ABSTRACT. Welcome Back to Second Day of ESLTIS Conference

ABSTRACT. Jenny’s journey started as an inorganic (boron) chemistry researcher, from where she has developed as a teacher and scholar of education, and become a member and leader of a vibrant HE community. Combining the themes of the conference with the underpinning ethos of ESLTIS, this talk will meander through Jenny’s work enhancing student learning through innovation, supporting student success, belonging, and inclusion by applying scholarship in practice, and reflecting on the importance of her learning and teaching community and the ongoing development of her identity as an academic leader within it. Covering the possibilities in professional skills, small group teaching, and laboratory pedagogies, and revisiting the Science Teaching Network from the inaugural ESLTIS 2015 presentation, Jenny hopes the talk will have something for everyone in the audience.

ABSTRACT. Education-focused academics are central to student learning, curriculum enhancement, and pedagogic innovation, yet many experience uncertainty around identity, visibility, recognition, and progression. This workshop presents a co-created Education-Focused Academic Identity Toolkit designed to help colleagues articulate their academic identities, evidence their impact, and identify the opportunities and structures needed for sustainable development. Developed through collaborative inquiry with academics at different career stages, the Toolkit supports participants to reflect on their route into academia, current role profile, desired future identity, and the barriers and enablers shaping progression. The session aligns with ESLTIS 2026’s theme of fostering student success and educator growth in complex times by addressing the sub-themes of Academic Identities, Workload, and Professional Sustainability. Participants will engage in structured identity mapping, coaching-informed discussion, and collaborative reflection to produce a personalised identity profile and actionable next steps for mentoring, appraisal, promotion, and professional development. The initiative contributes a practical, transferable, scholarship-informed resource that helps make invisible educational labour visible and supports the sustainable academic practice on which student learning depends.

ABSTRACT. This workshop will consider the potential role of peer support during the master’s dissertation phase for PGT students as a way to foster belonging and wellbeing. We invite participants to engage in collaborative exploration on the challenges of developing and supporting students to implement effective peer support strategies and activities. The workshop will cover a number of the conference sub-themes including Supporting Student Success, Belonging, and Inclusion, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) in Practice (particularly low resource scholarship), Partnership, Collaboration, and Community in Learning and Teaching.

Previous research has highlighted that a significant proportion of PGT students in the UK, face unexpected challenges during their transition from UG to PGT studies (Coneyworth et al., 2019; Evans et al., 2018). The intensity of the one-year PGT programmes in the UK can be overwhelming. These challenges include extensive academic demands (Evans et al., 2018), cultural differences, financial pressures (Smith & Khawaja, 2011), and external commitments (O’Donnell et al., 2009), which can lead to confusion, frustration, a lack of confidence in their academic abilities, and a sense of isolation. Peer support programmes have been identified as a particularly effective approach to support students (Maccabe & Fonseca, 2021), promoting a sense of community belonging and wellbeing through collaborative engagement between students. Given the significant resources required to support students construct and implement peer support programmes, it is vital to understand the relationship between taking part and key external (e.g. PTES) and internal indicators of success. There is limited published evidence on how best to support one-year PGT students and develop sense of belonging through peer support.

We invite participants to engage in our workshop to share ideas and approaches to engaging in peer support as an approach to support sense of belonging and supporting student success during master’s study.

ABSTRACT. This presentation addresses an innovative pedagogical approach developed by the MA in Public Relations teaching team at Newcastle University for the 2025/26 academic year: NetWalks. NetWalks combine the principles of networking with the physical and cognitive benefits of walking, creating dynamic spaces for students to engage with academic concepts and discussions beyond the classroom. The NetWalks are a response to students’ PTES feedback which suggested a lack of community beyond the classroom and a response to the university's Education for Life agenda aimed at placing students at the centre of learning via future-facing structured sessions that allow for meaningful, reflective interactions. These sessions encourage informal dialogue, peer-to-peer learning, and real-world application of concepts relating to their PGT programme while promoting CPD, professional connections, and community-building in a relaxed environment. To evaluate the impact of this initiative, we conducted interviews with participating students to understand how NetWalks have influenced their learning experience, confidence in applying theoretical knowledge, and sense of belonging within the academic community. Preliminary findings suggest that students perceive NetWalks as a valuable complement to traditional teaching methods, citing benefits such as improved comprehension, enhanced networking skills, and increased motivation. It improves the quality of submissions in class and provides an informal opportunity for students to connect the theories learnt in class to the world around them. This presentation will discuss the inspiration for the NetWalks considering PTES data and student voice, share insights from the Teaching Staff involved in their development and student interviews, discuss the theoretical underpinnings of experiential learning in PR education, and offer practical recommendations for integrating similar approaches into curricula to promote active learning and student engagement.

