Our latest paper is a study of using Generative AI with undergraduate students to support the development of critical thinking, as well as further the knowledge of GAI itself.
Our author, Catherine RE Lawler, is a microbiologist who works at the Department of Biomedical Science, College of Medicine and Health, University of Birmingham. In this paper, Catherine argues for the thoughtful design and implementation of GAI-related activities to enhance learning outcomes.
For more details and to download the case study go here.
Previous articles and issues
View all articles and issues of Education in Practicehere.
This is part of a series of posts celebrating the champions of our institutional Advance HE fellowship recognition scheme, Beacon. Beacon has awarded more than 1000 fellowships since its launch in 2015. Beacon is led by Marios Hadjianastasis and Jamie Morris.Advance HE have recently helped us celebrated these milestones on their blog (link).
We spoke to Dr Mehran Eskandari Torbaghan SFHEA, a Lecturer in Infrastructure Asset Management in the Department of Civil Engineering, School of Engineering, at the University of Birmingham. Mehran successfully completed our PGCert course which awarded him FHEA, and went on to achieve SFHEA through the Beacon recogntion scheme. Mehran is a Beacon champion and volunteer, mentoring applicants and helping as an assessor. Here we focus on Mehran’s work as an assessor.
Why are you a Beacon assessor?
I enjoyed my time as a PGCert student and later as a Beacon applicant. This is an opportunity to give back, to hope for a positive impact on our teaching and learning community.
What do you find useful/interesting/beneficial in doing this work?
Learning about new teaching practices. I also get motivated by readying successful and impactful teaching practices.
How do you balance this work alongside your main role responsibilities?
By only accepting the number of applications for which I would have time.
If you are also a mentor, how do these roles help you promote Beacon in your context and wider team?
Mentorship for me is even more important and enjoyable than the assessing part as it is an opportunity to meet and know new people and to learn from them while promoting Beacon as a way of reflecting on our teaching journeys.
What was a ‘warm-glow’ moment for you?
Hearing from my colleagues that they also enjoyed the process.
How have Beacon applications changed over the years? Think especially since the first time you assessed, or perhaps compare UKPSF 2011 to PSF 2023…
My feeling is that it has evolved to a less academic, i.e., with less emphasis on the literature, to being practical while it has also become easier to navigate for academics from other disciplines rather than education.
Tell us one thing you learned the last time you assessed a Beacon application
How a lab technician teaches autopsy in medical school 😊but seriously how to make an extreme teaching environment inclusive.
A final thought
I cannot think of anything rather than your hard work to brings academics together and to have Beacon running. Thank you very much for all your hard work.
At the last international conference of the Society for Research Into Higher Education in December, our colleague Prof. Sarah Montano of the University of Birmingham Business School was awarded the prestigious Fellowship of the Society, alongside other important contributors to research in HE over the decades, such as Gerlese Akerlind, Paul Ashwin, Sue Clegg, Heidi Safia Mirza and Celia Whitchurch among others. This was a great honour, and recognition of Prof. Montano’s contribution to scholarship and research into higher education, and evidence-based practice which positively impacts student outcomes. Join us in congratulating Sarah.
In this piece, Prof. Montano reflects on her journey and specifically this recognition.
I was humbled and honoured to be awarded an SRHE Fellowship at the Conference in December. I am privileged to be part of a community that is committed to advancing educational practice. SRHE is special to me as when I came back into academia, I was warmly welcomed and supported by SRHE members. This is not just a personal achievement, it is testament to the brilliant educational innovations happening across the University. I was delighted that there to share the experience were my wonderful university and school colleagues.
Sarah at the National Teaching Fellow Awards
I would never have imagined that when I started my academic career, I would have had the opportunities that I have had or attained such awards. I am a first-generation university student who found student life really difficult. When I became an academic, I reflected that these difficulties were due to how I acutely lacked social capital. This realisation inspired me to make my pedagogical philosophy to ensure equality of access and opportunity for students. I have been determined that students will have the education currency to thrive, no matter what their journey to university has been. Inspired by my first career in retail I have developed industry relevant authentic assessments and an experiential learning model that ensures that students have the employability skills needed to succeed in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Most notably the so-called human skills of creativity and innovation. It is this drive to ensure that students will thrive that motivates me every day.
