we explore the prospects for using non-artificial intelligence automated agents in teaching and its impact on the teacher function at the University of Edinburgh. Through engagement with teachers, staff and students at the university, this research has identified use cases for bots, in what spaces they would be situated, and how they would supplement the teacher function. This paper argues that a community-driven approach combined with a sociomaterial conceptualisation can generate a shift from market discourses and to collaborative development of educational technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper develops the pedagogical implications of xenolexia, a concept introduced as a phenomenon in the learning and teaching of academic writing (Beighton, C. 2020. "Beyond Alienation: Spatial Implications of Teaching and Learning Academic Writing." Teaching in Higher Education 25 (2): 205–222.). Complementing this theoretical base, this paper examines xenolexia's positivity and its ability to both analyse and propose specific academic writing pedagogies in today's challenging HE context(s). Drawing on data from students/teachers of academic writing (n = 33), this paper uses xenolexia aetiologically and practically. Aetiologically, I identify and categorise different sets of practices in terms of the way they respond to this positivity as two pedagogical tropes: the material and its affective counterpart. Practically, I discuss pedagogical practices associated with these tropes in the light of the data. My conclusions about the extent to which each contributes to the development of academic writing link the latter to the current context of teaching and learning in higher education, challenging approaches based on identity with more productive material, affective alternatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the pervasive impact of US imperialism, it is often ignored in US schools and teacher preparation programs. This paper introduces the concept of imperial evasion, which refers to the process of ignoring and denying imperialism and its effects. The authors argue that it is imperative that educators work to interrogate imperialist ideologies through curricula, and prepare future educators to disrupt such ideologies, policies, and practices in schools. Using a collaborative scholarly personal narrative approach, the authors discuss their experiences and approach to designing and teaching a course on migration and education at a US university. Ultimately, this paper responds to calls to disrupt imperial ideologies in education by (1) providing a framework for identifying and naming imperial evasion and how it operates through schooling; and (2) describing and reflecting on curricular and pedagogical approaches to disrupting such evasions in a teacher education course. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this paper is to foreground network analysis as a statistical lens through which higher education institutions can articulate their own process of striving for teaching excellence, and how it is constituted in their own contexts. The paper offers an approach to analysis that extends the frontiers of methodologies in ‘measurement’ of teaching excellence; one that responds to the shortcomings of the current methodologies, critiqued for being reductive, performative, alienating, and promoting closure and convergence in how they assess teaching excellence. We review epistemological and methodological shifts in conceptualising teaching excellence and measurement that are required to work with our methodology, as well as provide statistical details, for anyone who wishes to reproduce our profiled examples. We thus build in the paper a link between the theory of (teaching) excellence and practice (of measurement) and champion a theory-based approach to the methodology of educational metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the growth of the professional doctorate in education (EdD), its potential for capturing practice is restricted by academic tradition. In this hybrid paper, we argue that arts-based research (ABR) can help rectify this. We bookend the paper with creative non-fiction of our own EdD experiences, where ABR is restricted and afforded. We develop our argument through a position paper mapping the theoretical similarities of the EdD and ABR. We then undertake a scoping review identifying existing research into ABR on EdD programmes. We analyse six articles using the 5A’s theory of creativity [Glăveanu 2013. Rewriting the language of creativity: The Five A's framework. Review of General Psychology 17, no. 1: 69–81] to see how these theoretical similarities are afforded. Using ABR on the EdD promotes reflexivity and co-creation, impacting upon diverse audiences. We conclude with a challenge for further research into ABR on EdD programmes through hybrid research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay is presented focusing on the 39th annual Standing Conference on University Teaching and Research on the Education of Adults, which was held at the Downing College of Cambridge, between July 7-9, 2009. Information about several papers discussed at the conference are also presented. It comments that the success of the conference is often determined by how well the papers that are paired lead to effective discussion.

