‘Mirror, mirror on the wall’: reflecting on, and refracting through, academic development in a pandemic year

ABSTRACT

Using a creative and playful fairy-tale storyboard approach this paper explores the impact of the pandemic, the move to online and blended learning, and the role academic development can have in the future of learning and teaching. We refract academic staff experiences of teaching during the pandemic through our own experiences as academic developers during this time. We conclude that a balancing act is required to sustain the influence gained in the pandemic whilst retaining the signature pedagogy of playfulness that underpins our work.

KEYWORDS:

• Academic development
• creative methodologies
• fear
• pandemic
• storytelling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Catriona Cunningham

Catriona Cunningham is a Professor and heads up the Department of Learning & Teaching Enhancement at the University of Edinburgh Napier in Scotland. She is passionate about higher education and is particularly interested in interculturalism in HE, student engagement, and academic identities.

Tom Cunningham

Tom Cunningham is a Senior Lecturer in Academic Development at Glasgow Caledonian University. He is the Programme Leader for the Advance HE accredited Accelerate Programme, and a tutor on the Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice. He has interests in assessment and feedback, storytelling and the role of Academic Development.