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 mentioned

Germano, 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 Learning

Miller, 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 about

Lang, 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.

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 mentioned

Abadal, 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 Wager

Strunk, 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 about

Abadal, 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.

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 mentioned

The Third Space Symposium

Our Slowposium padlet

And the article we talked about

Buckley, 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.

Sandra's secrets of collaboration:

• Openness to the experience and what it brings

• Recognition of our human nature and the need for being with other

• We 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 mentioned

Devisch, 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 about

Abegglen, 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.

What matters to us and what do we value? These are two key questions posed by Karen Gravett as she explores ideas around relational pedagogies and mattering and how they can contribute to creating a more caring university. In a neoliberal HE context laden with metrics-driven performativity, the call to care can feel like another layer of emotional labour, one disproportionately carried by women. Indeed, when the notion of care generally is seen as ‘women’s work’, how can it become part of a system that is overwhelmingly structured and gendered in ways that make it seem impossible? The first step is to critique ideas of care itself, in this context: it is not about happiness or pleasing or affection, but rather more nuanced, complex, ambivalent, and relational. Then we can aim to respond positively to the material challenges: to look beyond broad brush solutions and instead focus at the microlevel, on small changes and ways of relating and engaging that make a difference. 

The resources we mentioned

Gravett, K. (2023) Relational pedagogies: Connections and mattering in higher education. Bloomsbury.

Gravett, K. (2025) Critical practice in higher education. Bloomsbury.

Heron, M., Gravett, K., and Yakovchuk, N. (2020). Publishing and flourishing: writing for desire in higher education. Higher Education Research & Development, 40(3), 538–551. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2020.1773770 

Elizabeth Adams St. Pierre professional profile

Woolf, V. (1929/2002) A room of one’s own. Penguin.

And the article we talked about

Gravett, K., Taylor, C.A. and Fairchild, N. (2024) Pedagogies of mattering: re-conceptualising relational pedagogies in higher education, Teaching in Higher Education, 29:2, 388-403, DOI: 10.1080/13562517.2021.1989580

What does it mean to liberate learning? Who is doing the liberating, and what do we think someone being liberated from? For Becky Lindner and Martin Compton, the answer to the first question is essentially to find, nurture, and celebrate the inherent joy of learning and teaching. For fifty years (at least), as they point out, we have been having these conversations about rekindling joy and love of learning, which, if nothing else, signals that we have been uncomfortable with some of the absurdities, constraints, and expectations of contemporary higher education for a long time. Yet that sense of hope continues to drive us forward, looking for ‘care-full’ ways of bringing our students and colleagues along with us. And that brings us to the second question: we must be our own liberators. Our role is to enable to liberation of the university by acting with compassion, equity, and humanity, through collaboration, co-creation, and curiosity, one small step at a time. 

The resources we mentioned

Oliver Burkeman (n.d.). The imperfectionist: Seventy per cent. Available from https://ckarchive.com/b/wvu2hghk5m82zf9r552rqtn34kzxxc8 

Kerri-lee Krause (2023). Learner centred leadership in higher education: A practical guide. Routledge

Choose your own impenetrable writer to inversely learn from!

And the issue we talked about

Compton, M. and Lindner, R. (2025) Liberating learning in the empathetic university, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, 35. Available at: https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi35.1576.

As an American transplanted as a young adult to the UK, Jennie Blake knows a lot about what it means to belong somewhere. For her, belonging is an action: it is about having the agency to make choices, and for that to be realised, belonging cannot be something that we do for students; it must be enabled in all of our systems, structures and processes, so that we can recognise it by its presence and not just – as is all too often the case – its absence. And belonging, true ‘belongingness’, is unconditional. We must be prepared to embrace our own vulnerability and question to what extent we are willing to cede space and agency to our students. This can be as simple as building an interactive ‘magic to-do list’ into a pre-arrival resource, as Jennie’s team did, and assuming that students may not want to start university worrying about what they don’t know yet. Of course they don’t know anything yet! But we can embrace and value the conversation with them, and learn from them as much as they do from us. The resources we mentioned

15% solutions: an introductory overview

brown, a.m. (2017) Emergent strategy: shaping change, changing worlds. AK Press

Fawns, T. An entangled pedagogy: Looking beyond the pedagogy-technology dichotomy. Postdigital Science and Education 4, 711–728 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-022-00302-7 

Hypothesis annotation tool: https://web.hypothes.is/ 

Life at University: The University of Manchester guide for new students.And the article we talked about

Blake, J. and Pearson, L. (2025) ‘The power of an open door: student partnership and supportive transition to higher education’, Perspectives: Policy and Practice in Higher Education, DOI: 10.1080/13603108.2025.2474558

