Fooling around with the question – how do we champion learning and teaching in our universities?

By Dr. Alison Nimmo, Lead, Scottish Principal Fellow Network and Head of Academic Development & Student Learning, Glasgow Caledonian University Image credit unsplash I’d been pondering the meaning of the term ‘championing’ ahead of our Scottish Principal Fellow Network meeting. We had agreed to share what we are doing to champion learning and teaching in …

Reflections on Community Engagement during the pandemic

By Susan Grant (@GCUEngagement) Community and Public Engagement Coordinator Science on the Sofa 2020, positive mental health activity I went down to my local high street for a take away coffee one Friday morning and seeing four women from the bank on their tea break laughing and chatting away really brought home to me the reality that …

An explicit commitment to Educational Research and Scholarship

By Dr Colin Milligan, Senior Research Fellow in Educational Research & Evaluation As if the trials and tribulations of COVID were not enough, Academic Year 20-21 has been a key year in GCU’s strategic cycle. Our new Strategy 2030 was launched, accompanied by the consultation and development of our Research Strategy, and Strategy for Learning. All this …

Teaching Excellence: Prof Lesley McMillan selected for the prestigious National Teaching Fellow competition

We are delighted to announce that the university has selected Prof. Lesley McMillan as our institutional candidate for the Advance HE National Teaching Fellowship Award. Lesley, whose research inspired the nationally acclaimed ‘Erase the Grey’ campaign at GCU, was chosen through a rigorous internal selection process, and was selected with the endorsement of the Principal. Over …

To bean count or not to bean count – or are we asking the wrong question?

By Dr Alison Nimmo, Head of Academic Development Have you noticed how metrics and analytics have entered the language of Higher Education over the last years? I’m just guessing that you might have.  And have you noticed how these are impacting on how we develop our institutional strategies for learning and teaching, how we evaluate our …

Book launch: Coaching and Mentoring for Academic Development

By Dr Kay Guccione, Senior Lecturer in Academic Development My co-author Dr Steve Hutchinson and I extend a huge thank you to everyone who joined us for our book launch on the 10th December 2020! Having guests from across the world join us to discuss the book’s themes and our perspectives on the value of coaching …

In Good Standing

By Jennifer Jackson, IT Training & Development Team [image credit] Revalidation of professional accreditation is a well-established practice across a wide range of disciplines, Law, Pharmacy, Nursing and Human Resources to name but a few; a straw poll amongst friends indicates that this is an expected (and for some, regulation driven) and accepted aspect of …

Asking insightful questions, a core mentoring practice

By Dr Kay Guccione, Senior Lecturer in Academic Development I have been working with new mentors on the GCU Academic Mentoring Programme in recent weeks, introducing them to a facilitative coaching style and as I wrote about here, a ‘repertoire beyond advice’. This enables them to work with all kinds of people, with a range …

Undergoing a sea change – working and learning online

By Dr Alison Nimmo, Head of Academic Development I’ve worked in Academic Development for a long time now and a longstanding focus for me has been to support new members of teaching staff to find their teacher identity. At GCU we employ many as academics because they are highly experienced professionals with significant work experience …

Looking out for our colleagues, scaffolding change and responding to stress

This post is by Dr Kay Guccione, Senior Lecturer in Academic Development. I’ve recently been working on new resources for new mentor development and orientation to practice at GCU, redesigning the intro session so it will work when delivered as online workshops. I’ve also been working on how to better facilitate and work with the …