Autoethnography: Part 01 I need to edit a paper to incorporate some of the reviewer comments, equally my designing educational inquiries course just began again this week, and one of my MEd students is running an autoethnographic project. So there are my three reasons for indulging in reading and writing again. This is a mere […]
Recent Posts
Drawing Focus: ADHD and Productivity Strategies
Stressful (yet effective) ADHD coping mechanism If you are a regular reader you know that I am always trying to hack the ADHD brain–aka The Brain. One of the habits that worked during very stressful times was to jump onto social media for 3-5 minutes and read some headlines, share or bookmark something to read […]
An Introduction to SoTL #ViCEPHEC2021
All presentations for the conference are on the VicePHEC YouTube channel (link opens in new tab). If you missed my opening keynote for this year’s VicePHEC conference you can follow up on YouTube or see below #ViCEPHEC2021 Opening Keynote Imperfection I was really worried because my video editing skills are rudimentary at best. So the […]
Painting a Diary
My efforts to publish working–out–loud pieces have been thwarted by overwhelm. So let’s step back by a month. There was some learning from this summer’s holiday-domain during which I ran out of words. This is a meandering thoughts blog, I am trying to figure something out–solve a teaching dilemma. Any ideas are welcome! If you […]
Something Different: On a Lunchbreak
I am taking you with me on an adventure. Okay maybe a micro-adventure, nevertheless if you need a mental break from thinking about work–come along. As pebbles crunch underneath my trailrunners I notice: today smells like adventure, here in Scotland! Adventures smell of summer and soil, petrichor, deep dark woods; they smell of minerals in […]
SoTL as Strategic Imperative?
I made this a year after setting up the SoTL network in our institution, and this is my visual reflection on the thoughts emerging from this. The first point was that I was wondering if SoTL needs to be a strategic imperative for Higher Education institutions. On one side it fosters evidence based practice, providing […]
Of Jewelry Making and Curriculum Design
good point Danielle about good design degrading – I think that must be true for most things, but then some Celtic jewellery is still incredibly beautiful today, so there's something enduring about good design, even if some of it changes over time #LTHEchat — Virna (@VirnaRossi) June 9, 2021 In the #LTHEchat above Virna Rossi […]
First Time in the City in Months
I met a colleague today. In real life 3D and colour! First time in the Westend in over nine months. It’s strange I forgot how Glasgow smells in the rain. It’s a Weeg thing. Only Glasgow smells like this. When it rains, hues of swamp rise from the Kelvin walkway, dust caked to the sidewalk […]
The Last SoTLwalk
I was gutted to read that the wonderful Dr Natasha Taylor is posting the last SoTLwalk The June SoTL Walk: Our final ramble! – Elemental (rmit.edu.au). So if you have some time join in on the Padlet or on Twitter with the #SoTLwalk hashtag and help celebrate Natasha’s wonderful initiative, which has helped bring people […]
Evaluating learning: an uncertainty principle
Here is my hypothesis: The more we focus on one aspect of the learned, i.e. in exams we force the expression of learning into a specific way and the closer we look at that one specific factor the less we are able to see the effects of said learning more widely. A personal experience example […]
Academia and Buzz Word Bingo
One of the themes of our engagement in #ALTC Winter Conference and #LTHEchat was that the terminology we have chosen to use ‘disruption’ and ‘active learning’ smell too much of buzz-word bingo to sit comfortably with colleagues. And we agree. But … There is also a but … what else are we to use. We […]
Another Attempt at Journalling
Keeping notes, making sense, reflexive practice and doodles A while back I shared my first experiences with bullet journaling as one of the many ‘brain hacks’ I am trying. Unfortunately have to report it doesn’t work well for me, because forming habits is near to impossible. So ended up with these beautifully crafted pages that […]
Transformative Conversations
When the topic for this week’s combined #AdvanceHE_chat and #LTHEchat was announced my first reaction was that I cannot think of any examples of a transformative chat either undertaken with my students, or having experienced for myself. Only to realised that this is not entirely true. While I might not remember a significant Heureka moment […]
#SoTLwalk May 2021: Kindness
The lovely Dr Natasha Taylor from RMIT is at it again this month, with the topic of Kindness. So let’s dive in right away: What role does kindness play in your teaching and professional identity? What does it mean to teach with kindness; to learn with kindness? How can we harness the power of kindness […]
Ethics and SoTL
This blog draft is only from about a month ago, when ethics has been on my mind more than usual. I began writing this post because my colleague and I ran an ethics in SoTL CPD session, but I also had a writing group meeting–a group which emerged from an ethics working group. And to […]