Sarah at the National Teaching Fellow Awards
In my current role as Birmingham Business School’s Director of Education, I am privileged to work with colleagues who also strive to innovate their education practice and create an inclusive environment where all students will succeed. The SRHE Fellowship reinforces the importance of excellence in education, and I am also delighted to be mentoring the next generation of educators.
Sarah at the SRHE Fellowship award ceremony with Clare Loughlin-Chow and Pauline Kneale
Life can be strange at times and in 2023 on a Monday I found out I would be awarded a National Teaching Fellowship and on the Wednesday my promotion application to be a Professor was successful. That was not a bad week! To be in the esteemed company of my fellow 2023 NTF winners and the 2025 SRHE Fellows is almost like a dream. My fellow winners are quite incredible and what connects is that drive that education can be better – that despite the seismic challenges currently in HE, we are determined to make higher education a better place for students and academics alike. The challenges may be substantial, but that change is needed and that change can be achieved.
I am profoundly grateful to SRHE for giving me a home and support all those years ago and now an SRHE Fellowship. Looking forward to seeing what 2026 brings!
Sarah King reflects on the importance of developing human literacies in the age of AI, drawing from her engagement with a EUniWell-funded project that ran from 2019 to 2021.
We are entering a new phase of learning in the educational rollercoaster that is Generative AI. The early days — when enthusiastic adopters clashed with resolute sceptics and the rest of us hovered somewhere in-between, quietly hoping it might all just go away — are beginning to fade.
We are learning to live with AI, and to work with it in our personal and professional lives. I have used it to draw up travel plans, design flower beds in the garden, source festive presents and, let’s be honest, to avoid the blank-page frustration of knowing what I want to talk about in this blog but not quite knowing where to start.
As our confidence grows, we are also starting to talk about the transformational and longer-term impact that AI will have on education. This conversation is nothing new. In the 20 plus years I have worked in higher education there have been a number of these perceived “disruptors”: the emergence of the VLE in the early 2000s (my first institutional role was a Moodle Champion!), the explosion of MOOCs in the 2010s (which, for a short while, were predicted to signal the end of the university), and more recently, the Covid pandemic and the lessons we promised ourselves we had learned from the move online.
I think AI will be transformational but, perhaps, not (only) in the ways that we currently imagine. It will make us more efficient and more productive: it has helped me to summarise readings, draft lesson plans, and even design and build a website. But it will also give us a renewed focus on what it is to be human; it will reinforce the value of a campus university, and will create space for us to think creatively, to collaborate, to support and to empathise with one another. This, I think, is where the potential for real transformation lies.
The emphasis on the human dimensions of learning was a focus of a 2019 EUniWell-funded project that brought together heads of educational development at six, research-intensive universities: Birmingham, Semmelweis, Cologne, Linnaeus, Leiden and Nantes. Our project was centred on a changing educational landscape, where globalisation, interdisciplinarity, emerging digital tools, and evolving job markets were impacting on the way we design and deliver teaching. We were looking forwards, anticipating what the 4th Industrial Revolution might bring and we turned to a book, published in 2017 and entitled Robot-Proof: Higher Education in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, written by the President of Northeastern University, Joseph Aoun, and the concept of “human literacy”.
Our project, itself impacted by the consequences of the global pandemic, engaged students, staff, researchers and educational developers in international workshops, designed to stimulate conversations about teaching and learning in higher education. We identified four aspects of human literacy which we explored in detail: cross-cultural agility, interpersonal communication, critical thinking ability, and ethics. Each of the workshops highlighted various aspects of human interaction in relation to these themes and I have attempted to summarise what we talked about and learned and move that conversation forward to today.
Cross-cultural agility
We work in an increasingly global environment, and our students experience learning in increasingly diverse classrooms. We talked about being authentic, celebrating the unique characteristics that each of us bring to a learning environment, respecting our different beliefs and co-operating with each other. We talked about empathy and emotional intelligence, the ability to be flexible and to compromise. Above all, we prioritised a need to be curious, to learn from one another and remove the obstacles (perceived or otherwise) that hold us back.
