Rattus Scholasticus

Working to support the emerging community of academic skills mentors at Oxford University has helped me reflect more deeply on what constitutes skilled Learning Development practice. I’ve been thinking more about the Four Roles of LD and about formulation, how any Learning Development interaction is a blend of the expertise that we bring and that which the student brings. I’ve been reflecting on…

In 2019 I was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship. ‘Half a decade’ as my colleague Stephen Briggs puts it sounds rather more momentous than ‘gosh, was that five years ago now? how time flies!’ Congratulations to all the new 2024 National Teaching Fellows this week! It’s a huge achievement and much deserved recognition for some outstanding educators. Scrolling through the profiles, you might…

It’s long been acknowledged that when you start as a Learning Developer, you jump in the deep end. There’s no qualification in LD, little training (I used to offer training via ALDinHE and I understand ALDinHE plans to revisit offering CPD, which would be very welcome) and other than a handful of (very useful) books, no practical How To. We all come to LD with some professional background,…

I’m passionate about Learning Development. You may have noticed. My professional obsession has led me to explore how skilled this work is, how valuable a contribution it can play in Higher Education, and how much it needs championing at all levels to raise its profile, preserve its values and fully realise its potential. I’ve written previously here on this blog and in a chapter in the recent…

Working in an institution without a history of Learning Development, where there isn’t an obvious ‘hole’ where LD would be, I’m often challenged to describe how my profession is constituted in other universities. Not just the question of describing what an individual Learning Developer does (a challenge which has been noted by several authors from Hilsdon (2011) onwards), but what a Learning…

One of the fundamental implications of Academic Literacies theory is that writing is not monolithic. There is no such thing as ‘academic writing’; instead, there is a multiplicity of discourses, genres and conventions each shaped by the disciplinary context in which they are situated. But the implications of the Academic Literacies model go beyond ‘academic writing is different in different…

I’ve been working more of late in an embedded mode (or rather, an integrated mode). Being more integrated within the architecture of learning and teaching, rather than embedding the odd isolated workshop session here or there within a module, I need to align with the kinds of processes typical of module design, which often sit awkwardly with a more student-centred and student-led Learning…

Celebrating the publication of my article on the 5Ps of LD - many years in the making! #LoveLD

This week, I’m celebrating something that’s been six years in the making – the publication of my article on the 5 Ps of LD. Voila! Webster, H. (2023). The five Ps of LD: Using formulation in Learning Development work for a student-centred approach to ‘study skills’. Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice, 20 (4). https://doi.org/10.53761/1.20.4.07 The article started life on this…

Learning developers tend to end up working with samples of academic writing a lot, in one way or another. It’s a result of our outcomes-based, writing-focussed assessment culture, and the focus on product rather than process can skew our practice towards a more ‘study skills’ model which prioritises writing as technical skill and is preoccupied with surface features. Sure, those technical aspects…

The Scholastic Rat is Back!

Well it’s been Quite A Year, hasn’t it? My last posts here were a year ago, I realise – both a very long year, and also one in which so much has happened that the time has just slipped away. I’ve missed blogging hugely – it’s such a useful way for me to reflect, work out and articulate what I’m thinking, but there’s not been a lot of headspace for that of late. The pandemic may (I hope) be…

Ep 23: Unwrapping the Citizenship Test & 5Ps with Helen Webster

pDo you know the 5Ps in academic writing? Do you feel that sense of belonging at your institution? Join Dr Helen Webster as she unwraps these topics and shares her passion for rats…/ppFollow Helen:/ppTwitter: a href=’https://twitter.com/scholastic_rat’@scholastic_rat/a/ppBlog: a href=’https://rattusscholasticus.wordpress.com/’https://rattusscholasticus.wordpress.com//a/p Source: Ep 23: Unwrapping…

An Emancipatory Approach to LD: Student options and choices

I’ve written before about emancipatory practice being the core, defining value of Learning Development, and about how this is at the same time a problematic concept, neither students nor learning developers having the power to overturn the cultural norms of academic discourse or disciplinary communities of practice. If, as Academic Literacies theory tells us, students are making decisions about…

Decolonising Learning Development: Doing the Work

This post follows on from the previous one on Decolonisation and LD… Decolonisation is, to use the current phrase, about ‘doing the work’, and it’s difficult, uncomfortable work which for many of us will feel threatening, as it’s a de-centring of dominant cultural values, discourses and practices, a dismantling of a system created for the benefit of those ‘like us’ in which we have much…

Decolonising Study Skills and the role of Learning Development

At Newcastle this year, we’ve been beyond fortunate to have an incredible Student Union exec, a team of formidable and inspiring Sabs who have not only worked their hardest to support their fellow students through what they couldn’t have known would be one of the hardest academic years ever due to the pandemic, but who have also somewhere found the reserves of energy to engage with another…

A Manifesto for Learning DevelopERs

Learning Development is in many ways spoken of in the abstract, as a set of values, principles, theoretical approaches to supporting students. One of my abiding interests in this field is about taking those abstractions and working out ways to make them concrete, practicable, doable. This interest extends also to the material realities of Learning Development work- the conditions under which we…

Induction – the University Citizenship Test?

I earned a placed at Newcastle University to study medicine. The north-east was unlike anywhere I had lived before. One of sparingly few black faces in the university, I felt like a misplaced peppercorn in a bowl of salt. My first year was especially difficult. The loneliness sank me into a deep depression. I felt fearful that I would never adjust to my new life. All the while, I watched…

Thinking about Induction and Transition

How is it mid-July already?! There’s been so much to think about and plan recently, much of which I’ve wanted to share here, but time has been ticking by, and so much to do! I wanted to share some of the thinking I’ve been doing with my colleague Liam Carson around the piece of work we’re doing on induction and transition.

Liam is working on the university’s online induction programme for…