Suellen Shay's work on higher education curricula foregrounds the importance of professional curricula which face inwards to disciplines and outwards to practice. This paper builds on her framing of professional curricula, distinctive in the differentiated knowledge base and the social relations which legitimate them. I extend Shay's work deeper into the internal governance structures underpinning curriculum decisions in engineering. Two dimensions of governance are explored: central control from the Faculty of Engineering over its departments; and the authority of individuals in department-level curriculum and accreditation roles over their colleagues. The empirical focus is on curricula reform towards 'graduate attributes' in engineering education, through a comparative study of eight universities in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Singapore, and Australia. The findings show that research-intensive universities are shielded from the full implications of accreditation requirements, while teaching-intensive universities are more likely to invest in developing the governance processes and systems demanded by professional bodies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Teaching in Higher Education is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores how academics navigate the Higher Education (HE) landscape being reshaped by the convergence of unbundling, marketisation and digitisation processes. Social Realism distinguishes three layers of social reality (in this case higher education): the empirical, the actual and the real. The empirical layer is presented by the academics and their teaching; the actual are the institutional processes of teaching, learning, assessment, mode of provision (online, blended); the real are the power and regulatory mechanisms that shape the first two and affect academics' agency. Two dimensions of academics' experiences and perceptions are presented. The structural dimension reflects academics' perceptions of the emergent organisation of the education environment including the changing narratives around digitisation, marketisation and unbundling in the context of digital inequalities. The professional dimension aspects play out at the actor level with respect to work-related issues, particularly their own. This dimension is portrayed in academics' concerns about ownership and control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The omission of epistemologies from the Global South inhibits holistic pedagogical approaches for effective sustainability teaching and learning. Employing the theoretical lens of ecology of knowledges, the structures and dynamics that frame and constrain sustainability education in higher education were critiqued. Six constraints of environmental sustainability pedagogies were also deconstructed: epistemic inequity, globalisation, neoliberalism, pedagogical incompatibility, anthropocentrism, and social inequity. Consequently, ideas for justice-based environmental sustainability were proffered, especially for eco-justice and epistemic justice. The need for sustainability education to be relevant, relatable, critical, holistic, inclusive, and transformational was also argued. Keycontributions of this paper are a compilation of constraints on sustainability pedagogies, demonstration of the relationship between the usually isolated constraints around teaching and learning about sustainability in higher education, and the application of the theory of the ecology of knowledges to the deconstruction of these constraints. These contributions have implications for achieving justice-based sustainability in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper critiques key international teaching excellence and higher education outcomes frameworks for their lack of attention to epistemic equality. It subsequently argues that adequate 'datafication' of these frameworks, to demonstrate the extent to which universities offer teaching experiences which promote intellectual equivalence of all 'knowers' could advance present understandings of teaching excellence beyond benchmarked performativity. The paper theorises the philosophical basis of a changed 'datafication' process under selected national and supra-national frameworks for measuring teaching excellence at universities and shows, by statistically modelling selected national data, how a 'metric' evaluating universities on epistemic equality could work in practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper sets out a conceptual argument that the choice of teaching method is part of the freedom to teach in higher education. It enters into a dialogue with the views of Stephen Finn in a paper published in Teaching in Higher Education in which he argues that academic freedom should be limited in respect to teaching methods. The concept of pedagogic self-governance is linked to the importance of choice of teaching method and illustrated by reference to the history of the seminar and signature pedagogies. While Finn argues that not developing pedagogical skills is a breach of professional ethics it is contended that a failure to engage in research and enable students to critically evaluate the latest propositional and professional knowledge in a subject represents a much more serious issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers critical reflection as a pedagogical strategy in UK higher education at a moment of an amplification of populist, reactionary discourses. It draws on written reflections of foundation-level students in a case study cohort and offers insights into their lived learning experiences and perceptions of the value of reflection. This is situated within the UK 'Brexit' context, alongside a proliferation of far-right populist voices, emboldened supremacies and rising fascism. Accompanying this has been a normalisation of reactionary 'anti-social justice' discourses. It is vital that HE practitioners recognise, pre-empt and interrupt such discourses, developing pedagogies and curricula in response. Yet there are