Brookes International HE Reading Group

The Brookes International HE Reading Group is hosted by the Oxford Centre for Academic Enhancement and Development (OCAED) and meets monthly throughout the year (online) to discuss recent and/or seminal articles and publications that could make a difference to the way we think about our teaching, curriculum or students’ experiences whilst debating key issues and networking in a supportive, convivial environment.  Whether you are a seasoned educational developer, researcher, subject lecturer, PhD student, college affiliate, or senior manager, everyone is welcome. The articles are chosen to provoke reflection, insight and debate, and for 2023-24 we are delighted to announce that our core theme will be internationalisation (broadly understood). Anyone from across the international Higher Education community is most welcome. Please send suggestions for articles to read to Dr Adrian J. Wallbank (a.wallbank@brookes.ac.uk).

How to join

To take part in the sessions, please book your place here:

Semester 1

Internationalisation has been a major thematic field in the scholarship of teaching and learning literature for at least the last four decades and has been claimed to be ‘a vital aspect of higher education in the twenty-first century’ (Klopper, 2020). Its causes, benefits and impact upon the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment have been subjected to considerable debate and the topic sometimes becomes entwined with wider political agendas and theoretical positions. Furthermore, the pandemic has led to ‘a growing focus on and interest in the ways that, for example, international (im)mobility…shapes practices’ (Mittelmeier and Yang, 2022).  As such, there’s plenty for us to discuss, and an international perspective with reference to the literature should prove mutually beneficial for us all, irrespective of our discipline or institution. 

Wednesday 20 December 2023, 2.00pm - 3.00pm

In this session we consider internationalisation in respect of the challenges presented by the pandemic with a particular emphasis upon knowledge mobility. In this paper, Yue, de Souza and Townsin (2023) examine the emergence of ‘internationalisation at a distance’ in respect of the affordances of information and communication technologies and impact the lack of immersion has had / is having on students’ identity construction.  Please book your place above to join this session.

Paper: Yun Yue, Denise De Souza & Louise Townsin (2023) ‘No human mobility: how is knowledge mobile in a context of internationalisation at a distance? A case study’, Higher Education Research & Development, 42:5, 1165-1181, DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2023.2216643

Previous sessions and recordings

Theme: Internationalisation

Theme: Assessment and Feedback

Assessment and feedback has always been central to discussions around pedagogy, and as Knight (1995, p.13) stated, ‘assessment is a moral activity. What we choose to assess and how shows quite starkly what we value’. With issues such as modularisation, meaningful assessment, validity, constructive alignment, inclusive assessments and recent concerns about over assessment, there’s plenty for us to discuss, and an international perspective with reference to the literature should prove mutually beneficial for us all.