The Learning Development Project

Learning Development, as a form of labour in higher education, is part of a complex ecosystem that has a huge impact on our professional identity. Our values, the expectations we have for our role (along with those our managers have for us), our positioning - structural as well as relational - within our institutions and the work we do, all contribute to the professional practice of learning development. Key to that practice, for Silvina Bishopp-Martin, is the language and the discourse surrounding it. How we talk about ourselves matters; how our institutions talk about us matters too. Yet we do have agency, even within institutional constraints. Language is a form of social action, and the first action we must take is to be part of the discourse, to speak the language of those we wish to influence. We have the capacity to do things differently and make our voices heard if we work collectively. Seek out the champions in your institution and build your networks!
The resources we mentioned
The ALDinHE Research Incubator event was held in May 2026 - watch out for the next one!
Fairclough, N. (1992) Discourse and social change. Cambridge: Polity. 
Fairclough, N. (2001) Language and Power. 2nd edn. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited.  
Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing discourse: textual analysis for social research. London: Routledge. 
Fairclough, N. (2010) Critical discourse analysis: the critical study of language. 2nd edn. Harlow: Pearson Education Limited. 
And the publication we talked about
Bishopp-Martin, S. (2026). A Case Study Analysis of the Discursive and Institutional Complexities Underpinning Learning Development Professional Practice in Higher Education. Available from: https://pure.canterbury.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/18336293/Thesis_-_Silvina_Bishopp-Martin.pdf

Why do we have exams? The idea of the memorisation and narrative regurgitation of facts being a measure of learning is, in many ways, quite absurd. The exam system can also be excluding of students with different linguistic, cultural and social capital from those for whom the system was originally developed (nearly 200 years ago, for Oxbridge candidates, if you’re interested). We know that authentic, practical assessment can remove some socially-embedded hierarchies, but changes to the operational mechanics alone will not resolve these issues of inclusion: the social space has to be changed as well, through our pedagogical dynamics, through our language and through our assessment processes. The awarding gap is all about what can be measured or counted, but inclusion is about how students feel in, belong to and navigate through the educational space. Students who feel included, to whom assessment can really speak, will do better and achieve more. When we aim for the transformative over the transactional, everybody wins. 
The resources we mentionedNazir, M. B., Johnson, K., Greenhalgh, J., Aston, L., & Pedley, N. (2026). Exploring student assessment literacy: how undergraduate students actualise and transform their assessment strategies. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (39). https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi39.1798 
An article that explores the relationship between intellectual knowledge and transmitted knowledge in Islam. 

And the publication we talked about
Nazir, M. B. (2025). Understanding inclusive assessment: how British Pakistani male graduates engage with university assessments. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (36). https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi36.1478

When is ‘transparency’ not transparent? When it comes in the form of policy that carries different levels of risk for staff and students. For Chahna Gonsalves, the biggest issue with institutional AI policies is that it adds what she terms ‘interpretive load’ to students: the idea that they have to weigh up the risk of declaring their uses of generative AI in an environment that doesn’t adequately or explicitly set clear boundaries. For AI policies to be useful, they have to speak in pedagogical language to everyone, rather than punitive. It’s the quality of our feedback and the clarity of our expectations that counts, and staying true to the criteria we say we’re assessing. We’re looking for effort from our students so perhaps we can ensure that our own effort is clear too, in the form of understanding what these tools are capable of. And they are capable of much, but perhaps we need to embrace slow learning and failure as our dominant pedagogies in this new fast-paced world of instant gratification. Let’s all give ourselves a break and take the time to think!
The resources we mentioned
Illingworth, S. (2026). What UK university AI policies actually do: A study of 96 institutions. Available from: https://www.hepi.ac.uk/reports/what-uk-university-ai-policies-actually-do-a-study-of-96-institutions/ 

And the publication we talked about
Gonsalves, C. (2026). The transparency trap: Generative AI and the rise of interpretive load. Review of Education 14(1), https://doi.org/10.1002/rev3.70139

