Karen Gravett

This key text acts as a guidebook for those seeking to develop their role as teachers in contemporary universities. Offering a timely and original perspective on teaching, it invites readers to rethink their role and embrace the transformative potential of education. Drawing on the authors’ extensive experience, and informed by higher education research, the book reimagines meaningful teaching through three transformative perspectives. Firstly, it challenges the traditional view of teaching as an individual act, instead framing it as a relational and situated practice, built on connections with others. Secondly, it explores teaching as an affirmative and emotional endeavour that can inspire others and lead to joyful and generative moments of connection. Lastly, it positions teaching as a critical practice, where educators embrace uncertainty, question assumptions, and evolve their approaches. These ideas are interwoven with practical insights into contemporary areas of practice, including assessment, feedback, digital education, artificial intelligence, learning design, belonging, and inclusion, to develop ethical and relational pedagogic approaches. Written in an engaging and accessible style, this book is ideal for current and aspiring higher education teachers.

This key text acts as a guidebook for those seeking to develop their role as teachers in contemporary universities. Offering a timely and original perspective on teaching, it invites readers to rethink their role and embrace the transformative potential of education. Drawing on the authors’ extensive experience, and informed by higher education research, the book reimagines meaningful teaching through three transformative perspectives. Firstly, it challenges the traditional view of teaching as an individual act, instead framing it as a relational and situated practice, built on connections with others. Secondly, it explores teaching as an affirmative and emotional endeavour that can inspire others and lead to joyful and generative moments of connection. Lastly, it positions teaching as a critical practice, where educators embrace uncertainty, question assumptions, and evolve their approaches. These ideas are interwoven with practical insights into contemporary areas of practice, including assessment, feedback, digital education, artificial intelligence, learning design, belonging, and inclusion, to develop ethical and relational pedagogic approaches. Written in an engaging and accessible style, this book is ideal for current and aspiring higher education teachers.

What is critical practice; what is critique? And what do these ideas have to do with higher education? This book argues that engaging in critical practice is fundamental to meaningful teaching, learning and research. Critical practice is key to understanding societies, technologies, and the power relations that pervade our practice. Critical approaches are vital for responding meaningfully to some of the knotty questions that we face in higher education. And yet, there is a need to re-examine critical theorising in contemporary times, to address the limitations of current conceptions of criticality, where critique is at risk of becoming stale, redundant, even harmful. International in scope, this book engages theory and empirical data from recent research to offer new ways of thinking and doing critical practice. Case studies are drawn from teachers and academics working in the UK, Australia, and America, across a breadth of disciplines and learning environments. Specifically, the book proposes a move towards a relational critical practice. After many years of attention that has been paid to cognitive notions of critical thinking, skills and dispositions –assumed to take place within the boundaries of rational, individual, minds – this book takes us beyond thinking about criticality as an individualised activity. Elaborating a critical practice that considers the affective, embodied and relational nature of criticality, this text will explore how we might look more closely at the entanglement of ideas and practice, of mind and body, of thinking, feeling and doing. In doing so, this book argues for a celebration of critique, and for the value of a relational critical practice in higher education.

What is critical practice; what is critique? And what do these ideas have to do with higher education? This book argues that engaging in critical practice is fundamental to meaningful teaching, learning and research. Critical practice is key to understanding societies, technologies, and the power relations that pervade our practice. Critical approaches are vital for responding meaningfully to some of the knotty questions that we face in higher education. And yet, there is a need to re-examine critical theorising in contemporary times, to address the limitations of current conceptions of criticality, where critique is at risk of becoming stale, redundant, even harmful.International in scope, this book engages theory and empirical data from recent research to offer new ways of thinking and doing critical practice. Case studies are drawn from teachers and academics working in the UK, Australia, and America, across a breadth of disciplines and learning environments. Specifically, the book proposes a move towards a relational critical practice. After many years of attention that has been paid to cognitive notions of critical thinking, skills and dispositions –assumed to take place within the boundaries of rational, individual, minds – this book takes us beyond thinking about criticality as an individualised activity. Elaborating a critical practice that considers the affective, embodied and relational nature of criticality, this text will explore how we might look more closely at the entanglement of ideas and practice, of mind and body, of thinking, feeling and doing. In doing so, this book argues for a celebration of critique, and for the value of a relational critical practice in higher education.

