A6 #LTHEchat I'm v much not the principal player in this partly because the next step in my career involves going down to part-time next calendar year (there's an R word which I'm avoiding) but we are building an internal community for people interested in SoTL 1/2

A5 #LTHEchat I'm privileged to have worked with colleagues committed to pedagogic scholarship in my own institution both in my own school & department & in the uni's central learning & teaching function & also maintained good working relationships with colleagues in both groups

A4 #LTHEchat this actually relates to something I was thinking when reviewing the earlier qs. What are the tangible outputs of SoTL? Unless it's a publication or devising a new course or a v specific intiative around pedagogy these can be hard to identify & harder to relate to an individual 1/2

A3 #LTHEchat as with a lot of stuff which is regarded as nice-to-do sheer pressure of time & workload is a barrier. Also a sense that even in a teaching-focused environment it isn't always recognised as an important scholarly activity & the perception is that conventional research has more prestige

A2 #LTHEchat on top of everything that's been said about community, this is something where you could be in multiple overlapping communities, eg one within your own instution, one externally with people elsewhere with a particular interest, and perhaps one purely online such as this

A2 #LTHEchat realistically it's usually a conversation with somebody else: even if that's just figuring out the process of converting a vague idea into some sort of action

A1 #LTHEchat it's a broad range: to me the virtue of SoTL is that includes pedagogic research but covers much more as well & comes down to anything around understanding university teaching & learning in depth & analysing how it should take place

Hi - I'm Martin from Bayes in London joining this #LTHEchat & v interested to see what emerges from a discussion of scholarship

Thanks for an interesting & thoughtful #LTHEchat

A6 #LTHEchat needed to think about that. Not really a social nicety but some procedural bits of the conventional induction week: I think induction should be structured as a v small amount of essential & memorable practical information & otherwise some real academic content so you feel like a student

A5 #LTHEchat as with other areas, have conversations & learn about their world. Among the most interesting experiences for me was attending an event run by UCAS which also attracted secondary school teachers

A4 #LTHEchat this is where there's a need for people who can coach & support students in use of digital tools. There are concerns which are difficult to overcome: this can get lost between digital learning professionals & study skills professionals both of whom are essential 1/2

A3 #LTHEchat really interesting q: even within the conventional open day format which by its nature is large-group we could perhaps do better at offering different activities suiting different temperaments of students

A2 #LTHEchat the other hidden or at least little-acknowledged barrier is that students are v susceptible to mid-term blues part way through their 1st term at uni & often will have put a lot of effort into adapting without yet much visible reward

A2 #LTHEchat for many it's either lack of expectations of what university studying will be like or occasionally false expectations that it'll be more similar pedagogically to their experience of school

A1 #LTHEchat also (though possibly jumping ahead) recruitment events are opportunities for us to learn about applicants & in the case of inclusive outreach this is particularly valuable as we can learn about potential applicants who we might not necessarily attract

A1 #LTHEchat for my involvement in recruitment & outreach, recruitment is a much broader category. I've done recruitment activities which focus on schools which already send us applicants, so are definitely not aiming to increase inclusivity, & also some aimed v firmly at underrepresented categories

Hi - I'm Martin sitting on a patio in London for this week's #LTHEchat

A6 #LTHEchat an interesting point: perhaps being able to join a community based around open practices would make it easier for somebody to find others with an interest in education even if they don't have people to work with on pedagogy in their own practice

A5 #LTHEchat a combination of the discussion going onto something where I have either tangible knolwedge or a specific need to find something out, & being around people who share the interest & are collegiate in the way that they express it

A4 #LTHEchat particularly when I was a course director I saw part of my role as encouraging other people to take initiatives & I sought to build a climate where pedagogic innovation was valued & indeed expected

A4 #LTHEchat reflecting on my own practice over the years connecting is definitely where my contribution has fitted most naturally: I worked on setting up internal events & on managing communities of teaching scholars & did a lot to bring various people with different ideas & perspectives together

A3 #LTHEchat there are multiple networks within & outside my own instution. They are great for exchanging ideas & finding people to act as critical friends & perhaps most important of all providing motivation & understanding that there's some value & recognition associated with pedagogic scholarship

A2 #LTHEchat arguably there's a continuum between activities which you might not even recognise as learning & formal scheduled CPD. I've picked up a lot through being a member of various communities of educators including this online one & if you count those as informal I've learnt a lot from them

A1 #LTHEchat also on reflection before going into an educational role I'd seen people initiate learning - if anything more by fostering informal learning than by formal teaching - and thought 'I can do that'