inherent challenges in a climate of 'post-truth' anti-intellectualism. This paper argues that critical reflection contributes a useful approach to learning, fostering development of students' personal, intellectual and political capacities to navigate this complex socio-political terrain and engage with social justice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Teaching in Higher Education is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper explores the epistemic outcomes of English Medium Instruction (EMI) in a South Korean Higher Education (HE) context. In order to understand the epistemic outcomes, the exploration draws on existing conceptualisations of linguistic and symbolic capital, and the literature on epistemic justice. The paper makes use of qualitative interview data generated with ten Business and Engineering undergraduate students. The analysis reveals that students' use and trust the Korean and English languages differently across EMI situations. This observation is used to identify two undesirable epistemic outcomes, including: (a) how students are prevented from negotiating understanding of HE subject content using their L1, and (b) the wider epistemic implications of English as the language that provides access to HE subject content. Finally, with reference to Fricker's theory of 'epistemic injustice', we reflect on the new theoretical understanding we have developed of epistemic outcomes in this South Korean multilingual HE context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, contentiously for some, universities have developed generalist skills lists and associated curricula in response to government demand for more ‘employment-ready’ graduates. Such training usually includes writing and communication. In Australia and the UK, guidelines designed to support the development of skills programmes describe research training as ‘generic skills’ and/or ‘discipline-based’. This framing effectively precludes a discussion of academic literacies perspectives on curriculum development and pedagogy for research training. In a review of some key insights from academic literacies and consideration of their implications for research training, the article discusses why academic literacies are not skills-based, strictly generic or informed by the students' discipline. The article suggests a reframing of the terms of research skills discussion to accommodate academic literacies perspectives. This would involve recognition of curriculum and pedagogy that aims to introduce the complex and diverse written genres, research purposes, rhetorical conventions, language functions and cultural norms that students are working with, an approach supportive of both effective student writing and subject learning. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The focus of this paper is on the contestations and dilemmas emergent in the higher education curriculum in a context of increasing processes of unbundling, digitisation and marketisation. The paper explores the notion of contestation through the theoretical lens of Cultural-Historical Activity Theory. It points to illustrative examples of this contestation from empirical data drawn from stakeholder research in South African higher education. The paper grapples with understandings of the concept of curriculum and argues how these have been shaped by – and are shaping – emergent meanings of the curriculum in an unbundling context. The argument is that these emergent meanings are a function of different explicit and tacit understandings of curriculum and what higher education offers to students. These understandings are deepened or modified by processes of unbundling. Empirical data from the research study show these understandings to be forming against the backdrop of powerful cultural and agentic forces and players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research and writing are integral to academic identity; however, professionals identifying as Learning Developers form an international practitioner community with limited expectations for publishing. Inhabiting the liminal space between academic and professional roles, they have only recently begun to develop their own disciplinary scholarship. In this paper, the authors – Learning Developers who have transitioned from discipline-based to LD-based writing – argue that Learning Development (LD) struggles to be perceived as a distinctive academic field because it has not yet sufficiently written itself into existence. They propose a model for writing as liberatory practice that facilitates scholarly conversations and co-creation of an academic field. Through collective autoethnography, the authors build on their own positionality in LD in order to outline a framework for knowledge production, and demonstrate that scholars in emerging disciplines need encouragement and support to unlock their practitioner knowledge and articulate what makes them a unique scholarly field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper conceptualises and explores 'the art of critique' in student writing in the humanities and social sciences [Foucault 1997. "What is Critique?" In: The Politics of Truth. English Translation. Translated from French by Lysa Hocroth & Catherine Porter. In Dits et Ecrits for original French. Los Angeles: Semiotexte. Accessed July 10, 2015. http://anthropos-lab.