By Laura Jo Swartley, HCDE PhD student
Improving University Teaching Annual Conference July 14-17
University of Glasgow, Scotland UK
I traveled to the Improving University Teaching Annual conference in order to connect with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning community, a community of practice I intend to join, and presented a paper.
It was a wonderful opportunity to take part in a collegial and generative conference. The responses to my paper are ones I was incredibly encouraged to hear. Working across disciplines is tough, but this conference was an example of places where those of us from various domains could join in conversations about praxis-related experiences and ideas that transcend boundaries. I was reluctant to bring in a core theory base from HCDE in talking about my work in partnership with learners as “boundary work,” drawing on Leigh Star’s feminist infrastructure studies work, because I was afraid it would not translate. The Q&A after my paper made clear this is a very translatable concept. One attendee who teaches creative writing to STEM students in Ireland said, “We should all be doing boundary work like Laura is talking about.” Another commented that the sociotechnical aspects, and the largely unfunded nature of our work, was highly relevant as faculty like her in a British university context were being asked to bring courses online, to more students “doing more with so much less than ever before.” These two resonances were really heartening.
Additionally, in the paper, I share a hope theory analysis of the research with students, and participants indicated that they had never known about cognitive and affective hope theories, but would now feel compelled to learn more about them due to my paper.
I presented the first day (yay!) so I got to enjoy the rest of the conference as a deep listener and participant. In this, I got to listen to and converse about an array of interdisciplinary and transcultural approaches to student partnership, a central focus of my dissertation. In UK, Ireland, Australian, South African, Caribbean, and Canadian contexts, student partnership thinking is highly valued and comes in many flavors - showing how deep attention to situated practice is a keystone of attunement to learners’ and teachers’ needs in ever more demanding higher education landscapes.