Editor’s Introduction 

 

Compass: Journal of Learning and Teaching, Vol 14, No 1, 2021 
1 

 

Welcome to volume 14, issue 1 of Compass, Journal of Learning and Teaching! 

We are excited to bring you the first edition of 2021. This Winter issue contains a fascinating 

range of articles, including a report on an iterative design process of an ‘Inclusive Course 

Design Tool’; a scrutiny of technological systems applications in HE; and an evaluation of a 

blended-learning strategy incorporating self-regulated learning. Contrasting case studies 

demonstrate a pedagogical intervention to develop creative writing skills; collaborative 

assessment design in the context of education for sustainable development; an evaluation of 

using ‘talking-head’ videos in online delivery and a call to re-establish the significance of 

traditional lectures in teaching English Literature. There are also thought-provoking pieces: 

one proposes a framework on the elimination of race-based inequality in the world through 

Higher Education; another offers timely insights on inclusive online teaching. A brief 

snapshot of each paper follows.  

Dennis A Olsen, of the University at West London, conducts an interesting exploration into 

and evaluation of the application of ‘talking-head’ videos as a pedagogical tool in the online 

delivery of material to undergraduate students following subject courses in the creative 

industries. This well-balanced and informative paper describes how focus groups of students 

watched two videos – identical except for the camera angle (eye-level and low-shot) – of a 

presenter, presenting, before discussing their perceptions of the quality of the medium and 

of the teaching. In the context of both the Teaching Excellence and Student Outcome 

Framework and the ineluctable movement of higher educational institutions to online 

teaching because of Covid-19, the research exercise confirmed that students regarded the 

eye-level camera angle as superior to the low, but that they had, as regular YouTubers, 

reservations about production quality and also about the apparent lack of the kind of sparkle 

they experienced in face-to-face tutorials, this latter much more likely to enthuse and engage 

them. The author draws conclusions about the need for institutional support for staff 

producing and taking part in such videos and the means by which presenters may enhance 

emotional connectedness, learning partnership and mutual respect in the student-staff 

relationship. Presenter-centred videos may well not alone achieve these results or positively 

influence student satisfaction, though they have potential value, especially for revision 

purposes. The paper concludes with some suggestions for future research into relevant 

aspects of this approach. 

A detailed presentation of the ‘Inclusive Course Design Tool’ (ICDT) describes the creation 

of a systematic means of addressing, in particular, the black, Asian and minority ethnic 

(BAME) achievement gap at Leeds Beckett University. It was intended as a way of 

encouraging course designers and course teams across the institution to examine their 

practice and reflect on how their courses might fail to be inclusive and thus not adequately 

meet the needs of very diverse groups of students, not just BAME. By focusing attention on 

curricula, the classroom (virtual or physical), pedagogy and possible implicit and 

unconscious bias, the ICDT has, in its first outing, clearly demonstrated its scope for 

enhancing teaching and learning for all students and, especially, those from under-

represented groups. The authors of this paper, Susan V Smith, Ruth Pickford, Janice 

Priestley and Rebecca Seller, are committed to the principles which underpin the tool’s 

application and here, against a background of relevant literature, describe the structured 

approach it offers, covering course planning, course management, student support, 

establishment and nurturing of a course community, provision of development opportunities 

for all students and ensuring challenge for all. Eminently clear from this paper are the 



Editor’s Introduction 

 

Compass: Journal of Learning and Teaching, Vol 14, No 1, 2021 
2 

 

complete commitment of the whole institution to the implementation of the tool, evidence of 

the creators’ careful consultation beforehand and the painstaking subsequent collection of 

feedback data to inform its continuing development. It is perhaps unsurprising that other 

higher education institutions have requested it and the authors confirm their intention that it 

should be made available. 