These essential human skills are more valuable than ever, and our diverse classrooms become the perfect vehicle for developing them. AI might remove some of those obstacles, helping with language barriers or scaffolding conversations, but it can’t offer an emotional response, or contribute its own lived history, and it hasn’t experienced difference, privilege or discrimination.
Interpersonal Communication
This aspect of human literacy focussed on belonging, which became core to our conversations as our project progressed throughout the pandemic. We talked about how communication could foster a sense of belonging but needed to be nurtured through teaching design that gave opportunities for that communication to happen. We talked about the value of meaningful dialogue that is inclusive and collaborative, and we recognised that these skills are not always developed intuitively but have to be learned.
AI can help us to draft emails, prepare meeting notes, translate complex ideas into digestible concepts, but it is not thinking. It doesn’t share our friendships or our lived experiences. A campus university can build a sense of belonging, gradually developing relationships, trust and confidence through interpersonal communication inside and outside our classrooms.
Critical Thinking
Our conversations recognised that knowledge was everywhere and the role of education was evolving to prioritise creativity, problem-solving, and critical thinking. We reflected on disciplinary differences, and we wondered whether critical thinking was something fostered in students rather than explicitly taught. We began to focus on experience as a tool for learning, a well-established principle, but one that might take on a renewed importance in a digitised landscape.
The skill of critical thinking, long valued in higher education, can be supported but not replaced by AI. AI can summarise large volumes of text, look for patterns or gaps, even offer different viewpoints, but it can’t assess credibility, or spot bias, or make nuanced judgments about evidence. It can’t reflect, critically or otherwise in a way that challenges assumptions, or motivations.
Ethics
Our final theme was ethics, and how we can develop moral individuals, who recognise their personal responsibilities within society, challenge ignorance and embrace different approaches and solutions. This linked us back to culture and persuaded us that a continual conversation and reflection on how the digital environment is impacting on our private, social and professional lives is key to helping us navigate the opportunities and challenges that are offered by a digital transformation.
This last area of discussion was, and perhaps remains, the most important. Universities provide the space for us to explore ethical dilemmas, take responsibility for our learning and our actions, develop empathy and moral judgment and act on it. AI can help us to articulate these attributes, but not to embody them. That is a human endeavour. I am optimistic that these human literacies will help us to navigate the next phase of AI development. I’m also persuaded that the answers to some of our challenges lie in well-established educational practice and so what we might experience is a quiet transformation, that reinvigorates what we know as good teaching. The principles of inclusive learning: ensuring students feel valued, promoting open dialogue, including diverse perspectives, designing in flexible ways to engage, being clear and consistent in our communication – all of these foster belonging, support cultural agility and help us to communicate with one another. The benefits of group work: encouraging students to work together, embracing different viewpoints, reflecting on our strengths and weaknesses, learning how to collaborate effectively on authentic tasks – these develop communication skills, critical thinking and ethical practice. Active learning, where students are discussing, questioning, reflecting and problem-solving brings all this together to help them to develop the human-centred qualities that we are going to need in the years ahead.
Sarah King is the Assistant Director, Teaching and Learning Development at the University of Birmingham.
This is part of a series of posts celebrating the champions of our institutional Advance HE fellowship recognition scheme, Beacon. Beacon has awarded more than 1000 fellowships since its launch in 2015. Beacon is led by Marios Hadjianastasis and Jamie Morris.
Dr Kamilya Suleymenova and Dr Inci Toral are valuable collaborators for the Beacon Scheme, based in the University of Birmingham’s Business School. They have supported Beacon processes through mentoring and assessing, while promoting Senior Fellowship in the Business School and supporting colleagues in applying and achieving recogntion. Inci and Kamilya have both been awarded PFHEA in November 2025, which demonstrates their strategic vision and impact at UoB and beyond. They recorded a video for us, enjoy! And don’t forget to subscribe.
This is part of a series of posts celebrating the champions of our institutional Advance HE fellowship recognition scheme, Beacon. Beacon has awarded more than 1000 fellowships since its launch in 2015. Beacon is led by Marios Hadjianastasis and Jamie Morris.
