Category: Teaching

From fragility to respect – A reflection on managing contentious issues in the classroom

Classrooms have become a focal point for a range of ‘culture war issues’. Daniel Beaudoin reflects on his own teaching practice and offers 8 pointers for maintaining a constructive learning environment in the classroom. If you are white (I am), male (I…

Finding time for impact – Policy choices incentivising academic behaviours are not zero-sum games

Research policy increasingly encourages academics to undertake different activities, such as research, teaching and academic service, yet academic time remains finite. Using the introduction of tuition fees in 2012 as a natural experiment within the UK…

Book Review: Subversive Pedagogies: Radical Possibility in the Academy edited by Kate Schick and Claire Timperley

In Subversive Pedagogies: Radical Possibility in the Academy, Kate Schick and Claire Timperley bring together contributors to explore teaching as a subversive space of radical possibility, drawing attention to pedagogies that are situated, embodied, ca…

Book Review: Coaching and Mentoring for Academic Development by Kay Guccione and Steve Hutchinson

In Coaching and Mentoring for Academic Development, Kay Guccione and Steve Hutchinson make the case for mentoring and coaching as key to building a learning culture in higher education, exploring how coaching and mentoring programmes can be embedded to…

The problem with accessibility checklists

Accessibility checklists are increasingly becoming offered as ways to improve inclusivity in Higher Education. However, they rely on the presumption that those delivering education and thus using them have no accessibility needs of their own. Moreover, in seeking to codify what counts as inclusivity, many students’ requirements get overlooked. In this post, Dr Kelsie Acton … Continued

Moving beyond the talk: Universities must become anti-racist

In 2016, Dr Akile Ahmet wrote a piece for the LSE Impact Blog entitled ‘We need to speak about race’: Examining the barriers to full and equal participation in university life’. Nearly five years on, she reflects on the state of Black and minority ethnic representation and inclusion in Higher Education. She finds that whilst … Continued

On teaching anticolonial archives

What does exploring decolonisation mean, look like and feel like In the classroom? And how does one think of this in relation to both the curriculum and pedagogy? Sara Salem takes up these questions as she reflects on designing and delivering a course at LSE on anticolonial archives. She takes readers through the contents of … Continued

If university campuses close, can everyone learn from home? What happens when the home becomes the classroom in India  

The reorganisation of work lives bought about by the pandemic has also been met with a reorganisation of domestic space as the site where work now takes place. For Higher Education, this means that homes have now become classrooms. However, the fundamental premise of successful online education is the access to both electricity supply and an … Continued

Retaining the Human Touch When Supporting Students in Transitioning to Asynchronous Online Teaching and Learning in Higher Education

 The transition to online, asynchronous learning poses just as many challenges for students entering the online classroom as it does for academics mastering the platform. Cynthia Wheatley Glenn outlines what to look out for to spot students who might be struggling and key strategies for assisting students in overcoming barriers to successful participation in online … Continued