Building educational leadership capacity: urgency and agency

In common with most academic institutions, the University finds itself under increasing pressure from various quarters. The globalisation and marketisation of education continues to generate competition between institutions, not just locally but worldwide. Academic institutions, are increasingly managed like businesses, with the associated bureaucracy, resource-focused and commercial mindsets.   Covid-19 has exacerbated these pressures, in two …

Open textbooks…why?

Scott Connor (Digital and Online Education Lead, Learning and Teaching Academy), Kathleen Connor (Library Team Leader, Perth College UHI) The cost? The cost of textbooks for those in education is always a topic for debate. In 2016 the cost of a single textbook was estimated at an average of £50 and the annual cost for …

Growing Tree Culture at UHI

Mandy Haggith, Mandy.Haggith.ic@uhi.ac.uk Over the past year students at the Scottish School of Forestry (SSF) have been writing poetry, immersing in Gaelic tree tradition and perhaps even trying out the odd magic spell. Meanwhile, UHI literature and creative writing students have been getting to grips with the distinguishing features of blackthorn and hawthorn, the spread …

How much does it cost to create online learning material?

It always intrigues me when somebody writes or talks about a piece of work they did a few years ago taking on a new lease of life, it has never happened to me and to be honest I never thought it would…until now. A simplified costing model for curriculum development Back in 2014, while I …

Time to reflect

Dr Rob Bray from Argyll College UHI talks about his use of reflective logs, and how we could all benefit from a little bit of introspection at this time Do we reflect? Of course we do.  The ability to reflect is one of the great wonders of human consciousness, although perhaps Socrates was a little …

Reflections on Bhutan (Part 1)

By Alex Walker, Professional Development and Recognition Lead Across the end of February and start of March, Keith Smyth and Alex Walker from the Learning and Teaching Academy had the opportunity to visit and share practice at the Royal University of Bhutan as part of one of the university’s current Global Challenges Research Fund projects. …

What do we mean by ‘tertiary’? And why does it matter?

For our first Critical Perspectives post of this year, Lydia Rohmer, Principal of West Highland College UHI and Vice-Principal (Tertiary) for UHI challenges us to think about the meaning of tertiary education (adapted from her opening address at the University's Learning and Teaching conference, January 2020 #UHILTC20) The University of the Highlands and Islands is …

#UHILTC20: Tertiaryness for the digital generation

The university's second Learning and Teaching conference was held at Inverness Campus 22-23 January 2020. Over 120 colleagues attended over the two days in which there were: 3 keynotes1 panel session29 presentation sessions14 workshops and discussion sessions4 Gasta talks (explanation below!) UHI Learning and Teaching Conference 2020, Inverness Campus, January 2020. Here, audiences throughout the …

Ding dong merrily on learning and teaching

The LTA team reflect on a busy and productive 2019 Looking back on 2019, as one tends to do at this time of year, January seems a long time ago. We have hosted an ever growing range of events and webinars, funded and supported educational scholarship and research projects, offered new networking and leadership development …

Reflections from the Jisc Digital Leadership Programme

Pixabay For four days in October and with a splash of trepidation I attended the Jisc Digital Leaders programme in Edinburgh. I enjoy getting out of the office, I enjoy meeting people and I enjoy learning so really this was perfect for me, but I was slightly concerned. My concern was not that I wouldn't …