If you find the colour scheme weird: I choose colours I can read well.
Around the World in Eight Links
- My Figshare Profile for OERs you can download.
- Learning Teaching and Scholarship Podcast
- We just published the first edition of our Open SoTL Journal, we are open to suggestions for special editions, and welcome reviewers. Just get in touch through the editor email.
- National Teaching Repository, I am the lead curator for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Category
- My YouTube teaching channel
- Steering Group member for #creativeHE
- Co-lead the #LTHEchat during pivot to online learning 2020 which won as a community award for service to the sector, and mentored a coordinating team in 2021
Mastodon
Background
I began this blog, in a different form in 2006 to improve my written English and stay sane during the trials and tribulations that is gradschool. Unfortunately the archives of the first years were lost, when my hard-drive decided to die with a strange noise and even DiskWarrior could not help.
At some point I felt all the PhD related posts were not relevant anymore and cleared these off the side. Maybe at some point I am brave enough to go back to these and make them into a book (there are still 3 research diaries of about 200-300 pages each.
#creativeHE
With a passion for educational creativity, the #creativeHE team inspires the innovation, experimentation and disruption of teaching practices through an international, friendly and facilitative community. Founded on open scholarship and collaborative practice, the team are committed to continual personal, educational, institutional and sector transformation to enhance staff and student experience.
Fast forward about hundreds of gallons of coffee, countless chocolate bars, and several fix term contracts later, and I have been working as a lecturer in academic and digital development (faculty development, Hochschuldidaktik, Hochschulbildungsforschung) for some years. I won several (internal) grants, a best presentation price, and recently a golden tweeter award, held some keynotes, and obtained my Senior Fellowship with the Higher Education Academy. I am currently leading a couple of master’s level courses (MEd in Academic Practice), and the dissertation projects, and trying to change attitudes around the Scholarship of Learning and Teaching in the institution; as well as supporting our first ever Graduate Apprenticeship Scheme, in developing CPD and training for the workplace mentors. So far so chaotic.
Things that haven’t changed
Run on sentences are still going strong. And my focus on creative pedagogies (creative learning and teaching) and thus implicitly active learning has not changed. I am trying to translate creative pedagogy and principles of Kulturpädagogik (culture education) into the higher education context. This has led to colleagues playing with Lego, balloons, play-dough, and my line manager putting the Incredible Hulk on top of their computer. I also have been accused or commended (I am really not sure) of pink fluffy unicorness.
Bottom line: taking education seriously does not equate to perpetuating teaching methods, and attitudes that one believes one ought to, rather than methods that are authentic to the individual educator, and their context.
Erziehungswissenschaften
Science of Education
One of the frustrations that still has not changed is that in the UK, my discipline (my profession) does not exist! Nobody knows what Erziehungswissenschaften (EzW) is! This was brought home recently, when I was invited to speak at a congress in Munich, and when I said my discipline is EzW people knew! If I try to translate this into English, I get confused and empty stares … *sigh*
Anyhow, if you want to know the serious and magical business of learning, and teaching, of educational theory that constitutes the foundation for anything from play-dough to unicorns, just browse the blog. I try to share practical things, teaching tools or strategies, reflective practice, and some theoretical musings. I also often share resources I have developed or created. There might be the odd recipe or coaching insights(or tip).
It’s not just all work and no play, I also run a creative writing blog: storyfae.blog
Adventures in Academic Development 
A native of Germany in Scotland is part of a rare breed! Ich hoffe, daß Schottland gastfreundlich ist – in meinem Fall eindeutig!
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Auf jeden Fall—Glasgow ist trotz jedweder Gerüchte besonders gastfreundlich! Maybe a little rough around the edges, but that creates a unique charm. Danke für den Landesgruß!
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