What do meaningful connections in learning and teaching look like, and how might we foster these? How might the concept of mattering be helpful for our understanding of higher education? In this book, Karen Gravett examines the role of relationships, and in particular of relational pedagogies, where meaningful relationships are positioned as fundamental to effective learning. She explores concepts of authenticity, vulnerability, and trust within learning and teaching, as well as the potential of working with students in partnership. This book examines the role of relationships between colleagues: how educators can learn from others both within and beyond higher education, as well as considering how teachers can support one another when working within challenging contemporary contexts. Drawing upon a rich theoretical perspective that interweaves posthuman and sociomaterial theory, the book also introduces a broader conception of the relational, where relational pedagogies are understood as encompassing objects, spaces and materialities, as part of an interwoven web of relations. In exploring mattering, Gravett explores both who matters – who should be considered and valued – and the material mattering of learning. In this innovative conception of relational pedagogies, Gravett offers a broad and rich reworking of our understanding of relationality, offering fresh ways in which we might understand and conduct higher education theory and practice.

This book examines the dominant discourses in higher education. From the moment teachers enter higher education, they are met with dominant discourses that are often adopted uncritically, including concepts such as teaching excellence, student voice, and student engagement. Teachers are also met with simplistic binaries such as teaching vs. research, quantitative vs. qualitative research, and constructivists vs. positivists. Kinchin and Gravett suggest that this may present a distorted view, contributing to the disconnect between the aims and observable practice of higher education. Rather than celebrating difference, dominant discourses tend to seek similarities in an attempt to simplify and manage the environment.In this book, the authors share their belief that teaching and learning should be a thoughtful endeavour. Thinking with a breadth of theories, the authors explore the overlaps between different perspectives in order to offer a richer and more inclusive interrogation of the dominant discourses that pervade higher education. Offering methodological approaches to explore these perspectives, the authors bring together academics working in different parts of the university and examine the concept of a ‘rich cartography’, considering how this can offer meaning within higher education research and practice.

What do meaningful connections in learning and teaching look like, and how might we foster these? How might the concept of mattering be helpful for our understanding of higher education? In this book, Karen Gravett examines the role of relationships, and in particular of relational pedagogies, where meaningful relationships are positioned as fundamental to effective learning. She explores concepts of authenticity, vulnerability, and trust within learning and teaching, as well as the potential of working with students in partnership. This book examines the role of relationships between colleagues: how educators can learn from others both within and beyond higher education, as well as considering how teachers can support one another when working within challenging contemporary contexts. Drawing upon a rich theoretical perspective that interweaves posthuman and sociomaterial theory, the book also introduces a broader conception of the relational, where relational pedagogies are understood as encompassing objects, spaces and materialities, as part of an interwoven web of relations. In exploring mattering, Gravett explores both who matters – who should be considered and valued – and the material mattering of learning. In this innovative conception of relational pedagogies, Gravett offers a broad and rich reworking of our understanding of relationality, offering fresh ways in which we might understand and conduct higher education theory and practice.

This book examines the dominant discourses in higher education. From the moment teachers enter higher education, they are met with dominant discourses that are often adopted uncritically, including concepts such as teaching excellence, student voice, and student engagement. Teachers are also met with simplistic binaries such as teaching vs. research, quantitative vs. qualitative research, and constructivists vs. positivists. Kinchin and Gravett suggest that this may present a distorted view, contributing to the disconnect between the aims and observable practice of higher education. Rather than celebrating difference, dominant discourses tend to seek similarities in an attempt to simplify and manage the environment.In this book, the authors share their belief that teaching and learning should be a thoughtful endeavour. Thinking with a breadth of theories, the authors explore the overlaps between different perspectives in order to offer a richer and more inclusive interrogation of the dominant discourses that pervade higher education. Offering methodological approaches to explore these perspectives, the authors bring together academics working in different parts of the university and examine the concept of a ‘rich cartography’, considering how this can offer meaning within higher education research and practice.