Student-staff partnerships (SSPs) offer multiple benefits to all participants. While we might most often think about the pedagogic, employability or experience gains for students, SSPs can also help staff think through various issues from new perspectives, for example the potential gains brought by technology enhanced learning and AI advances and developments. There are a healthy set of challenges too, not least the unavoidable power dynamics. Sharing power does not come naturally, and participants will bring their own cultural experiences with them into an SSP. We can’t remove power or avoid it, so how best to manage these dynamics? For our guest Nurun Nahar, communication is key, specifically around expectations: what do we expect of our students? What are their roles in the project, and what value do we see them adding? And what are they expecting from us? Then together the team can agree the aims and objectives of the project, and the principles by which it will run. So far, so pragmatic (and wise!). But SSPs are also relational and personal, and Nurun recommends reflecting on the emotional journey as a participant, as part of the evaluation of impact. 
The resources we mentioned
Margaret Atwood - Canadian novelist and poet
Bengali writers:
Satyajit Ray - filmmaker and novelist
Sarat chandra Chatterjee - novelist
Rabindranath Tagore - Nobel Prize winner in Literature for Geetanjali
Mike Sharples - Emeritus Professor of Educational Technology
TIRIgogy CPD resources - and Alicja’s podcast episode with Nurun!

And the publication we talked about
Nahar, N., Storey, T., Azhar, A., Lomas, V., & Jabbar, K. (2024). From Collaboration to Transformation: A Reflective Exploration of Student-Staff Partnerships for Technology Enhanced Learning in Higher Education. Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal, 5(2), 76–91. Retrieved from https://sehej.raise-network.com/raise/article/view/1213

Remember when you started as a Learning Developer? What it was like to welcome a student into a tutorial for the first time, and stand in front of your first class ready to run a workshop? Do you remember what it felt like to flounder? For Joy Igiebor, that feeling of floundering and unknowing, and the questions it prompted – who am I as an LD? what does the job mean? – came to seem like a rite of passage, a process of drawing on our prior knowledge and experiences as we gradually build our identities in this field. As we build our confidence and competence, so do we become more able to advocate for the role, our work, and our students. And when we bring theory and practice together, in a deep understanding of praxis, we are able to speak with so much more authority. Getting there, though – that can take time. So for any new or early career Learning Developers who’ve stopped to wonder what on earth they’re doing, here are Joy’s top three pieces of advice:
You’re not alone. We are a strong and vibrant community, waiting to hear from you.

Making mistakes is part of the role. Failure is learning. Reflect, revise, and try again.

Join a professional association, whether ALDinHE or ScotHELD (or SEDA, CILIP or ALT), and access information and knowledge on wider contextual issues and values, to ground your individual practice and give it meaning.

And our own advice: get yourself a copy of this book!

The resources we mentioned
Abegglen, S., Burns, T., Sinfield, S. (2021) Supporting Student Writing and Other Modes of Learning and Assessment. A Staff Guide. Calgary: University of Calgary. http://repository.londonmet.ac.uk/6970/1/Writing-guide-2021_2021.05.25.pdf 
Arthur, R. (2023) “‘Conscious’ learning development: towards a pedagogy of race-consciousness ”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (26). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.vi26.928.
Burns, T. & Sinfield, S. 2022. Essential study skills: The complete guide to success at university (5th ed.). Sage.
Dhillon, S. (2018) “Whose wellbeing is it anyway?”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. doi: 10.47408/jldhe.v0i0.460.
Igiebor, J. (2023). What the learning developer needs to know. Take5 #84, available from https://aldinhe.ac.uk/take5-84-what-the-learning-developer-needs-to-know/ 
Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education
Lamott, A. 1995. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anchor Books.
Syska, A. and Buckley, C. (eds.) (2023) How to be a Learning Developer in higher education: Critical perspectives, community and practice. Routledge.  
Webster, H. 2019. “Towards a Signature Pedagogy of Learning Development.” Rattus Scholasticus blog. Accessed 2 July 2022. https://rattusscholasticus.wordpress.com/2019/07/28/towards-a-signature-pedagogy-of-learning-development/. 
Zinsser, W. 2016. On writing well: The classic guide to writing nonfiction. New York: Harper Perennial.

And the publication we talked about
Igiebor, J. (2026). Doing Learning Development in Higher Education: a practical guide for new and early career learning developers. Routledge