A1 #LTHEchat not entirely a facetious answer but reading campus novels contributed to me liking the idea of an academic life! But also I found I enjoyed engaging with people who were learning, even in a previous life when it wasn't at all part of my job, and valued the chance to share knowledge

Hi - this is Martin from London though today I'm joining #LTHEchat from Aveiro in Portugal

A6 #LTHEchat probably difficult to connect the 2 empirically, even though there's a lot of literature on storytelling as communication in education & elsewhere (I'm aware of a lot about storytelling in business as being particularly effective in complex environments). So you could argue that 1/2

A5 #LTHEchat employers have particular needs which students should relate to & storytelling is definitely a way to get ideas across to them. Significantly when looking at case studies especially businesses that have grown up since emergence of the internet there's often an interesting origin story

A4 #LTHEchat opportunity is that GenAI could write & add to material & create stories, risk is that these might be rather bland - as GenAI-created music is so far - while at the same time losing the opportunities for storytelling. This is a bit like the current rhetoric about not using essays 1/2

A3 #LTHEchat 2 things at least: 1st is that it doesn't necessarily follow a simple chronological progression & could be organised around themes or personalities or even a puzzle eg me describing a day in Copenhagen & holding back that I'd discovered the local term for Danish pastries til the end 1/2

A2 #LTHEchat also a good story, like a memorable image, can help to embed a particular point in students' memory. Various IT management students learned about how to organise data when I told them about the time a bank didn't update my address despite lending me money to buy the home I'd moved to

A2 #LTHEchat the sort of flip side of my A1 is that because storytelling is so fundamental we use it a lot without recognising or identifying it as such. When we use examples to illustrate academic points especially if they're personal anecdotes - that's just storytelling

A1 #LTHEchat storytelling is fundamental to communicating ideas in a university environment. A good story includes at least some thought behind what is being told & for that if no other reason there's an overlap between storytelling & reflection

Hi - this is Martin joining today's #LTHEchat from home in London

A6 #LTHEchat within reason stepping away: take a walk, read a couple of chapters, do something different then return to reflecton. But also remembering quite what reflection is & of course remembering how to ask those big open questions

A5 #LTHEchat I do like the idea of multiple framing which is similar, & comes up in some of the literature on management education especially in an uncertain climate. However I recognise I could be more effective than I am in using it in my own practice

A4 #LTHEchat all of them but in the strict context of gathering supporting evidence for impact peer & autobiographical are probably most important. They are relevant because they capture impact over time which can be crucial

A3 #LTHEchat practice, constructive mentoring, & also coming across concepts which explain my actions & experiences to an extent that they benefit my own understanding

A2 #LTHEchat student, with the proviso that you could argue that student-centred learnng is a tautology. Nevertheless I think students must be at the centre of what we do

A1 #LTHEchat perhaps identifying clear examples of impact in reflection & presenting evidence without the whole thing coming across as over-descriptive

Hi - I'm Martin. I'm from London but doing some travelling this month so joinng this evening's #LTHEchat from Mannheim so Guten Abend

Thanks for a great #LTHEchat . I'm off to figure out how I can build a humorous account of today's online shopping misdelivery into a class on how businesses choose their Internet strategy

A6 #LTHEchat we've actually worked with a professional comedian in the past - as well as a load of people who have helped academics to learn various theatre & related skills - so there's scope for explicit training. Perhaps recognise it more explicitly as something lecturers do to engage students

A5 #LTHEchat sensitivity, knowing where not to go, & dealing with cases quickly where something does go wrong through inappropriate humour

A4 #LTHEchat also deploy humour a bit more carefully online than in person because you can't gauge reactions

A4 #LTHEchat apart from racist or sexist humour there are other cases which can land inappropriately with particular students: without going into detail I had to deal with fallout from a light-hearted remark (not by me) which some found disrespectful. Also sometimes dealing with v serious issues

A3 #LTHEchat I'd see it as part of the structure & delivery of material & a way of maintaining attention, involving students, & sometimes making rather dry subjects (like obscure American financial instruments which happen to be called CDs) memorable. It also marks out educators as individuals

A2 #LTHEchat nevertheless there's a point that a well-placed joke could be very effective in ensuring that I actually remembered learning about a key point

A2 #LTHEchat quite variable. I remember as a postgraduate a finance lecturer doing a magnificant riff on CDs being both an abbreviation of Certificates of Deposit & at the time a very popular format for recorded music but with hindsight am unsure if that helped me understand CDs in finance