The Learning Development Project

• Lisa Clughen: embodied learning for joyful learning

  How do we make the body not only our partner in learning, but our friend? And why would we even want to? The mind-body dualism espoused by Descartes in the 17th century continues to influence our thinking today, with the body – or more specifically, the emotions it houses – often represented as an obstacle to rational thought and therefore its enemy. This is little more than an enduring misogyny that positions emotions – the body – as feminine, irrational, and undesirable, and thought – the mind – as masculine, rational, and desirable. Yet we are all subject to this discourse, all of us alienated by western culture from our bodies and our emotions. Some of us find our way back, to connect what Lisa Clughen cites as ‘the intelligence of the flesh’ with cognition. Lisa strongly believes we should celebrate our embodiment and recognise its centrality to our learning and thinking processes. How many of us have walked or moved to help ease a thought into consciousness? How many have felt the excitement, the joy, when someone has praised something we have done? Similarly, we can aim to induce feelings of awe, interest, joy, amusement in our students to stimulate an emotional and more memorable response to their learning. And perhaps in doing so we can reconnect with our own bodies and our own emotions, and truly engage with the joy of learning and teaching. The resources we mentionedBordo, S. (1993). Unbearable weight: Feminism, Western culture and the body. University of California Press. Clughen, L. (2002), ‘Lorca's anorexics: hunger strike in the cause of selfhood’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, 79: 3, pp. 309-324. https://doi.org/10.3828/bhs.79.3.4 Clughen, L. (2014). ‘Embodied writing support’: the importance of the body in engaging students with writing. Journal of Writing in Creative Practice 7(2), pp.283-300. Available from:  https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/embodied-writing-support-lisa-clughenDana, D. Rhythm of regulation. Available from https://www.rhythmofregulation.com/glimmers Elbow, P.  (2012). Vernacular eloquence: What speech can bring to writing. Oxford University Press. Forster, E.M. (1909). The machine stops. Available from: https://www.cs.ucdavis.edu/~koehl/Teaching/ECS188/PDF_files/Machine_stops.pdf Fredrickson, B.L. (2004). The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B, Biological Sciences 359(1449): 1367-78. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2004.1512Grosz, E. (1995). Space, time and perversion: The politics of bodies. Routledge. hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom.  Taylor and Francis.Immordino‐Yang, M. and Damasio, A. (2007) We feel, therefore, we learn: the relevance of affective and social neuroscience to education. Mind, Brain, and Education, 1(1), pp.3-10.Available at: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1751-228X.2007.00004.xNeff, K. Self-compassion on her YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@NeffKristin Orbach, S. (2010). Bodies. Profile BooksRogers, C. ‘The Interpersonal Relationship in the Facilitation of Learning’, In M. Thorpe, R. Edwards and A. Hanson (eds.), Culture and Processes of Adult Learning, London and New York: Open University, (1993 (first published in 1967)), pp. 228242. Shilling, C. (1993). The body and social theory: Theory, culture and society. Sage PublicationsSuzuki, W. (2015). Healthy brain, happy life. Dey Street Books.Woolf, V. (1930). Streethaunting: A London adventure. Available from: https://www.literaturecambridge.co.uk/news/street-haunting And the article we talked aboutClughen, L. (2025). Eros in the classroom and beyond: cultivating positive emotions for learning, teaching and wellbeing in higher education. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (35). https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi35.1348 

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• James Lang: cultivating attention

  Learning does not happen without attention. But in a world so full of distractions, how can we ensure our students are paying attention? For Professor James Lang, the answer lies in deliberating cultivating attention in our students, rather than trying to limit distractions. And how do we do that? Think about what makes you pay attention. How do you help yourself focus? How, then, can you create these conditions for others? The key is to remember that attention is personal: not just in the sense that we all have our own interests, but also in that we need to create space in the subject for the individual. When we can see ourselves, or a connection to ourselves, in what we are learning, it is easier to be drawn into the material. Above all, paying attention brings joy, and as educators there is surely no greater joy than in deliberately creating those moments for others!The resources we mentionedGermano, W. 2016. Getting It Published: A Guide for Scholars and Anyone Else Serious about Serious Books, (3rd ed.). University of Chicago Press.Lamott, A. 1995. Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life. Anchor Books.Jim’s personal website: https://www.jamesmlang.com/ Jim’s substack, A General Education: https://jamesmlang.substack.com/ Jim’s podcast, Designed for LearningMiller, M.D. 2024. A Teacher’s Guide to Learning Student Names: Why You Should, Why It’s Hard, How You Can. University of Oklahoma Press.Sword, H. 2012. Stylish academic writing. Harvard University Press.Sword, H. 2017. Air & Light & Time & Space. Harvard University Press.And the publications we talked aboutLang, J. M. (2020) Distracted: Why students can't focus and what you can do about it. Hachette UK.Lang, J. M. (2025) Write Like You Teach: Taking Your Classroom Skills to a Bigger Audience. University of Chicago Press.