ABSTRACT. The transition to university, from high school or college, represents a significant shift in academic culture and expectations. As a result, new students may be reluctant to voice concerns or propose constructive ideas, even when these could improve their own learning experience. This often means that teaching teams first become aware of issues too late to implement what may be simple, impactful changes.

This paper presents an initiative within the School of Computer Science at the University of Sheffield designed to promote ongoing, small-scale collaboration between first-year students and teaching staff on two 1st year modules. The approach incentivises constructive engagement through use of course specific ‘low-budget’ awards. We report a substantial increase in feedback participation rates during the initiative’s first semester, including outside of the targeted modules; and describe a perceived improvement in willingness of students to communicate concerns and contribute to module development.

ABSTRACT. Curricular infrastructure which embeds collaboration, motivates intrinsic student engagement, fosters experiential learning and produces knowledge is valuable to students and instructors alike. An example is the Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) model which, while not well-known in the United Kingdom, is now established in more than fifty universities across every continent. A VIP is an on-going, open-ended and evolving group research project comprising a team of students from different levels of study (the “vertical” dimension) and led by one or more academic supervisors. Most projects welcome students from a range of degree programmes, breaking down disciplinary barriers, and benefitting from a diversity of perspectives, mixed academic backgrounds and complementary skill sets. Students earn credit, often different levels of credit on the same project, and can, in principle, remain on the project for several semesters, subject to the constraints of their programme requirements. This presentation reflects on the provision of VIP at the University of St Andrews since its initial implementation in 2020. We look at evidence on the benefits and challenges for students and staff generated by this novel and transformational curricular design. The presentation will include consideration of employability skills, assessment, learning outcomes and the ways in which VIP lends itself to productive involvement with external parties.

ABSTRACT. Sub-theme: Supporting Student Success, Belonging, and Inclusion

Developing students’ confidence in communicating complex ideas clearly and engagingly is a key priority in higher education, particularly given the strong emphasis employers place on these skills. However, many students feel hesitant to engage in traditional presentation formats that are tied to assessment. This paper presents PsychSparks, a co-curricular Psychology public speaking competition designed to offer students a supportive space for developing their communication skills while sharing ideas they are genuinely passionate about. PsychSparks was developed collaboratively with a student partner, whose contribution to the event’s design and promotion ensured it was relevant and engaging for peers. The event itself brings students and staff together in a supportive community setting, where participants deliver 6-minute talks on a psychological study, theory, or phenomenon that has sparked their interest. This format encourages clarity, engagement, and personal relevance. The winning talk is decided by an audience vote, but all speakers receive a certificate of achievement for taking part. The event fosters a sense of academic belonging by bringing students and staff together as a community of learners, where diverse interests and perspectives are shared and valued. We outline the design and delivery of the event, including prep support offered to speakers. Drawing on post-event feedback, we highlight impacts on students’ confidence in public speaking, and their sense of belonging within the academic community. The session aims to inspire colleagues to adopt the PsychSparks model within their own discipline and will offer practical resources to support this.

ABSTRACT. We sought to investigate student opinions on their transition into studying chemistry at the University of Glasgow. Inspired by recent reports which have evidenced the struggles faced by direct entry students,1 the differing experiences of students entering university with alternative qualifications,2 and the fact that one in seven fair access pupils do not progress past the first year of university study,3 our study aimed to consider the impact of student educational background on their transition experience. We aimed to identify barriers to success and make suggestions for further support or curriculum redesign which would enable all students to thrive.

