Currently reading: “Stories of hope: reimagining education”

I recently started the daily practice of reading the book “Stories of hope: reimagining education” (first blog post here), and this is how it continues from day 4 to day 11 (and where I take a break for the foreseeable future to focus on rest and recovery).

Day 4 still, chapter 7: “Becoming wildly nomadic with the Nomadic Detective Agency-Assemblage” (Ingham, 2025)

Still reading on Sunday, now while sitting at the swimming pool, waiting for my own training to start. And this chapter is an example of why I think this book would be so good to read in a book club where we discuss. It is an “unessay” of a fictional detective story (the crime being the homogenisation of educational futures, the victims the future students) that I find really hard to connect with, and I think talking about this would be super helpful. I understand the purpose of writing in a nontraditional format and it makes a lot of sense, but it also brings with it — very likely on purpose — other challenges than a more traditional text. But why should I put brain space into remembering acronyms for fictional detective agencies?

Anyway. The idea of “becoming wildly normadic” is to “practice the principle of multiplicity—that learning, and knowledge are not linear or hierarchical but a complex, interconnecting web“, with the ethos of “becoming” and education “a continuous journey of transformation and growth“. Ingham (2025)’s last suggestion in the steps of hope (after calling for unconventional formats…) is to “[d]evelop practices, policies, and pedagogies that promote joy in learning environments, to reshape current practices and work towards a more positive and hopeful educational future.” Sounds good!

By now I am wondering if I am destroying my “daily practice” by reading so much in one day, and if I will want to read a chapter tomorrow of if I am going to fall into a “I read so much yesterday, today I don’t have time” slump, so I am stopping here for today, even though tomorrow’s chapter sounds very promising!

Day 5, chapter 8: “Playful Higher Education futures: Hopeful and utopian thinking in pedagogy” (Holflod, 2025)

It’s Monday evening, and it feels like a chore to read, but since this is my new practice, I am doing it! Somehow there wasn’t time during the day (well, I prioritised reading something else…) but here we go!

I like playful approaches to learning (just this morning I brought my Teaching for Sustainability bingo to a group of unsuspecting colleagues, and this whole blog was about #KitchenOceangraphy for literally years), so I like that playful teaching is becoming a bit of a trend, as Kirsty writes in her guest post! Holflod (2025) envisions a probable and preferable future for higher education “with educators and learners engaging in Higher Education inspired by voices of playfulness, hope, and utopia“.

What could that look like in practice? Holflod (2025) gives two examples: In “play design futures”, teachers develop tentative learning designs (based on cards that suggest in what kind of future and which context the learning design is set, and what kind of approach to imagination to use) and then imagine what the participant might experience in that design. So dreaming up what learning could be like in a loosely constrained, positive future — sounds like fun! And in “wonder spaces”, participants use various materials to create a visualisation of a current problem and its futuristic or utopian solution. Based on experiences with these and other methods, Holflod (2025) finds that “playful Higher Education is not only significantly connected to hopeful pedagogies and utopian visions—it is also imaginable and possible.”

Holflod (2025)’s suggested steps towards hope include — in addition to using playful approaches — “[d]evelop learning communities that emphasise shared experiences, collaboration, and interpersonal connections to enhance collective educational outcomes” and “[p]romote alternative futures—of togetherness, relationality, and playfulness.” What strikes me, reading through this book and these stories of hope, that the suggested “steps of hope” at the end of many chapters are much more abstract than the actual content of the chapter, much bigger visions. I really like that format!

Day 6, chapter 9. “The emotional impact of nature seen through the lenses of virtual reality (VR) and revealed through the power of expressive art” (Rodolico & McGregor, 2025)

This I am actually reading at my desk in the office! Mostly because tonight there is no flexibility of reading after work. And I was very tempted to skip the next couple of chapters on “how technology can shape the future” and go straight to “Creative Curriculum Design” (which sounds like a lot of fun and also super relevant in light of all the constructive alignment discussions that I am having these days!), but then I decided that I probably really need some stories of hope around technology, and that the other chapters will still be there in a couple of days when it is their turn. So we’ll see!

Rodolico & McGregor (2025) explore Virtual Reality in eco-centric education. I myself get super motion sick when the movement that I see does not match the movement that my body otherwise experiences, but there is a bunch of research that shows that VR can be engaging and lets people experience embodiment and situated learning. Can it also help people to connect with nature and themselves, though? Or at least when combined with making art? In their study, teacher participants explore a space in VR and then paint, and report that this is a strong emotional experience that includes wonder (“I didn’t know how tall the trees could be“) and connection (“it makes one wish to go there“). They then went into reflection supported by conversations with artists to further explore how expression could support processing of experiences and emotions.

Interestingly, for me the main message of this chapter isn’t actually about technology (which is just the tool to be transported to a place that you might otherwise not get to without significant investments in time, money, carbon footprints…), it is about the use of art, and Rodolico & McGregor (2025)’s  second step towards hope is actually a good summary of what I am taking away from this chapter: “Encourage the explicit expression of emotions through visual art as a complementary tool to deepen connections with nature in educational contexts and develop and share pedagogical artifacts for further discussion and celebration.”

