James G. R. Cronin

The pandemic has highlighted a recurring theme of isolation amongst postgraduate students involved in research and, to a lesser extent, writing up their projects ( Fogarty, 2021;  Forrester, 2021;  IFERA, 2021). Lessons learned highlight the importance of the supervisor in mentoring students within the socialisation process of a discipline or professional practice.  As we reach the end of the academic journey for postgraduates, and as social restrictions begin to be lifted, here are six observations from my involvement with supervisory teams from September 2020 - September 2021. I wish to highlight the co- responsibility of supervisors and students within the process of disciplinary socialisation. This primarily involves relationship-building and fostering confidence. I will frame these six lessons within a particular view of disciplinary and professional practice supervision as a process of mentoring graduates as emerging "stewards of the discipline" (Golde, 2006)...

Will the effects of pandemic pedagogy accelerate learnification?  Gert Biesta ,  Dutch-born education philosopher  who is associated with the reclaiming teaching movement,  highlights that the discourse of “education” has become disconnected from “learning.” This shift began during the 1980s, accelerated as a consequence of the proliferation of educational technology over the past twenty years, and is likely to increase with data-gathering and extended reality becoming ubiquitous within educational systems. Biesta makes the point that language constructs reality and that the language of learning has privileged process , but has excluded questions of purpose and content and relationships within dynamic human interrelationships that should define teaching and learning (Biesta, 2012). The sole concern of learnification becomes the individualistic process of learning, rather than the purpose , context , and relationships that are central to education as both a ...

Throughout the pandemic, scholars, administrators, and developers have been asking: which tools and practices from emergency education during the coronavirus pandemic may become part of established practice? Related to this question is how scholars have responded to the present event by turning to past pedagogies to inform current practices. I focus on the tools for conviviality initiated by Ivan Illich in  Deschooling Society  (1970); defined by Illich in  Tools for Conviviality  (1973); and refined by Illich in  Medical Nemesis  (1975). There is renewed interest in Illich as part of contemporary discussions of emancipatory education.  I historicise Illich’s tools for conviviality to make the point that remote learning and homeschooling during the pandemic has brought marginal pedagogies into mainstream focus. I divide this post into three parts: first, a brief explanation of Illich’s core idea of tools for conviviality using  Deschooling Society...

I reflect on how an emphasis on care has emerged as an active response to "pandemic pedagogy" through four themes that resonate within the emerging academic literature: 1.  Rethinking teaching : the need to rethink traditional course content delivery due to social distancing has resulted in teachers taking on roles as designers of learning. This process has accelerated from March to December 2020 as the first and second waves of the pandemic resulted in government restrictions to work and education. Even before the pandemic, traditional transmissive teaching methods had been challenged and student-oriented approaches to teaching and learning were especially being advocated within the international scholarship of teaching and learning with students-as-partners as a good example of this model. The need to practically facilitate courses online has resulted in reimagining the role of the teacher as a “guide on the side” rather than a “sage on the stage.” In turn, this shift has a...

Visit this link for a short guide to threshold concepts in the curriculum hosted by UCL.

Instructional scaffolding is a process through which a teacher adds supports for students in order to enhance learning and aid in the mastery of tasks and knowledge acquisition. As students master the assigned tasks, the supports are gradually removed.  In the traditional classroom, you can typically see when students are struggling, scaffolding helps address similar concerns that might be less visible online. For a short guide on instructional design  visit sc affolding learning . 

A short guide on embedding reflective journaling in course design for dynamic assessments.