To investigate our research question, we conducted a mixed-methods approach using a survey, investigating three key areas: academic preparedness, sense of belonging, and AI usage. With 120 responses, both qualitative and quantitative results indicate that the transition experience of students depends strongly upon the level of their previous highest qualification in chemistry and therefore, on their educational background. Additionally, regardless of previous qualifications, students taking “non-traditional” routes into university (widening participation, direct entry or mature students) were more likely to report a negative sense of belonging.

1 A. M. Bikanga, Trends High. Educ., 2025, 4, 57. DOI: 10.3390/higheredu4040057 2 A.G. Jimenez, D.P. August, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 2025, 26, 926–935. DOI: 10.1039/d5rp00129c 3 J.H. McKendrick, Progress as a precursor to a pivot: fair access in Scotland in 2026 and beyond, Commissioner for Fair Access Annual Report 2025/26, Scottish Government.

ABSTRACT. The University of Sheffield’s Lifelong Learning Foundation Year supports mature students into undergraduate level study across 40+ degree programmes, ranging from philosophy to pharmacy. Maths anxiety is a significant issue for many of our students who view the core Maths & Statistics module as a barrier to their education rather than a space to develop essential academic skills.

After consulting with subject tutors, past students and study skills specialists, I redesigned the Maths & Statistics curriculum with a focus on pedagogical interventions designed to dismantle this ‘maths anxiety’ barrier through confidence-building and modelling interdisciplinary relevance. This included scaffolded assessments to build confidence and a new initiative that invited interdisciplinary tutors to demonstrate the relevance of a maths topic to their subject area.

This 5-minute oral bite focuses on the methodology used to quantify the impact of this ‘inclusive’ curriculum. By comparing initial maths admissions test scores with final module grades, we evidenced a decoupling of entry-level maths ability from final module outcomes. This lack of correlation serves as a key indicator of the module’s impact, demonstrating that students in the lowest decile of prior attainment can (and do!) achieve first-class module grades. Alongside student feedback and anecdotal evidence, this data-led approach allows us to show that inclusive pedagogy can effectively close the attainment gap.

This session invites colleagues to reflect on how we can use similar metrics to validate scholarship in widening participation and support non-traditional students through higher education.

ABSTRACT. Effective evaluation helps us to better understand the needs of our communities and how we can help them thrive. This is crucial for driving meaningful impact within higher education. However, there is a lack of consensus on what evaluation is (Wanzer, 2020; Gullickson, 2021). Within higher education, this becomes more complex with multiple individuals, teams or departments evaluating teaching, learning and other university work, often in silos, working towards similar goals but under different regulatory guidelines (Kelly, 2024). This can often engrain subject, discipline or professional silos in which higher education appears to operate.

This interactive workshop explores how a cross‑institution partnership of educators and professional services colleagues has collaborated to challenge siloed working and co-create a supportive and engaged evaluation culture, underpinned by learning and reflection.

The workshop begins with a brief overview of the partnership approach to building positive, accessible institution-wide evaluation culture at the University of Southampton: the Evaluation Community of Practice (ECoP). Drawing on two years of activity, we’ll share the What? So What? And What Now? (Driscoll, 2007) model to our community. We will outline learning, development and impact of supporting an evaluation culture through inclusive engagement, development opportunities and connecting professionals across a complex institution. We’ll present data on how this community of practice has fostered collaborative learning, shared leadership and cross‑role partnerships that support professional development across roles and faculties.

Our approach models a partnership‑oriented framework that can be adapted by other institutions to build collaborative, inclusive evaluation communities across the sector. As part of the workshop, participants will be invited to explore and share what inclusive, accessible and impactful evaluation culture should aim to achieve within their own contexts.

Using reflective prompts and mapping activities from previous ECoP sessions, attendees will identify what drives effective evaluation, what supports or constrains its practice, and the cultural conditions that affect implementation within higher education institutions. This will establish a foundation for rich, solution-focused discussions on practical strategies to strengthen evaluation capability and confidence across the sector. Participants will benefit from engaging in collaborative discussions, learning from others and leave with practical insights for building evaluative culture, community and practice within their organisations.