Day 7, chapter 10: “CanadARThistories: Collaboratively designing an open-access course” (Amos & Buis, 2025)

Hard to believe that we are on day 7 already! I’m reading again in the evening after work because that seems to be the best time to make time for something that is important but not urgent… But I have talked to so many people about

Amos & Buis (2025) describe how they designed an open access course collaboratively with 6 scholars, using zoom and collaborative online documents. They describe the collaborative development as both sharing labour but also making sure that many perspectives are included and that selection of content is balanced and well thought-through. Since the course is published as Open Educational Resource and on a platform with that functionality, it can be kept up-to-date and evolve over time and potentially branch out into several parallel tracks for different purposes.

This is very similar actually to how we think about designing our MOOC, so seems that we are on a good track!

Day 7 still, chapter 11: “PhDForum: An online quiet study room providing a public space that nurtures the personal experience of being part of a global community” (Peach, 2025)

Only one more… :-D

Peach (2025) describes how a Twitter community, founded in 2012 to support mental well-being in early-career researchers, offered quiet online study rooms during the pandemic. People could join the silent online study room using a code, and then study while being on camera or not, but mostly silent (except for scheduled writing sessions, when Peach announces breaks and offers support; and this role was over time taken on also by other participants. And then there is also a daily “bunny cam“!). The chat was used by participants to discuss writing goals and challenges, and participants also created other ways to share resources and tips.

The community that formed in that online room during the pandemic grew into relationships that helped combat isolation both during the pandemic and after, for example for people who moved to new places but still had access to their online community there, for people that were sitting in their offices but still wanted the community, but also into real-world relationships.

This sounds like a really good experience, and one that I recognise both from a PhD student writing group in Lund that partly meets in person and partly online, and from an in-person “write club” that I was part of when I worked at IPN many years ago. Maybe I should start offering something like that for my own career stage!

As always, the steps towards hope are a lot bigger picture than the concrete case described in the chapter. Here, one is “Ensure consistency between stated values and actual practices to foster authentic solidarity in academic settings“, which sounds like very sound advice, and another one is “Respect students’ and participants’ right to choose how they engage, including the right not to be researched.” The latter one is so interesting: Of course there is research interest around what exactly made this community so successful and important for participants. But that does not mean that anyone has the right to do the research if participants don’t want to be research subjects! I think this is something we really need to think about a lot more — do the people whose experiences we want to investigate actually want us to do that, or do they just consent because they feel that they have to?

Day 7 still, chapter 12: ““The art of conversation”: Educational guidance practitioners and support for distance-learning students” (Burney et al., 2025)

Turns out I do like the technology section of the book, too, and this chapter is the last one before we move into curriculum topics, so I’ll just finish off this part and start on the (hopefully even more) fun stuff tomorrow!

Burney et al. (2025) look into how telephone-call based guidance is provided by the Open University to a diverse student body. They suggest that these are the most important considerations:

• creating space for conversations. In-person it might be a physical space, on the phone it is making it explicit that there is time available for students, and how they can use it
• creating an environment in which the (assumed) power-relationship can be broken down and students can feel comfortable sharing and collaborating
• communicating belief in students’ potential, welcoming them as whole persons
• trying to not make assumptions and judgements

They also note that visible characteristics that otherwise might present barriers to connection are not transported, so connections are sometimes formed more easily

A problem with guidance is that it can only address challenges from the individual position, even when they are societal and the individual cannot do much about them. Maybe that is where the people providing guidance can think their roles a bit bigger and see if they can work on tearing down some of the barriers on a structural level?

Here, one of the steps towards hope is to “Prioritise fostering genuine human connections in hybrid and remote learning environments to counteract the disconnection amplified by virtual campuses and social media.” Sounds like good advice!

Day 8, chapter 13: “Hope Street: Reimagining learning journeys” (Bissell & Overend, 2025)

Another evening reading…

Bissell & Overend (2025) describes audio walks that go up and down the same street, but with audios from different places in either direction: “walking is a method of revaluation, in which the city is reframed and recast as a site for hopeful exploration in the context of unprecedented climate change. The suggestion is that we need to adventure creatively in order to locate and interpret the signs of hope that line our streets and circle overhead.” But doing the two cities — Glasgow and Mexico City — in the same walk also lets participants experience many different scales at once, the hyper local observations and the global system that connects both places. At the turning point of the walk, there is a “climate portal” for video meetings between participants at these points in both cities, which I think is a brilliant idea (although I wonder how that worked with time zones). (And I wonder if I haven’t heard a conference presentation about this at some point, the project sounds very familiar!)

I like that they use “learning journey” both literally and figuratively: “the hope is that we will begin at one point of understanding (A) and arrive somewhere different (B) with new insights, experiences and knowledge, gathered along the way.” This is also reflected in the step towards hope “Reimagine physical and digital journeys as sites of learning,  transformation, and hope.” They also recommend to “Harness participatory and community-based experiences to generate meaningful encounters and new ways of knowing.”