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• Lily Abadal: the value of slow thinking

  The eruption of generative AI into higher education prompted many educators, worried about the integrity of their courses (and the personal integrity of their students), to redesign their assessments, rejecting essays and other long-form pieces of writing in favour of ‘AI-proof’ reflective pieces or so-called authentic assessment formats instead. Lily Abadal, in contrast, believes not only that writing has deep implicit value in learning, but that it can be meaningfully achieved in a way that circumvents the temptations of AI. Engaging in a topic in depth, mulling over an issue, considering an argument, and then sitting with the discomfort of not having a clear and quick answer can all be difficult and uncomfortable. By learning how to think slowly and deeply, students come to understand that the discomfort is itself a sign of learning; designing these opportunities out serves no one. When we slow down, when we look for the meaning beyond the output, we can reconnect with our thought processes and relish the pleasure of learning. The resources we mentionedAbadal, L.M. (2025) Only the Humanities can save the university from AI. Public Discourse, 21 July. Available from: https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2025/07/98429/ Lily’s website: https://www.drlilyabadal.com/ Hadot, P. (1995). Philosophy as a Way of Life: Spiritual Exercises from Socrates to Foucault. Wiley-Blackwell.James Lang’s articles on The Chronicle of Higher Education. Pascal’s WagerStrunk, W. and White, E.B. (1999) The Elements of Style (4th ed.). Pearson.Syska, A. (2025). We tried to kill the essay - now let’s resurrect it. The LSE Blog, 27 February. Available from: https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducation/2025/02/27/we-tried-to-kill-the-essay-now-lets-resurrect-it/ And the publications we talked aboutAbadal, L.M. (2025) Drafted: A Workbook for Slow Thinking in the Age of AI. Available from: https://www.drlilyabadal.com/drafted-workbook.html Abadal, L.M. (2024) 'Ensuring genuine assessment in philosophy education: strategies for scaffolding writing assessment in an LLM era', Teaching Philosophy, 47(1), pp. 143-165. doi: 10.5840/teachphil2024422195.

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• Carina Buckley and Alicja Syska: writing as anchor

  We’ve been thinking about the connections between professional identity and writing in the context of third space for a few years now, and it seems ever more pertinent in these times of uncertainty, transition and change. We see colleagues change roles or leave academia, not always of their own volition, and we experience it ourselves. With change inevitably comes loss, but some of the things we have been thinking and writing about might be of use in this turbulent context. Writing for publication acts as an anchor for identity, a trail of breadcrumbs of our thoughts and of who we were when we committed them to posterity, and writing in third space in particular can be an act of resistance: to the crush of loss, to the absence of identity, to the fear of transition. By choosing what we write, how we write it, and where we publish, we create ourselves again and again in our writing. No matter our role or where change might take us, our writing remains a way for us to hold onto who, at heart, we are. The resources we mentionedThe Third Space SymposiumOur Slowposium padletAnd the article we talked aboutBuckley, C., Syska, A. and Heggie, L. (2024) ‘Grounded in liquidity: writing and identity in third space’. London Review of Education, 22 (1), 26. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14324/LRE.22.1.26.

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• Sandra Abegglen: collaboration for social justice

  Sandra's secrets of collaboration:Openness to the experience and what it bringsRecognition of our human nature and the need for being with otherWe can - and must? - make time and space for each other. Hold onto the in-between spaces where we can come together; create meetings without agendas, where things can emerge.Collaboration is more than simply working with others. It’s more, even, than working successfully with others. It is, rather, a direct pathway towards social justice through its absolute commitment to equality. Universities therefore have a social obligation to do collaboration well, both internally and with external partners, which means raising up marginalised voices and dismantling power relationships. Our students need to experience positive learning experiences with other people. There are undoubtedly challenges: working to a deadline (and bringing others along to it); ensuring space for everyone to contribute; being conscious of our own bias and preconceptions. But these are all within our gift. Reclaim your agency! That way true collaboration lies. If you would like to explore what this means with Sandra, this is your invitation to reach out and have a conversation. The resources we mentionedDevisch, I. (2006). The Sense of Being(-) with Jean-Luc Nancy. Culture Machine vol. 8. Available at: https://culturemachine.net/community/the-sense-of-being/ Robertson, N. S. and Neuhaus, F. (2024). The asocial society and urban form in Canada: A scoping study. Canadian Journal of Urban Research 33(1)And the books we talked aboutAbegglen, S., Burns, T., Heller, R., Madhok, R., Neuhaus, F., Sinfield, S. and Gitanjali Singh, U.  (Eds.) (2025) Stories of hope: Reimagining education. Open Book Publishers. Available at: https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0462 Abegglen, S., Burns, T. & Sinfield, S. (Eds.) (2023). Higher education collaboration: A new ecology of practice. Bloomsbury.

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