Dr Asim Bashir is a Teaching Fellow in English for Academic Purposes at University of Birmingham Dubai. Asim has been working with the Beacon team as a Dubai champion, promoting the Beacon scheme and supporting and mentoring colleagues in Dubai applying for fellowship, especially Senior Fellowship. Asim has also been mentoring and assessing with the Beacon team more widely.
What have you been doing in your context to support Beacon fellowship and recognition?
At the University of Birmingham Dubai, I have worked to make fellowship and professional recognition a visible and valued part of our academic culture. I designed and delivered workshops that unpack the Professional Standards Framework in an accessible way, helping colleagues see how their everyday teaching already reflects the principles of good teaching, leadership, and scholarship. These sessions focus on reflection and practical examples, encouraging colleagues to view fellowship as an opportunity for growth rather than a formal exercise. Alongside this, I mentor colleagues across career stages on their Associate, Fellow, and Senior Fellowship applications, creating a supportive environment for open discussion and reflection. As a panel member of the Advance HE Gulf Network, I also share insights from our Dubai initiatives and learn from regional partners, ensuring that our approach remains both globally informed and locally relevant.
How did you get people on board?
When I first started promoting fellowship, there was hesitation. Many colleagues saw it as a bureaucratic task rather than a developmental opportunity. To change this perception, I introduced short, informal “fellowship conversations”, where we discussed what effective teaching looks like in our context and how this aligns with the PSF. I also shared my own Senior Fellowship journey and encouraged colleagues to tell their stories. These narratives helped demystify the process and shifted the tone from evaluation to reflection. As more staff achieved recognition and shared their experiences, interest grew naturally. My involvement with the Advance HE Gulf Network also reinforced that we are part of a wider professional community where fellowship is a shared, evolving practice.
Why do you do it?
Supporting others through fellowship captures what I believe leadership in education should be: helping others reflect, grow, and connect. Every mentoring session or workshop becomes a shared learning experience, deepening both my own understanding and that of colleagues. As a Senior Fellow, I see this as a responsibility, not an optional extra. Senior Fellowship means giving back, developing others, nurturing reflective practice, and contributing to the wider education community. This work reminds me that recognition is not about status but about creating a culture where reflection and support become normal practice.
What does having fellowship mean for your local teaching culture?
Fellowship provides colleagues a shared framework for discussing learning and teaching. It has encouraged staff to see teaching as a reflective, evidence-based practice that evolves through collaboration. A mentoring network has also emerged, where Fellows and Senior Fellows now guide others through the process, creating a cycle of support and shared learning. For many, including myself, SFHEA represents a commitment to developing others and contributing to collective growth. I remind colleagues that Senior Fellowship is not the end of the journey but the beginning of a new phase of leadership, one where our success is measured by how we help others succeed.
Tell us what was a ‘warm-glow’ moment for you?
A warm-glow moment for me comes from reading colleagues’ LinkedIn posts sharing their fellowship success and reflections on the mentoring support they received. Seeing their confidence grow and their voices strengthen in the professional community is deeply rewarding. Another memorable moment was speaking at the Advance HE Gulf Network event on recognition cultures in international campuses. Hearing other universities express interest in adapting our mentoring model confirmed the wider value of our work. These moments remind me that the joy of fellowship lies in transformation, the point where reflection becomes identity and identity becomes leadership.
How can we better celebrate these achievements?
We can celebrate better by sharing stories more widely. Fellowship achievements should not remain in records but be visible and inspiring. Recently, I invited a newly recognised Senior Fellow to deliver a workshop about their journey from start to finish. Their honest discussion of challenges and breakthroughs made the process real and relatable. It showed how peer-led storytelling can demystify fellowship and motivate others. We also share reflections through newsletters and campus events, highlighting how colleagues apply what they learned. Leadership support is vital too, linking recognition to priorities such as AI readiness, inclusivity, and innovation. Above all, celebration should value the reflective process itself, not just the outcome.
A final thought
The Beacon initiative represents the best kind of professional learning, reflective, collaborative, and purposeful. As a Senior Fellow, I believe recognition comes with responsibility: to mentor, advocate, and give back to the sector. My engagement with the Advance HE Gulf Network reinforces that this is a shared endeavour across the region, where educators are building reflective, connected communities of practice. Fellowship, at its best, is not a reward but a commitment, to curiosity, generosity, and continuous learning.
