ELSTIS24: Enhancing Student Learning Through Innovative Scholarship, University of St. Andrews, July 2024

The 2024 iteration of the annual ESLTIS conference was hosted by the University of St. Andrews with a broad theme of ‘Enhancing Student Learning Through Innovative Scholarship.’ In reality, the two days of the conference covered a wide range of issues both from the perspective of improving teaching in higher education and understanding the place of teaching & scholarship staff within institutions.  

As part of the initial plenary session Claire Peddie (St Andrews) provided an institutional case study of the development of scholarship as a concept discussing its relationship with UK higher education since the late 1990s. This emphasis on the place of scholarship emerged as a key theme across the conference with papers from Jennifer Taylorson (St. Andrews), Diane Butler & Trevor Collins (Open University), Rita Balestrini (Reading) and Paula Miles (St. Andrews) among others touching on this issue.  

As is so often the case, the formal question and answer sessions along with informal chats over coffee and biscuits allowed for the further development of these themes. From a personal perspective, the opportunity to discuss my own experiences as a new T & S staff member within a department primarily populated by T & R colleagues was incredibly productive. Not only did these conversations offer insights into career development within a scholarship context but they also provided a vital networking opportunity with those interested in similar pedagogical issues. 

Crucially, such informal conversations and the scheduled panels were all characterised by a sense of the value of interdisciplinary work. I saw specialists in subjects ranging from medicine and maths through to architecture and sociology who modelled their own practice and in doing so suggested ways that it might be applied in different contexts. For example, Jon Carr and Richard Harpin (Sheffield) discussed incorporating building reuse into architecture course units but in doing so raised potentially relevant questions for me as a historian regarding engaging students with the community.  

My own paper on audio feedback was part of a panel with Susan Kinnear (Dundee) and Simon Coupland (De Montfort) on assessment practices. However our contributions fit into a much large conference theme of student experience which covered all aspects of undergraduate and postgraduate education. Papers ranged from the emotional responses of learners when making module choices through to institutional pressures, the national policy environment and the hangover from the Covid epidemic. Reflecting on the intersections between these individual themes provided some fascinating insights into the lived experience of contemporary students. 

Finally, the issue of AI sat as a spectre over much of the conference. At times it was placed front and centre with papers by Thinh N. Pham, Vu Q. Trinh and Ngan D. Cao (Newcastle) and Alessio Iannetti (Newcastle) reflecting explicitly on the impact of ChatGPT. However in many cases the potential impact of AI came out through discussions which typically revealed an awareness of the ways that such programs might fundamentally remake education at all levels along with an absence of clear answers for how to respond. In this sense, the conference allowed for an exploration of existential problems for us all even if we got no closer to a resolution. 

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Peter O’Connor, Lecturer in Modern American History

 

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