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Foucault-Critique.pdf]. Its starting principle is that education lacks vigour without an understanding of how to play with and disrupt the rules of Western reason, as well as respect them: a practice of playing and interrupting the same to generate something new that is beyond 'use-value' [Derrida 2006. Specters of Marx. New York: Routledge Classics, 201] yet can also be used to signify 'use-value'. Fundamental to this idea is the question of the 'agency' of the subject in orders of discourse, oscillating between consent and resistance. To conceptualise the dynamics of interrupting the historical traditions of academic writing more closely, Foucault's notion of 'care of the self' and Derrida's field of analysis, deconstruction, are interrogated. A few examples of such dynamics in student work are then tentatively presented as heuristics for catalysing the 'art of critique' in writing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces that the periodical "Teaching in Higher Education" welcomes contributions concerning knowledge, identities, and teaching in relation to higher education purposes for its special issue on "Purposes, knowledge and identities." Information on the suggested questions and topics to be discussed which include economic, political, and social contexts of teaching, and others are included. Information on the abstract and article length, email address to whom the contribution will be submitted, and submission date are also included.

PhDs by publications are a relatively new model for doctoral research, especially in the context of the Humanities or Education. This paper describes two writers’ experiences of conducting doctoral studies in this genre and in these faculties. Each discover alternative ways of employing a body of published research papers in development of an overarching thesis. The writers argue that whilst it can be a pragmatic choice for some, PhDs by publications are more likely to be highly complex meta-narratives and that an overview of past research is fraught with theoretical, conceptual and epistemological challenges in the quest for coherence. They claim that the nomenclature ‘PhDs by publications’ or ‘through publications’ is misleading: in the epistemological space of Humanities or Education studies, this mode of doctoral research is more accurately represented as a ‘PhD with or alongside publications’. They conclude that the particular affordance of the model is that it privileges accounts of the process of knowledge building and of descriptions of the gradual emergence of ‘doctoralness’ in the person of the researcher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As algorithmic decision-making and data collection become pervasive in higher education, how can educators make sense of the systems that shape life and learning in the twenty-first century? This paper outlines a systematic literature review that investigated gaps in the current framing of data and faculty development, and explores how these gaps prevent the formulation of potential pathways and principles for fostering educators' data literacy. The analysis of 137 papers through classification by relevant categories and key word mapping shows that there is little attention on higher education teachers. It also makes clear that most approaches to educators' data literacy address management and technical abilities, with less emphasis on critical, ethical and personal approaches to datafication in education. The authors conceptualize this situation as a 'complicated' approach to data literacy in the academic profession, as opposed to a complex vision which would bundle management and technical skills together with a critical, systemic approach to professional learning and data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2016, the introduction of the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) marked a watershed moment for higher education (HE) in the United Kingdom. This paper views the TEF as an extension of the neoliberal policy narrative that has dominated policy thinking and decision making in HE in recent decades. It argues that the epistemology and methodology underpinning this narrative is flawed and ill-equipped to improve the quality of teaching. As a counter narrative, this paper discusses the creation of a cycle of collaborative observation (CoCO) between academic staff and students in an English university. Drawing on theoretical and empirical insights, the paper explores the conceptual and methodological framework behind CoCO, as well as the preparation of academic staff and students for engaging with this collaborative approach to observation. We argue that CoCO offers the potential to transform understanding of learning and teaching in HE and the reciprocal relationship between the two. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The questions driving this paper are: What sort of affective (dis)investment is needed in higher education to refuse the colonial university? How can educators and students in higher education invent 'pedagogies of refusal' that function affectively to challenge colonial futurity? What do pedagogies of refusal look like? This paper theorizes refusal as an affective practice that produces political effects and desires that challenge normative manifestations of power and control. It is argued that refusal may constitute a fruitful avenue toward decolonization of higher education, because it directs attention to the affective (dis)investments from/in desires that can be fulfilled by the university. To this end, the paper suggests that if the aim is to disrupt the seductive workings of colonial power in its most intimate dimensions, then it is crucial to invent pedagogies that engage with the affective (dis)investments of students and educators in colonial relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Making a contribution to knowledge is a cornerstone requirement of the PhD. It requires candidates to provide new