The Learning Development Project

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

We talk about wanting to empower our students, but what does that really mean? For Laura Dyer, it means that we are the ones holding the power and we extend it to our students – whereas what we could and should be doing instead is helping students to tap into the power that they already have. This makes power such an important outcome of the humanistic pedagogy model she has developed, which brings together People, Place and Compassion to support students in accessing their power. A humanistic approach aims to teach the whole person, not the subject. It also acknowledges that emotions are central to the learning process and can impact its outcomes both positively and negatively. And what is it like for us, as teachers? As people in a learning environment, we also want to enjoy what we do and have self-compassion as we do it. Content might be king, but perhaps it’s time that the people teaching and learning it took its place!
The resources we mentioned
Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi’s ideas about flow and its contribution to happiness
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
The Montessori method
Pekrun, R. (2014). International Handbook of Emotions in Education. Routledge
Rogers, 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. 228-242. 
Shahjahan, R. A. (2015). Being ‘lazy’ and slowing down: Toward decolonizing time, our body, and pedagogy. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 47(5), 488-501, https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2014.880645
And the publication we talked aboutDyer, L. (2025). A humanistic approach to English for academic purposes pedagogy: people, place, compassion, power. Springer Nature.

All learning is social, but not all learning is social learning. For Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner, the distinction between the two lies in three crucial factors: the pursuit of learning to make a difference; the engagement of uncertainty; and the paying of attention to what might emerge. Learning then becomes embodied, the engagement of the whole person in their world and a willingness to shape and respond to that world. More than just the content of learning, their idea of systems convening asks, who am I in the world, using this content to change things? Identity is therefore central to learning and indeed gives it its power, in that it is not just about learning what to do, what to say, what to think, but about how we experience the world. The landscape of learning is a place of potential, and in experiencing it, in turn it offers us new ways of seeing and experiencing ourselves. 
And yes, this may seem very theoretical. But as Etienne points out, learning theory matters. It’s how we recognise learning, how we support it, and how we assess it. Our only task is to decide how we might make it our own.
The publication we talked about
Wenger-Trayner, E. and Wenger-Trayner, B. (2021). Systems convening: A crucial form of leadership for the 21st century. The Social Learning Lab. Available from: https://www.wenger-trayner.com/systems-convening-book/

What has philosophy got to do with learning development? And why should learning development be concerned with philosophy? For Jason Eyre – indeed, for all philosophers – philosophy gives us new ways to think about things and new concepts we can work with, to understand not necessarily the answer to a question (such as, What is LD?) but alternative ways we can engage with that question. Jason (with some help from his cat, Peppercorn, who you might hear in this episode) wants LD to consider its tendencies more than its boundaries, its connectedness more than its categories. When we don’t pin something down, we can focus instead on our commonalities. The world is ever changing and higher education changes with it; rather than be left behind in our rigid definitions, by situating ourselves in our contexts we can stay responsive. And by keeping our emphasis on relationality, and the communities in which we work, we can find resilience in each other, boost each other’s agency, and discover joy. Surely such a gift is worth spending some time with Deleuze? Failing that, spend it with Jason; you won’t regret it. 
The resources we mentioned
Dhillon, S. (2025). Book review: Eyre, J. (2025) Learning Development in higher education: crisis, practice, and power in the 21st century university. Singapore: Springer. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (38). https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi38.1819
Didion, J. (2021). Why I write. Literary Hub. Available at: https://lithub.com/joan-didion-why-i-write/ 
Spinoza: a useful introduction is available from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. You might find the section on Virtue and Happiness particularly useful. 
For an introduction to the concept of the virtual vs the actual, as conceived by Bergson and developed by Deleuze, this short article in Epoche Magazine will give you plenty of text to dwell with!
And the publication we talked about
Eyre, J. (2025). Learning Development in Higher Education: Crisis, Practice, and Power in the 21st Century University. Springer, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-96-8802-9