Teacher's Thoughts

A lot has been written and is flooding LinkedIn and other social media spaces regarding the use of AI in the higher education classroom. In this piece I will address some points including the harms it will inflict as well as point at some ways in which it has been pushed and accepted by those involved in HE teaching. In no way does this blog purport to be exhaustive on the topic. It is a result of my observations, reading and reflections on the issues discussed below. One reason (turned mantra if you ask me) frequently pointed out in favour of implementing AI in the curriculum is that "AI is the new normal" in the workplace. OK, but I am not preparing students for the workplace; I am preparing them for academic study requiring critical thinking, working with sources, building an informed argument when researching a topic and presenting their conclusions in a coherent way using appropriate language and style. If they can rely for all of that on AI, then AI will be doing it in ...

    In the Biblical story of Job, the devil challenged God that the righteous man Job was only a faithful believer due to God blessing him with wealth, family and good health, and if he were to be stripped of all this, he'd curse God. The devil challeneged God to take all wealth away and reduce Job to a wretched human being to prove his point. God then gave permision to the devil to tempt Job whilst taking away all he had. Job did not succumb and endured the test. This shows that God is almighty and it is only through His permission and will that the devil tempts us but it is through our free will that we choose how to act. Is AI God's permission to the devil to test man? Man seems to fail abysmally. Those who are able to see beyond the flashy exterior of technological innovation and progress, might be already retreating to calmer, more human-ridden, spaces. While Internet democratized access to and sharing of ideas and content, AI seems to be pushing people away t...

Formal teacher observations are an obligatory part of every teacher's journey but they can be rather stressful in most cases. They are institutional box-ticking exercises in most cases advertised as develpmental or opportunities for CPD. While they might be such for some (or in some contexts), for others they are an unnecessary and quite inauthentic experience bringing very little if anything by way of benefit to the tutor (not to mention it can be uncomfortable for the students as well). Some ways in which they are unnatural: ● they are disruptive as they impose additional burden on the teacher to prepare and perform for a higher level audience - it creates tension and stress ● they are inauthentic because they might urge the teacher to perform by the expected rules to show they have learnt them rather than go with the flow of their class and lesson ● they might leave the teacher anxious and feeling they are deficient as a teacher and professional because things didn't go as ...

Scaffolding is helping someone because they cannot do the task by themselves. But is this an assumption? Having strong instrinsic motivation, time and the necessary disposition, everyone can learn a skill. Being scaffolded teaches reliance among other things. If you scaffold someone to achieve an outcome, are you not devoiding them of the opportunity to strain themselves and acquire new skills? To be agentic, to learn by discovery? Maybe you will save them time and effort but is it beneficial in the long run? Is it not deskilling, spoiling the learner and making them expect support every time they start a new task. Gradual withdrawal of scaffolding (fading the scaffolding - see Pea, 2004) might be a good way to cultivate independence similar to how you teach a toddler to walk. You help them in the beginning and take them by the hand until they are stable enough to walk by themselves.  Another way scaffolding can be deficitizing the learner (just came up with that word) is that it c...

Pedagogical ideas, scholarship and interventions should aim to make a difference to teaching practise and learning outcomes first and foremost. Everything else is box ticking and ego. Very often the most valuable and meaningful innovations or tweaks come from obstacles and frustration with what we face in our daily teaching lives. This blog post was prompted by the below article and is largely a response and reflection on some of the ideas therein. Thirkell, E. (2026). Frugal pedagogical innovation: reframing creativity in higher education teaching. Teaching in Higher Education, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2026.2630374 https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13562517.2026.2630374#d1e717 This paper discusses pertinent issues that I can relate to and offers insights from three types of actors in HE on innovation. It focuses on the quiet, unrecognised innovation that happens in every classroom but remains hidden apart from staff room converstions and sharing of ideas. It a...

This week I had an introductory session with Chinese students coming to study at a UK university. One of the lesson aims was to introduce them to the active learning model which is commonly applied in Western educational institutions. We watched a carefully crafted presentation referring to recent research on the benefits and indeed better outcomes of the active learning approach as opposed to the passive learning model.  In the ensuing discussion I gained further insights into students' own learning experiences and idea of passive and active learning. It was interesting to note they considered passive from the point of view of their confidence in expressing their ideas. If they have knowledge of the topic they said they would be more active in participating and if they did not, they would keep silent which is only logical and natural. Personality types were also menteioned which further complicates the dychotomy. They were discussing it from the point of view of the self-awareness...