understandings about a phenomenon to push the boundaries of an intellectual field. To achieve this ‘boundary pushing’, the findings offered in the research must have relevance for contexts beyond the site of study. In effect, the knowledge generated in one context needs to be transferable to other contexts. This aspect of research writing is broadly acknowledged; however, learning how to implement it in practice is less widely understood. Drawing on the concept of semantic gravity from Legitimation Code Theory, this paper offers a conceptual account of knowledge and an associated set of practical writing strategies for weaving different forms of knowledge together. The paper offers a writing tool which can be used by supervisors in the humanities and social sciences to make writing expectations clear and as a metalanguage for feedback practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the qualitative results of a larger mixed-methods study that examined teachers' experience transitioning to online teaching and learning (OTL) in Malaysian higher education (HE) institutions to understand how academics perceived their OTL readiness and what competencies were perceived to be central during the Covid-19 pandemic. Data collected from twenty-two teachers (n = 22) (three public; three private HEs) through semi-structured in-depth interviews revealed that OTL readiness was perceived through course design, communication competence, time management, and technological competence. Additionally, agentic competence emerged as crucial in shaping resilience and adaptability during the transition to OTL. The paper makes two contributions. First, the study contributed to the literature on online teaching readiness in that reconceptualisation needs to be holistic and inclusive due to the unique HE context. Second, it provides valuable insights to those who devise training exercises and universities required to respond to them in enhancing teacher agency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed a heightening of interest in the role of teachers working in EAP (English for Academic Purposes), particularly with regard to defining and debating their professional identity. However, it must be said that most authors have painted a rather dismal picture, when comparing the status and professional standing of English language teachers in Higher Education with that of academics working in other disciplines. Drawing on concepts and models developed by the educational sociologists Basil Bernstein and Pierre Bourdieu, this reflective paper proposes a theoretical framework to account for why these differences in status might be so. The paper concludes that EAP as an academic discipline currently faces some significant threats. However, the paper also argues that if EAP practitioners are to gain the professional recognition they desire, then they themselves must strive to trade more explicitly on the forms of capital valued by the academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through an evaluation of an institution-wide curriculum change process, this paper analyses how strategic policy is variously enacted in departmental communities. Linguistic ethnography of public, institutional and internal policy documents illuminates departments' engagement with the change process. With curriculum change positioned as a disorienting dilemma, transformational learning theory provides a lens to analyse the departments' alignment with the intention of the curriculum change policy. The paper explores the extent to which departments transformed from a disciplinary content-based and high-stakes examination approach to the curriculum to incorporating broader institutional aims and active learning theories into disciplinary language, pedagogy and practices. Three stages of engagement are identified through an evaluation rubric, offering a framework to assess curriculum change initiatives. Implications for educational leaders include the need to integrate institutional strategy with disciplinary experts and expertise and the importance of language adoption as a precursor to implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent feedback literature emphasises the active role of learners in feedback processes and a programmatic approach to feedback design. This conceptual paper argues for the importance of ipsative processes, i.e. processes focusing on learners' progress as a mechanism in meeting these two requirements. It suggests that the iterative nature of ipsative processes can encourage effective, learner-centred feedback and its implementation across multiple tasks can promote the uptake of feedback in subsequent work. Using self-determination theory, the paper discusses how ipsative feedback processes create conditions which can foster students' perceptions of autonomy, competence and relatedness, thus fostering student motivation to engage with feedback. The implementation of ipsative processes is illustrated with references to two pedagogic practices. The paper identifies the need for further empirical research investigating academic and noncognitive benefits of ipsative processes in feedback for students as well as autoethnographic work examining the implications of implementing ipsative processes for teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The topic of this paper is the relocation of a proven learning mechanism in a real-life working situation to a university setting. The aim is to discuss to what degree the types of learning generated in the original setting can survive the re-contextualisation and what might be done to retain as much value as possible. The original learning situation was an aesthetic experience – choral