Objective scrutiny of the various technological systems now available for application in 

education is vital if their best features are to support active learning and effective teaching, 

especially at a time when the traditional lecture has been very adversely appraised and, 

indeed, when lectures have not been permissible because of a pandemic. After providing 

sessions to familiarise all participants equally with the nature and practical characteristics of 

particular tools, Michael Detyna and Eleanor Dommett of King’s College London conducted 

small focus groups to take account of both student and staff perceptions, seeking to discover 

user views of which individual technologies might variously be harnessed to maximum 

pedagogical effect – in order to enhance the value of lectures by incorporating interactive 

and problem-solving experiences. Their findings drew attention to how best to optimise 

existing practice, to support new approaches, to ensure ease of use for both students and 

staff and to avoid overload and distraction. There is considerable food for thought in this 

balanced and meticulous study, which recognises the importance of taking account of the 

often-conflicting attitudes to digital methodologies of students and teachers respectively.  

Agnieszka Herdan, Antonella Russo and Elizabeth Warren, of University of Greenwich and 

Lorenzo Neri of Birbeck University, carefully outline their study of the effectiveness of a 

blended-learning strategy incorporating self-regulated learning (SLR) in enhancing the 

writing skills of business school students, in this case those following accounting courses. 

They report on their deployment of MyWritingLab as a transferable means of addressing the 

identifiable written communication deficiencies in new graduates entering the workplace. The 

detailed findings of this research paint a very positive picture of the impact of the approach 

on students’ written communication skills as well as on student engagement and confidence, 

for such a method appears to promote a sense of personal responsibility for learning and a 

degree of autonomy; students also have control over their pace of study. Such independent 

learning, in the context of dedicated online tools and teacher support in the classroom, 

clearly does produce in students a sense of satisfaction at having come to understand what 

they do and don’t know about writing and thus at being able to improve relevant skills. This 

paper offers helpful practical suggestions as to how to apply SLR within blended learning. 

A fascinating exercise in analytical composition is provided by Rachel McCabe of La Salle 

University, who sought to develop in students an appropriate understanding of text (here, 

film) and of the complex choices behind its creation, in order to develop in their written 

responses a sharper critical awareness, a deeper and more sophisticated exploration of 

method and a more refined and relevant specialist vocabulary for discussing construction 

and impact of text. What is particularly interesting in this case study is the manner in which 

the author adjusted, over time and in the light of experience, the nature of the task, which 

began as small-group creation – using personal cellphones – of a film scene or trailer that 

typified a particular genre, but eventually became the filmed re-creation of a scene from a 

professional movie. This evolution helped to eliminate unnecessary and time-wasting 

preparation of original material and to achieve focus on analysis; it evened up inequalities in 

the creative skills students brought with them; it also aided innovation. The reader of this 

paper is left with a powerful sense of student engagement: the participants watched original 



Editor’s Introduction 

 

Compass: Journal of Learning and Teaching, Vol 14, No 1, 2021 
3 

 

scenes repeatedly and together interacted with the content; post-screening discussion 

between creators and audience honed mutual appreciation; they were ultimately able to 

articulate well in writing the elements of composition, skills readily transferable to other kinds 

of text. 

Evidence of social inequalities, social injustices and the persistence of racial prejudice is not 

difficult to find, however frequent the calls for change. In this forthright and cogent opinion 

piece, Mazia Yassim of University of Greenwich offers a coherent strategy for higher 

education institutions to adopt in order to move their policy and practice from mere raising 

awareness of these issues to logical steps to the genuine achievement social change. The 

author sees the five stages of Goodman’s (2013) ‘Cultural Competency for Social Justice’ 

proposal as a framework which, when given equal weight and profile right across institutions, 

will help to develop in their whole communities a sense of social justice and cultural 

competence and encourage in students the self-belief and determination to become social 

change makers. Effective education about social change, she argues, must be embedded in 

the curriculum and the staff must be appropriately trained and supported to deliver it; 

students must enter employment confident that they can make a difference and achieve 

change. Perhaps most striking in this piece is the author’s emphasis on adequate 

measurement of change at programme, institutional and even national levels; unless social 

change engagements by alumni are specifically included in the tracking of their progress 

beyond higher education and unless the impact of related institutional practices are 

monitored and properly measured, true improvement to society will remain elusive. 

It is certainly true that good teachers are those who continuously reflect on their own practice 

and are prepared to question methodology in the interests of pedagogical improvement. 