Lucy’s interests in pedagogy have expanded over the last couple of years to draw AI into her work on learning design. Using AI in the classroom, in an ethical and responsible way, with learners with diverse needs and backgrounds, can level the playing field and support learners in doing things and thinking in ways that might not otherwise be available to them. For learning design to be thoughtful and effective, digital technologies - including AI - must serve a purpose and earn its pedagogic place in the classroom. We need to know what students will get from it, and we must make sure the students know that too. Lucy’s drivers are creativity and curiosity, and they combine into a pedagogy of wonder. But that goes for us too: AI is new, for all of us, so we need to have the courage to not be the expert, to play, to try things out and see what works and have the confidence to co-learn with the students. These technologies aren’t going away so we might as well take the plunge - ethically, pedagogically, mindfully - and see what we can do!The resources we mentioned

John Fowles biography: https://www.fowlesbooks.com/ 

Gill-Simmen, L. (2024). Educating Gen Z: why authenticity and connection are key to thriving in an AI-driven world. The Conversation. Available from: https://theconversation.com/educating-gen-z-why-authenticity-and-connection-are-key-to-thriving-in-an-ai-driven-world-230633 

Harari, Y.N. (2011). Sapiens: A brief history of humankind. Random House.

Hemingway’s 6-word story…maybe: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_sale:_baby_shoes,_never_worn 

Jhumpa Lahiri’s professional profile: https://barnard.edu/profiles/jhumpa-lahiri 

Lamott, A. (1994). Bird by bird. Pantheon Books

And the article we talked about

Gill-Simmen, L. (2021) “Using Padlet in instructional design to promote cognitive engagement: a case study of undergraduate marketing students”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (20). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.vi20.575

At the moment, there is no evidence that generative AI is a transformative tool for higher education. Making something more efficient is not the same as being better for learners or learning, and efficiency is not transformation. If we come from a critical perspective, focused on social justice and care, rather than a neoliberal one, then AI currently has little to offer. But it is also important to say no to resistance. We need to resist the harmful uses of AI and drop the assumption that it should be incorporated into teaching; we should not allow students to use it for everything instead of doing it for themselves. There’s little benefit, though, in telling students they are not allowed to use it. To help students develop the critical judgement they need to use gen AI well, we will have to use it a little bit ourselves, experimenting with a critical perspective – often enough to see its limitations and then to decide for ourselves whether it’s truly useful. Talking to colleagues is also vital, in sharing how we feel about it as much as what we know about it, and to ensure that we are always talking about the same thing. 

Maha’s practice of intentionally equitable hospitality can help us think through inequalities in the way our education system is set up that might mean some people need more support than others. The important question should always be, what is the purpose of this task? And then for those students that need more support, they can use AI anywhere apart from in relation to the skill that they need to learn how to do. Above all, if we practice with compassion, we have the potential to make AI something truly of benefit.

The resources we mentioned

Bali, M. 2024. Cake-making analogy for setting generative AI guidelines/ethics. Available from https://uen.pressbooks.pub/teachingandgenerativeai/chapter/cake-making-analogy-for-setting-generative-ai-guidelines-ethics/

Bali, M. 2024. When it comes to AI, is transparency enough? Available from https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/highereducation/2024/10/18/ethics-in-ai/And the article we talked about

Mills, A., Bali, M. and Eaton, L. (2023). How do we respond to generative AI in education? Open educational practices give us a framework for an ongoing process. Journal of Applied Learning and Teaching 6(1), pp.16-30. https://doi.org/10.37074/jalt.2023.6.1.34 Available from https://hawksites.newpaltz.edu/fdc/files/2023/07/How-Do-We-Respond-to-Generative-AI-in-Education-Open-Educational-Practices-Give-Us-a-Framework-for-an-Ongoing-Process.pdf 

Haidt, J. (2013) The Righteous Mind. Penguin

Hilsdon, J., Malone, C. and Syska, A. (2019) ‘Academic literacies twenty years on: a

community-sourced literature review’, Journal of Learning Development in Higher

Education, 15, pp.1−49. Available at: https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.v0i15.567

Kotzee, B. (2010) ‘Seven posers in the constructivist classroom’, London Review of Education, 8(2), pp.177−187. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14748460.2010.487340

Moore, R., & Muller, J. (1999). The Discourse of “Voice” and the Problem of Knowledge and Identity in the Sociology of Education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 20(2), 189–206. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425699995407

Sold a story: how teaching kids to read when so wrong. Podcast also available on Apple and Spotify

Dan Williams - an introduction to his ideas is available at https://danwilliamsphilosophy.com/ 

Wrigglesworth, J. (2019) ‘Pedagogical applications of academic literacies theory: a reflection and case study’, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, 15, pp.1−21. Available at: https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.v0i15.552

Young, M. (2007). Bringing knowledge back in. Routledge.

White, S. (2024) “Resisting ideological echo chambers: if we are all critical pedagogues, how will we know we are doing LD well? ”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (32). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.vi32.1461.

White, S. and Dhillon, S. (2024) “We need to talk about AL: has academic literacies designed the pedagogy out of Learning Development? ”, Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (31). doi: 10.47408/jldhe.vi31.1267.