Teaching and Learning Centre Blog
15/09/2025 2025-09-18 9:38Teaching and Learning Centre Blog
Teaching and Learning Centre Blog
Teaching and Learning Bulletin
Supporting Responsible AI Use (This week the TLC has been exploring how we engage our students in using AI wisely and well.) As AI tools become part of everyday academic practice, from ChatGPT and Grammarly to NotebookLM and beyond, our students increasingly turn to them for speed, structure and inspiration. We cannot control this. Instead, our shared task is to encourage responsible, reflective and academically grounded use of these tools. In this week’s bulletin, I want to showcase what we discussed with our students in their recent TLC seminar to explore how we can guide students towards owning their work, engaging with ideas, and developing the judgement that characterises genuine higher learning. The role of AI and how it can be used well AI offers fluency, speed and access to a vast archive of prior human output, but it does not think, generate genuinely new insights, or evaluate competing claims. …
Teaching and Learning Seminar Series
Focus on Scaffolding to support student learning in an international setting Seminar summary using NotebookLM (AI generated) …
Teaching and Learning Bulletin
Observation as a way to ‘notice’ and enhance reflective practices As we reach the close of our recent round of teaching observations, feedback and discussions, I want to use this bulletin to reflect on what we have being doing together and the impact this has on our learning culture and our teaching and learning practices. The intention behind the way in which the observation cycle has been designed, and the follow-up processes that accompany it, is to ensure that observations are not viewed as mere checkpoints of quality. Instead, they should be seen as opportunities for professional dialogue, for insight, and for growth. Observations are also useful activities to encourage and engage in developing ‘teacher noticing’, something I will return to in a later bulletin and will become a focus of one of the TLC seminars. The observation process helps us look closely at our practice: how we prepare, how …
Teaching and Learning Bulletin
Using reflective moments to share, evidence, and enhance our practice In a previous Teaching and Learning seminar, we explored reflection on action. This is the process of examining our teaching after the event to learn, refine, and grow. This week, we started to look at ways in which we can make the idea explicit and shareable. Our focus was on how we, as an academic team, can evidence and share our practice, where we shared the process of what we do, learn from each other, and think critically about how to make it better. In our session, we examined how reflection becomes meaningful when it’s linked to evidence of practice student work, feedback, classroom observations, and specifically examples of active learning in action. Our focus was about moving from “What did I teach?” to “How do I know my students learned?”. The seminar put forward the notion that once we …
Teaching and Learning Bulletin
Reflection on Action: Making Reflection a Shared Professional Practice During our Teaching and Learning seminar on Reflection on Action, colleagues explored what it means to pause, examine, and learn from our teaching experiences. Drawing on Donald Schön’s influential concept of reflection on action, we discussed how reflective practice can deepen our professional learning and shape our approach to teaching. What is Reflection on Action? Schön (1983) described reflection on action as the deliberate, critical examination of one’s practice after the event that is the process of looking back on what happened, analysing decisions made, and considering how they might inform future action. In a simplified framework, it’s about transforming experience into learning by asking: What happened? Why did it happen that way? What might I do differently next time? This form of reflection moves beyond instinctive reaction. It invites us to unpack the assumptions, strategies, and values that underpin our …
- 1
- 2
Simon Cleary is the Director of Teaching and Learning and Academic Director at Euro University of Bahrain. Simon has extensive professional experience in educational leadership, particularly within international education. He also has extensive teaching experience, primarily in English as a Second Language (ESOL) and English for Academic Purposes (EAP), spanning various institutions globally.