singing and conducting – that allowed nine senior managers to sense various relational phenomena, such as control and empowerment, multi-voice teamwork, the impact of own body, empathy, and vulnerability. The target learning domain is a university setting. The paper draws on various theories of learning. The re-contextualisation is discussed in the form of five hurdles that must be overcome. For each hurdle, a design hypothesis is proposed. The presence of an aesthetic object – the sounding music – illuminates the crucial linkage between discipline knowledge structures and everyday practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents research on a posthumanist approach for reframing community-engaged pedagogy. We employ posthumanist theory as a way to examine the educational possibilities of ethically engaging with technologies and materials as a means to build and sustain community partnerships for social justice. This research project employs a diffractive inquiry involving interview encounters with 20 college writing instructors. The posthumanist approach presented in this paper provides a window into understanding how a myriad of human-material assemblages, response-able designs, and affective encounters shape and transform community-engaged pedagogy. In the context of community-engaged writing, the posthumanist approach oftentimes coincides with the use of multiple modes of communication, such as text, image, sound, and video, to foreground marginalized communities and their perspectives. Through allowing for the expression of multiple voices and perspectives, including those of non-human entities, this approach further challenges and disrupts traditional human-centric and dualistic views of community-engaged pedagogy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a macro, meso- and micro-level analysis of employability best practice in higher education institutions (HEIs) to question how employability is being conceived within higher education settings alongside academic goals. Thematic analysis is applied to: a range of academic articles and papers containing HEI employability best practice case studies (macro-level); papers from the 2016 Swansea University College of Arts and Humanities' Employability Conference (meso-level); and Swansea University Department of Media and Communication employability activities from 2013 to 2018 (micro-level). The results are visualised as an ontology of higher education employability, which has the notion of 'entrepreneurial spirit' at the centre. The paper finds that embedding an entrepreneurial approach can help drive innovation in subject-level teaching in a way which can enhance, rather than inhibit, critical academic enquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In her early work, Suellen Shay argues that higher education tends to valorise objective notions of reality while downplaying the subjectivity of individuals. In Shay's view, this one-sided approach leads to a deficiency in the preparation of students for the holistic reality of the world they will experience beyond university. Taking Shay's provocation as a starting point, this paper explores a framework for both the design and analysis of educational assessment practices, with the aim of accounting for both objectivity and subjectivity in serving as legitimate bases for educational experiences. We follow Shay in adopting concepts from Legitimation Code Theory to achieve this, and, drawing on our own experiences and prior work, discuss how this framework may be applied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies reporting flexible assessment strategies and their impact across different modes of study remain limited with little emphasis placed on the role these arrangements play in devising authentic assessment processes. This paper synthesises recent research work depicting flexible design principles and practice strategies for how educators might effectively and with confidence move assessment forward in ways that prepare students for a multitude of future possibilities. Evidence is presented for how such assessment arrangements can be created to allow for a valid and authentic representation of student performance in increasingly digital learning environments. Authentically future-facing assessment in higher education needs to be adaptable, ideally offering an element of flexibility and agency to students which helps them to continuously connect what they are learning – ideas to thinking, principles to problems, theory to practice, learning to life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We reconceptualize co-teaching in higher education to be more than a method for professional development or adapting to student preferences. Instead, co-teaching offers community and collaboration that can sustain the holistic well-being of professors, especially marginalized faculty who navigate high service loads and extra scrutiny from students. Drawing upon our Chicana/Latina feminist onto-epistemologies, we leveraged embodied pedagogies of care and plática to self reflect and critically analyze our particular approach to co-teaching–what we term 'comadre co-teaching.' This paper demonstrates how co-teaching meets institutionalized expectations for teaching excellence, but most importantly, serves to sustain us as faculty of color and mothers. We present brief narratives of our co-teaching experiences as examples of what it looks and feels like to have support in navigating the chaos of teaching during a pandemic. We also offer lessons learned of what it takes to create and sustain a support network among historically marginalized faculty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]