English language proficiency has long been recognised as important to the academic success of non-native English-speaking international students through the setting of minimum English language requirements as a condition of entry to Anglophone universities. The present study provides a historical account of the evolution in language entry standard…

Gamification, the application of game elements to non-game situations, has gained traction in education as a mechanism for improving motivation and/or learning outcomes. Although it is widely accepted that gamification enhances these aspects of engagement in business and education settings, there is equivocal supporting evidence. Research has…

As a result of reported failings in the care of people in the health and social care sector in the United Kingdom (UK), Higher Education (HE) providers who produce professionals to work in these areas are being challenged to address caring values in the student body. As values are subjective and affective, this requires the learning environment to…

This paper provides a commentary on a significant collaborative international project to set up an effective system for promoting innovation in the Australian higher education sector. This project was the pilot Transforming Practice Programme (TPP), which was run in Australia in 2014. A sophisticated knowledge translation methodology, the TPP was…

This article provides an example of how the World Café method can be used as a platform to encourage reflection on internationalisation in higher education. The World Café is a community engagement method that encourages participants to engage in reflection and dialogue in a relaxed and comfortable atmosphere. It promotes the use of multiple…

This article takes a reflective stance on the development of practice in scaffolding and mediating for creativity and potentially better performance in gymnastics. The pedagogical approach outlined illustrates how an experienced practitioner can adopt mediational (rather than meddling) and scaffolding techniques to focus on supporting the…

One of the most difficult challenges facing those entering the lifelong learning sector (LLS) as teaching practitioners is for them to discover their identity as educators. Unlike the majority of those entering training to teach in compulsory education, who follow the traditional route of acquiring subject specialism through university training,…

This article focuses on a blended learning curriculum development project, in which a student was "prospectively" engaged with teacher educators in developing resources designed to increase support for academic reading. Curriculum development took place at the University of Hertfordshire School of Education through the Change Academy for…

As universities change in response to their environment, so also do staff roles. In parallel with these changes, in recent years there has been significant incremental growth of provision designed to support the learning and development of university staff in the United Kingdom, so that several intersecting but distinct development communities now…

Since the 1980s higher education (HE) in the UK has been continually developing to meet the needs of a changing economy. An economy now based largely on knowledge and its transfer, rather than manual skills and labour, has led to an emphasis by the government on increasing the number of adults with high level skills to contribute to economic…

In this paper we discuss an approach to the teaching of information technology law to higher education computing students that attempts to prepare them for professional computing practice. As information technology has become ubiquitous its interactions with the law have become more numerous. Information technology practitioners, and in particular…

This article sets out to illustrate the needs of a registered blind undergraduate student embarking upon a post-A-level French course at the University of Northampton. It also reflects upon (1) some of the challenges faced by the higher education (HE) tutors concerned and (2) the key adjustments put into place with a view to adopting…

Development of a more scholarly approach to teaching at university may expose the novice university teacher to an apparent conflict in belief systems about teaching and learning (i.e. epistemological beliefs). Educational research is explicit in its recognition of a constructivist framework, whilst other academic research is often embedded more…

The development of teaching in higher education towards a more learner-orientated model has been supported by the literature on individual learning differences and on learning styles in particular. This has contributed to the evolution of university pedagogy away from a medieval transmission model than runs counter to contemporary understanding of…

As university lecturers select and sequence materials for their teaching, a linear structure emerges by default. Such a structure is made explicit within PowerPoint presentations and may even be amplified as PowerPoint invites the lecturer to reduce content to a bulleted format. Such linear sequences have been related to passive, surface…