Day 9, chapter 14: “The other F word: Re-storying student failure in Canadian Higher Education” (Fritz, 2025)

Quick morning reading in the room where we will have a focus group interview in 30 minutes…

Fritz (2025) writes a personal essay about experiences with failure, both their own and in their work as a learning specialist talking with students who have failed in something. While there is a lot of literature on predicting and preventing failure, but little on how to support students going through experiences of failure.

Fritz (2025) suggests a couple of things teachers can do

• create an environment where it is ok when students admit to struggles, and where this is a topic that can be openly  talked about
• share stories of own failure and strategies to deal with it
• make it explicit that you aren’t judging students
• invite students to share a range of failures from tiny to large
• normalise experiences by asking if other people (in the audience, if there is one) have also experienced something similar

Academia is described as “a place where students can experience failure and be happy to share their stories with others” so they can grow to become their whole selves.

Day 10, chapter 15: ““Armed love”: A case study in cultivating a pedagogy of hope” (Cachia, 2025)

Saturday morning, but a good time for new hope for education!

Cachia (2025) shared with their students in a podcast how the pandemic impacted them as someone living with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. This was in the context of how the pandemic disproportionately impacted the already marginalised, who did not have homes to self-isolate, who worked service jobs rather than remotely, who did not have access to good healthcare, etc., and listening to the podcast elicited reactions from the students — asking to talk privately, or sharing their own experiences in discussion fora — and the tone set by the podcast carried through the rest of the course. And this is reflected in the steps towards hope: “Do not be afraid to share personal experiences to encourage students to engage in critical reflection and collective learning.” and “Implement “biographical disruption” as a pedagogical tool to inspire students to bring themselves into the classroom and create projects drawing on their lived experiences.”

Day 11, chapter 16: “The XXXX game: A character-based tool for learning” (Sheridan, 2025)

I just realised I did not read in the book yesterday, but then it was also Sunday, so this is probably good news! And I think that today might be the last day of regular reading for a while, too. But today’s chapter looks exciting!

Sheridan (2025) explores role-playing to elicit empathy, which in turn — by understanding better what motivates others and how they feel — might make participants more hopeful. This happens in a role play / game developed at the start of the pandemic, which can be used online or offline. It combines short lectures and scenarios, to which participants respond from the perspective of their chosen characters (which they do not reveal until after the role play is over). What I find interesting is that before the role play part begins, participants are asked whether they accept the challenge. This seems a bit risky, but also explains why it is stressed very much that the teacher has to lead the whole thing with a lot of enthusiasm!

The topic of lectures and scenarios are everyday dilemmas, for example homelessness, and exploring them from the perspective of a character gives participants freedom to test different ways to relate to the dilemma, understand how others feel about it, and possibly changing their beliefs around that topic. For me, the connection between the role play and hope came only in the last two sentences (but then I also hate role plays so maybe it would have been more obvious for others): “In a world in which injustice exists, education must create opportunities for people to build trusting and tolerant relationships. From these, hope for a better future will grow.”

Day 11 still, chapter 17: “Reimagining the sage–guide dichotomy: A life-long learner’s story of teaching and learning in Higher Education (Herbert & Al-Saggaf, 2025)

Now that I have decided that I will break my daily reading practice for the foreseeable future to focus on rest and recovery, I have the strong urge to at least check out this chapter that looks so interesting…

As the title of this chapter says, we typically think that we can either use a sage-on-the-stage approach (which we typically think of as traditional lecturing), or a guide-on-the-side approach (which is associated with a more student-centered approach). Turns out that it is — of course — not as easy as that! In Herbert & Al-Saggaf (2025), Al-Saggaf describes that they see their teaching style as an orchestra, performing with the students, but leading not from the podium but from within the midst of all the other players. Students are given information about the assignment / musical piece, provided with learning activities / instruments, and then everybody works together. In one course iteration, weekly webinars were added, where Al-Saggaf took on the sage / conductor role. They also posted a reflection on their own learning and perception of the shared process with an invitation to the students to respond.

I can relate to this metaphor very well, having played in orchestras where the lead was also “just” a player, and also having taken the role of being simultaneously leader and player myself. And in my experience, there is also a progression over time, where the leader might be structuring rehearsals more in the beginning, and then trusting the process more and more as everybody learns to play both the piece and together. So I think this works well for teaching, too!

The four steps towards hope also resonate with me a lot:

• “Transition from a directive role to a collaborative one, engaging actively with students in learning activities.
• Involve students in the creation and refinement of assessment tasks to value their input and foster ownership.
• Approach teaching with genuine curiosity and openness to create a space for innovative teacher–student interactions.
• Recognise and support students as active participants in their learning journey to develop meaningful and hopeful interactions.“

And now I am not going to read the next chapter’s title, so I don’t get stuck here :-)

Abegglen, S., Heller, R. F., Madhok, R., Neuhaus, F., Sandars, J., Sinfield, S., & Gitanjali Singh, U. (2025). Stories of hope: reimagining education. https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/obp.0462

These pictures are from a day when I really really really needed the dip after work!

And it was just incredibly beautiful!

One of the last days that felt like the summer will never end…