In 2024 we organised a successful education conference at the University of Birmingham which focused on Generative AI in HE, and which hosted delegates and speakers from across the sector. The conference which ran over 2 days at our Edgbaston and Dubai campuses and online, was a huge success: it offered lively debate, sharing of good practice, and ultimately gave attendees food for thought with practical ideas and solutions for what was (and still is) an ongoing topic in HE pedagogy.
The Edgbaston conference keynote was Professor Mike Sharples, whose talk was both pragmatic and inspirational, helping us focus on pedagogy and principles which matter most: student learning.
A selection of 9 papers from the conference was included in our subsequent Education in Practice Issue 6.1 (Spring 2025), which includes a paper by Mike Sharples, and a host of other contributors, all highlighting different uses of AI in teaching at Birmingham.
To see the table of contents and download the papers go to this LINK.
Our latest case study is titled ‘Feeling the code’: Emotions in programming and interventions supporting positivity, and focuses on teaching introductory coding to Masters students in different contexts, including bioinformatics and computer science, with students learning on-campus or via distance learning. The case study highlights the importance of emotions in this learning setting, and assesses students’ attitudes towards learning coding.
The team came together to understand the often-neglected emotional dimension of the experience of learning to code and what we can do as educators to humanise the learning experience and make it more positive for everyone.
For more details and to download the case study go here.
Our latest case study focuses on embedding employability in postgraduate taught programmes, and the value of integrating skills within the curriculum.
Jemma Saunders manages the Placement and Training module for the MA in Film and Television at University of Birmingham, also supporting industry events and opportunities for wider student cohorts. Outside her professional role, she is working towards completion of an Audiovisual PhD exploring screen representations of Birmingham, and is on the editorial team of Fragments, a journal of videographic form and method.
This is part of a series of posts celebrating the champions of our institutional Advance HE fellowship recognition scheme, Beacon. Beacon has awarded more than 1000 fellowships since its launch in 2015. Beacon is led by Marios Hadjianastasis and Jamie Morris.
Dr Julia Lodge is a Reader in the School of Biosciences at the University of Birmingham. Julia has contributed greatly to the scheme as an assessor and mentor for applicants, especially PGR students who teach in Biosciences as postgraduate teaching assistants (PGTAs). This is an important step in the recognition and employability prospects of doctoral students at UoB.
What have you been doing in your context to support Beacon fellowship and recognition?
Practical Laboratory classes are fundamental to the way that Biosciences is taught. They allow our students to develop essential practical skills but are also an opportunity for them to develop as scientists as they apply knowledge and discuss their ideas with others. Post Graduate Teaching Assistants are essential to delivering this important plank of our teaching.
When I took on the role of PGTA coordinator for the School of Biosciences I looked for ways to provide continuing professional development for our PGTAs beyond the initial training that they do before taking on the role. The Beacon fellowship programme has proved to be a very effective way of doing this as it gives PGTAs an opportunity for formal recognition for the teaching that they do and encourages them to develop themselves as reflective practitioners from an early stage of their careers.
How did you get people on board?
I support the Beacon scheme by working proactively to encourage PGTAs to apply for Associate Fellow of the HEA. Together with colleagues from the Beacon programme I hold bespoke Beacon Orientation Workshops for PGTAs who are interested in applying. I think that these workshops are particularly effective because I have a good overview of the work that they do and can advise about how to use their specific experience to evidence an application. They also provide a good opportunity for peer support.
I also make a point of celebrating successful applicants making sure that their achievement is recognised in School communications and on our social media.
Why do you do it? What does having fellowship mean for your local teaching culture?
I think that engagement with the Beacon programme is a key driver of the increased professionalism that we have seen amongst our PGTAs. They see that their work is recognised and valued beyond the specific class that they are supporting. The reflective approach that the application requires also develops their understanding of themselves as educators; I think sometimes they don’t understand what a good job they do until they write about it.
What was a ‘warm-glow’ moment for you?
My warm glow moments are when I read the thoughtful and reflective applications from PGTAs who I have watched develop as educators over two or three years of working with us in labs and workshops.
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