Finding herself once again a student – on the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education 

course at the University of Greenwich – Nandini Boodia-Canoo took the opportunity to 

consider the teaching of higher education Law (and her own previous teaching experience 

therein) in the light of, specifically, Social Learning Theory, Constructivism and Cognitive 

Load Theory. Her reflective paper here is a tribute to her critical acumen in appraising these 

theories against both her own teaching and generally accepted practices in teaching law to 

undergraduates; she is keen to stimulate discussion and debate and to encourage 

willingness to innovate, to challenge teachers’ personally held assumptions about students 

and how they learn, to question the efficacy of particular approaches, to review methods and 

materials and to enhance the learning experience of all those who choose to follow courses 

in Law. 

The provision of expert advice on upskilling by staff to meet a real challenge – in this case, 

the application of online learning and teaching strategies in a pandemic context, when 

socially distanced, on-campus and ‘in-person’ measures have their own disadvantages – is 

always to be welcomed, particularly when it reminds us of the broader needs of all students 

and particularly of those who may be marginalised. Donna Hurford of the University of 

Southern Denmark and Andrew Read of London South Bank University, recognise that 

universities and their staff may well benefit from some timely guidance about the provision of 

online delivery to ensure that it is both motivating and inclusive. This helpful paper 

summarises the key aspects of online methodology, listing the key principles for making it 

effective and accessible, and then offers precise information about putting those principles 

into practice. The whole is an excellent aide-memoire for all, emphasising as it does the fact 



Editor’s Introduction 

 

Compass: Journal of Learning and Teaching, Vol 14, No 1, 2021 
4 

 

that those students with the least sense of belonging are likely to be the greatest 

beneficiaries of a well-executed strategy. 

In the context of a level 5 Environmental Management module, Debbie Bartlett of the 

University of Greenwich set out to involve two small consecutive cohorts of students in 

curriculum and assessment design. In accordance with the literature, which clearly 

demonstrates the value of formative feedback in stimulating reflection and developing 

learning (because it is much more akin to workplace reality than ever summative 

assessment can be), the author opted to engage her students in module co-design in a 

conscious effort to increase their control over their own learning and to stimulate their 

assessment literacy. The students chose to use the ‘sustainable development goals’ as their 

focus, with two assessment tasks – a group presentation and an individual report. The 

reader will be interested to note that, during the course of her description of the work of the 

two cohorts, the author makes a clear case change from third to first person plural, which 

confirms the collaborative and participatory nature of this student/staff relationship. Another 

striking aspect of this paper is the evidence of student enthusiasm for ‘real-world’ 

opportunities in the form of contribution to their institution’s ISO14001 submission and the 

delivering of a conference presentation. The overall logic of this study is undeniable: if 

students exercise control over their curriculum and understand how it is to be assessed, the 

benefits to them far exceed conventional methods of final assessment. 

In a reasoned and well-constructed argument, Katarina Stenke of the University of 

Greenwich maintains that, for English Literature, the traditional lecture continues to have 

significant value and relevance, for students in this discipline are ‘expected to read at length 

or otherwise to engage with extended and complex discursive modes’ and are not, contrary 

to recent research, mere passive learners in the lecture setting; nor, indeed, is a literature 

lecture just a one-way transmission of content. The author argues that the literature lecture 

does a range of very powerful things: it introduces and advertises set texts, habituates 

students to academic and literary discourse, models best practice in reading attention and 

critical argument and demonstrates how to read and transform into personalised meaning 

what is often very abstruse material. Looked at another way, the literature lecture becomes a 

social and worldly experience, a ‘community of practice’ that stimulates thinking and 

promotes reflective engagement. Helpfully, the author illustrates ways by which such a 

learning and teaching medium can enthuse students and suggests that the social learning 

theories that lie behind condemnation of the lecture need to be repurposed to recognise their 

genuine constructive qualities. Some offered insight into observations of Katarina’s own 

teaching practice confirm that a lecturer’s personal dynamism and love of literature, as well 

as awareness of how to generate interaction in the lecture setting, may be also of crucial 

importance to a lecture’s success. 

We hope that readers will find these papers stimulating and helpful and will enjoy reading 

them as much as we have enjoyed collaborating with our hard-working authors and 

reviewers to put this issue together.  

With best wishes to all Compass readers and contributors,  

Rachel and Yang