Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education ISSN: 1759-667X Issue 11: April 2017 Editorial Sue Eccles Bournemouth University Amanda French Birmingham City University, UK Lucy Gray Open University, UK Andy Hagyard University of Leeds, UK John Hilsdon Plymouth University, UK Christina Howell-Richardson Birkbeck, University of London, UK Moira Maguire Dundalk Institute of Technology, Ireland Issue 11 of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education draws together contributions from a wide spectrum of current issues in learning development. This issue which includes papers, case studies and an opinion piece illustrates the richness of the field through reflections on promoting the effectiveness of student learning through supporting students as researchers, bilingual learning and the use of online learning objects. The development and evaluation of ‘tools’ features in two papers, Tanguay and Hanratty’s needs analysis tool and Awad and Cuculescu’s exploration of the Effective Life- long Leaning Inventory (ELLI). We hope that you enjoy this rich collection of reflections. Awad and Cuculescu’s paper, Using Learning Dimensions within the Effective Life-long Learning Inventory (ELLI) as Indicators of Academic Success in Biosciences is concerned with supporting lifelong learning and reports on a study into the affordances of the Effective Life-long Learning Inventory tool (ELLI) in the context of a Biosciences programmes at Northumbria University. ELLI provides an indicator of academic Editorial Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, Issue 11: April 2017 2 performance through raising students’ awareness of their own learning power. Results from the study indicate that ELLI is a useful tool for identifying key dispositions in successful learners, which could inform interventions to improve learning. The paper concludes that there is an opportunity to explore learning specific to the Biosciences through the development of a questionnaire to explore characteristics of successful learners in these disciplines in order to devise interventions more targeted to support learning in less successful students. For learning developers, ensuring that our provision is informed by and responsive to student learning needs is a priority. Tanguay and Hanratty report on an innovative system of ongoing needs analysis that is likely to be of wide interest. The system involves the use of an anonymised, online form to record key features of 1:1 tutorials. This allows identification of patterns in the support needed by students enabling the design of ‘bespoke’ support for specific cohorts of students. The authors illustrate this with an example of using the system to inform provision for nursing students. Wood’s opinion piece, ‘Holiploigy – Navigating the complexity of teaching in Higher Education’ discusses how the processes of teaching in HE are often reduced to a dichotomy of being either 'transmission' or 'discovery' led. Such characterisations of teaching, he maintains, fail to engage with the actual context-driven complexities of teaching, learning, curriculum and assessment. Consequently, he reflects upon how teaching processes might be characterised and explained without reducing them to simplistic frameworks and argues instead for holistic, process-led models of teaching, learning, curriculum and assessment and associated systems for module and programme development and execution which he has termed holiploigy. In ‘Student as researcher: Rethinking how to make research methods interesting for students’, Rodriquez and Daly present a case study of how academics can enhance students’ understanding and application of different approaches to phenomenological analysis through collaborative teaching and learning. Using data from a study the students had themselves participated in, they each analysed the data using one of five different approaches. The students were provided with guided reading and met with their tutors to discuss their analysis and findings. This was then shared across the whole group, encouraging peer learning and reflection. Overall, students increased their subject knowledge and understanding of more complex issues around research methodology and Editorial Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, Issue 11: April 2017 3 analysis, developed their skills of working independently but benefitted from the collaborative experience of sharing ideas and learning from both academics and their peers. For Learning Developers, this case study provides an example of how a different approach to the more traditional ways of ‘teaching’ research methodologies and analysis of data can provide greater engagement with or ‘ownership’ of the research process, whilst also increasing students’ knowledge, skills and confidence. In their case study, ‘Promoting language choice in health care courses in Wales by using dynamic approaches to teaching and learning incorporating bilingual digital technology,’ Peggy Murphy and Beryl Cooledge explore inclusive teaching within the context of meeting learner needs in a bilingual (English and Welsh) environment. The case details their use of a blended approach to address some of the challenges of bilingual teaching. Pre-registration nursing students were offered pre-recorded lectures in both English and Welsh on key pain management topics. Within the classroom, students worked on pain management scenarios in groups and individually completed a ‘gapped’ handbook to self- assess their knowledge. Murphy and Cooledge align this work to the United Kingdom Professional Standards Framework (UKPSF) and their emphasis on modelling accessibility is particularly useful. John Fulton and Catherine Hayes address learning needs at doctoral level in their paper ‘Evaluating retrospective experiential learning as process in scholarship on a work based professional doctorate’. The authors note the increasing popularity of professional doctorates which focus on enhancement of professional practice. They report on an evaluation of one such programme. Interviews with candidates explored learning needs and experiences. They concluded that ‘…progressive development of a foundational solid base of transferable skills, underpinned by incorporating methodological approaches integrated with the skills of critical reflection, allowed doctoral candidates to develop their individual practice in a uniquely creative manner.’ Roberts and Windle’s paper, ‘Development and evaluation of an online learning object to improve pre-registration nursing students’ knowledge and engagement with pre-operative fasting’, presents an evaluation of the development of an online Learning Object in combination with a conventional one hour tutored session to support students’ learning of the troublesome concept of pre-operative fasting. A Learning Object is a small focused package of e-learning content based around a single learning outcome; that in this case Editorial Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, Issue 11: April 2017 4 allowed for self-paced learning using text based and visual input and formative quizzes. The evaluation discusses the students’ accounts of their experiences of learning in the Learning Object and tutor judgements of learning and retention based on summative tests. Taken together, these seven papers provide a snapshot of the wide-range of innovative learning development work ongoing throughout the UK and beyond. We hope that you will find the issue thought-provoking and relevant.