08/09/2025 - The Start of my PGCert: Redrafting my educational philosophy
Over the past weekend, I had the chance to revise and expand on my education philosophy. I had initially written it for my AFHEA application back in 2022. I found this to be a useful task to reflect on my development as a tutor, lecturer, and senior lecturer over the past three years and since I started teaching in 2020. (I began teaching alongside my PhD at the University of Stirling (Jan 2020) and continued with varying teaching loads until the end of my PhD in May 2024. After briefly teaching at Victoria College of Arts & Design in London, I joined Ravensbourne University London in October 2024 where I first became Lecturer and then Senior Lecturer in February 2025.) While I maintained my views and position toward working with international students and preference for small group teaching, I further sharpened my perspective on the learner/teacher relationship, primarily seeing myself as "meddler in the middle", moving away from the "sage on a stage" approach to teaching.
Following my revised educational philosophy (which can be found on this website), I have set my self two personal learning outcomes to be achieved during my PGCert journey:
LO1: Showcase advanced teaching & learning skills and critical reflection on my engagement with SoTL.
LO2: Develop a strong portfolio of techniques and activities (repertoire) that help facilitate active learning and ensure high student engagement.
20/09/2025 - Meeting my PGCert Triad, Starting the Research Task
Earlier this week, we met for the first time as a triad (3 of us enrolled on the PGCert). It was enriching to hear about the different perspectives and experiences we bring to the table as our background are quite diverse, covering Games Art/Design, Cybersecurity, and Business. Primarily, we met to discuss the research task that was due to be completed by the end of the month and required us to divide the reading for sections 1-2 between the three of us.
Engaging with the reading is currently particularly challenging due to other work commitments which include marking and moderation for the summer semester, while preparing for the upcoming semester starting next week as well. Nonetheless, engaging with the resources is interesting and they have already provided some interesting new perspectives as well as helped review some familiar topics such as flipped learning. Reading how emotions and emotional intelligence play a great role in effective and successful learning and teaching was particularly helpful. Emotions generally are something I want to explore further (as I have previously) in my research as well as my teaching.
29/09/2025 - A Reflection on Heidegger: "what teaching call for is this: to let learn"
A quote from Martin Heidegger (German philosopher, 1889 - 1976) I recently read in A. Hoffmann's (2025) "Business School and the Noble Purpose of the Market" made me reflect on my own approach to teaching and relate back to my educational philosophy. The quote was:
"Teaching is more difficult than learning because what teaching calls for is this: to let learn. The real teacher, in fact, lets nothing else be learned than learning. His conduct, therefore, often produces the impression that we properly learn nothing from him, if by "learning" we now suddenly understand merely the procurement of useful information.... The teacher is far less assured of his ground than those who learn are of theirs. If the relation between the teacher and the taught is genuine, therefore, there is never a place in it for the authority of the know-it-all or the authoritative sway of the official. It is still an exalted matter, then, to become a teacher-which is something else entirely than becoming a famous professor."
In line with my educational philosophy and when reflecting on recent teaching activities, I see myself not as the authority or "Sage-on-the-stage" when teaching, but rather a facilitator of learning, "to let learn" my students who are on their journey toward acquiring more knowledge, some of which I poses and share as part of their journey. Likewise, reading how we as teachers are "far less assured of [our] ground than those [our students] who learn are of theirs" reminded me of various quotes attributed to Goethe ("We know accurately only when we know little; with knowledge, doubt increases"), to Socrates ("For I was conscious that I knew practically nothing..") or to Confucius (by Henry D. Thoreau: "To know that we know what we know, and to know that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge"). Looking back to my time as a PhD student and researcher, lecturer and senior lecturer, I feel the truth in these quotes and how it applies to my teaching and the learning I aim to facilitate in class. Most of all, I appreciate the endless opportunities to learn myself, from my students, in every class and through every interaction and activity, once they are warmed up to the idea that their ideas, experiences, and thoughts are making valuable contributions to the class ("warming-up" is particularly needed for some of our international students used to different learning environments and less interactive approaches). Finally, I do recall the looks one students' faces when told we are not concerned about the right or wrong answer, or how I cannot or will not provide them with THE answer. I appreciate how right or wrong is too often dependent on the context and finding THE right answer is often more complex than we can acknowledge within the confines of the classroom and as part of smaller activities. However, I believe that this is part of what teaching calls for according to Heidegger: "to let learn" - to let learn students need to appreciate the the answer often is "it depends" and that I, as a teacher, educator, and fellow learner, present them primarily with the tools, methods, approaches, motivation, and encouragement to learn.
01/10/2025 - 1st PGCert In-person Class: Using LEGO as mediating artefact
Today was our first in-person session of the PGCert. A great session with lots of interactive content and activities to get to know each other, become part of the PGCert learning community, articulate our educational philosophy in a playful way (LEGO!!), and discuss key themes from the module (related to the LOs of the PGCert). To me, the whole session felt like a continuous reflective exercise. I recognised how I already share my educational philosophy at the beginning of every semester with my students. As a former international student myself, I share my own lived experience with my students and encourage them to speak up, to be brave, and overcome initial barriers such as shyness, having little confidence in their abilities (knowledge as well as lingual).
The highlight of today's session certainly was the use of LEGO and seeing how it can break barriers in articulating a wide range of knowledge, skills, experiences in a playful, straightforward way. Learning does not need to be (indeed should never be!) boring.
08/10/2025 - 2nd PGCert In-person Class: Using Ketso - "A workshop in a bag"
In today's session we were introduced to Ketso. Essentially, a workshop in a bag. With a felt map, marker, and leaves of different colour to help create a mindmap or figure, reflect on and discuss a topic in depth as a team. As a group, we spend rather too much time talking than writing which meant what we had put down at the end was rather little (see image below). Nonetheless, using the Ketso and the equipment that the bag provides seems to be a helpful tool with potential for use in future classes. I will certainly find out more about it and consider if and how I could make use of it.
09/10/2025 - Reading Paul Freire - Pedagogy of the Oppressed