ABSTRACT. Student incivility, including lateness, phone use, low-level disruption, and disengagement (Knepp, 2012; Cahyadi et al., 2021), is one of the most frequently cited challenges facing educators in higher education today, yet it remains under-discussed in professional learning spaces. Far from being simply a matter of individual misconduct, these behaviours are shaped by shifting student demographics, post-pandemic classroom cultures, the student-as-consumer dynamic, and broader structural pressures, all of which intersect with students’ sense of belonging and inclusion. Incivility also represents a threat to professional authority, wellbeing, and safety, leading to defensiveness, reduced openness, and increased reliance on control-based responses that risk infantilising students as if they were school pupils. Taking an ethically-grounded approach, we are interested in the notion of 'pedagogical hospitality'. This requires the deliberate cultivation - and repair - of the affective conditions that make participation and responsibility possible in the classroom, understanding that students are subjects of action and responsibility (Biesta, 2013). In this interactive workshop we invite participants to examine incivility not as a deficit to be managed, but as a pedagogical and relational issue. Drawing on the concept of academic hospitality, including the practice of affective welcoming, epistemological openness, and relational ways of being with students (Phipps & Barnett, 2007; McCune et al., 2024), we reframe disruption as, at least in part, a signal about how hospitable our learning environments really are. Drawing on emerging findings from staff and student interviews, we explore how educators interpret and experience disruptive behaviour and how students understand their own actions, challenging deficit narratives and opening space for more curious, compassionate responses. The session includes a structured scenario-based activity in which participants work in small groups to analyse real-world vignettes, consider multiple perspectives (staff and student), and co-develop practical strategies grounded in hospitality and inclusion. We also introduce key elements of our approach: reframing away from behaviour management towards notions of reception and engagement; encouraging colleagues to ask what conditions have failed for participation to break down, rather than focusing on how to ‘correct behaviour’. This supports a move from reactive control to proactive design, pedagogical as well as ethos-based, alongside clearer expectations, recognition of the student as a partner, and relational stability in teaching spaces. Participants will leave with practical strategies, a broader conceptual lens for understanding incivility, and access to draft materials. This workshop is relevant to educators, academic developers, and anyone navigating the relational complexities of today’s classrooms.

References: Biesta, G.(2013) The Beautiful Risk of Education, Routledge: New York. Cahyadi, A., Rustaman, N.Y. and Rahmawati, Y. (2021) ‘Student incivility in higher education: Causes and coping strategies’, Journal of Educational Development, 45(3), pp. 233–247. Knepp, K.A.F. (2012) ‘Understanding student and faculty incivility in higher education’, Journal of Effective Teaching, 12(1), pp. 32–45. McCune, V., Cousquer, G., Ewins, K. and Markauskaite, L. (2024) 'Academic hospitality in interdisciplinary education as a form of resistance', paper presented at the Society for Research into Higher Education Annual Research Conference, Newport, December 2024. Phipps, A. and Barnett, R. (2007) 'Academic hospitality', Arts and Humanities in Higher Education, 6(3), pp. 237–254.

ABSTRACT. Generative AI (GenAI) tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini are now woven into students’ everyday academic and personal routines, but what does this mean for their wellbeing and capacity to flourish at university? While sector conversations often centre on misconduct and performance, this research shifts the lens to students lived experiences, exploring how GenAI shapes confidence, engagement, relationships and sense of self. Using flourishing theory and Listening Room methodology, friendship pairs at a UK university engaged in timed, prompt‑led conversations about their use of GenAI. Students described the technology as an augmentative tool that helps them interpret assessment briefs, break down complex tasks and refine communication, boosting perceived competence and motivation. Yet they also raised concerns around fairness, over‑reliance, skill atrophy, misinformation and the emerging notion of GenAI as an emotional “friend”. The findings reveal a dual narrative: GenAI can both support and erode flourishing. The presentation will discuss implications for human‑centred institutional guidance that prioritises student wellbeing alongside academic integrity and capability development when considering the use of GenAI.

ABSTRACT. In a higher education landscape marked by constant disruption, this paper draws on selected findings from a doctoral study to reimagine teaching excellence as a practice unfolding across a turbulent canvas—a shifting terrain shaped by neoliberal pressures, technological change, and the lived realities of educators. Using a critical, arts-informed portraiture methodology (CPM), the study constructs narrative portraits of three working-class academics—Dave, Patrick, and Elizabeth—to explore how teaching is crafted, contested, and sustained within conditions of uncertainty.

Grounded in critical pedagogy and critical qualitative inquiry, the research intended to foreground grass roots academic voices, challenge reductive, metric-driven constructions of teaching excellence, and illuminate the relational and creative dimensions of pedagogy. While not an explicit focus at the outset, working-class identity emerged as a significant and unifying thread across participants’ narratives, shaping how they understand teaching, students, and their role within the academy.

The findings presented here highlight how these educators work against the grain of performative and managerial regimes. Dave conceptualises teaching as an act of restoration, enabling students facing structural disadvantage to exceed their own expectations. Elizabeth’s account reveals the tension between humanising, collaborative pedagogies and the rigid architectures of institutional performativity . Patrick’s narrative exposes the corrosive effects of precarity and managerialism, while maintaining a deeply relational commitment to students.

Across these portraits, teaching emerges as a form of relational, creative, and critical praxis, where care, dialogue, and inclusion are central to student well-being and success, particularly for those navigating structural disadvantage. The metaphor of a turbulent canvas captures how these educators improvise, adapt, and resist—working within constrained institutional spaces while continuing to create meaningful educational encounters. Creativity here is not ornamental, but foundational, shaping how they foster belonging, critical engagement, and transformative learning.

By foregrounding working-class academic identities as a generative force, the paper challenges dominant, metric-driven constructions of teaching excellence and calls for a more expansive, socially just understanding of pedagogical practice. In so doing, it contributes to debates on inclusive learning and teaching, and academic identities in times of disruption.

ABSTRACT. This talk presents the outcomes of a funded project that built on T&L innovation embraced in the Department of Languages and Cultures at the University of Reading, where OneNote Class Notebook (CN) was trialled during the Covid-19 pandemic to overcome the constraints of teaching a language remotely. CN proved to be effective beyond the remote environment, but some ‘technical’ problems and issues with ‘student learning experience’, and ‘learning environment design’ emerged. The project aimed to enhance student learning by improving the use of CN, and had the objective to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and expertise, gain insights into students’ experience of CN, and inform decision-making on the tool by the Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) team and Digital Technology Services (DTS). The outcomes provided knowledge of students’ experience of CN, and increased students' engagement with CN learning activities – as evidenced by a survey. It also provided understanding of the type of support needed by CN users to staff users of CN, and colleagues in TEL and DTS. Moreover, it created a ‘space’ for an ongoing sharing of practices, knowledge, experience and expertise. The approach used to enhance the use of CN was based on theories of language development grounded in a dynamic view of ‘language’ and ‘language learning’ (Kramsch, 2008; Larsen-Freeman, 2014), and in an ecological perspective on learning environments.

ABSTRACT. This oral bite demonstrates how GenAI can be used as an entertaining and accessible tool to introduce the literary form of the Gothic to a diverse cohort of mature learners on the Humanities and Social Sciences strands of the University of Sheffield Lifelong Learning Foundation Year. Notoriously difficult to define, the Gothic can be identified through an easily recognisable set of tropes and motifs. It, therefore, lends itself to the generation of creative outputs through large language models. Students were asked to respond to a series of detailed prompts reimagining contemporary textual forms (e.g. a lonely hearts column, a restaurant review, a secondhand car advertisement) in the style of the Gothic and then to reflect on what these outputs could teach them about both the Gothic and the uses and pitfalls of GenAI. We will recreate some example outputs in real time and consider how the activity can deepen knowledge and understanding of how literary tropes and motifs operate as well opening up a discursive space for students to reflect critically on the opportunities for and dangers of using GenAI in their own research and writing.

ABSTRACT. Conference Reflections and Close