Kieran Balloo

Feedback emPower Tools logo

Making use of #feedback is *tough*. But with the right knowledge, skills & tools, learners are empowered to get more value from the feedback they get.

So we created www.feedbackempowertools.com, with free resources for educators and learners. Check it out & share! @kieranballoo.bsky.social #edusky

Project logo featuring a multi-coloured graphic design and text that reads "Supporting academics with inclusive & equitable curricula, teaching and learning"

New equity in teaching survey is dropping as part of our ACSES-supported project, "Supporting academics with inclusive & equitable curricula, teaching and learning"!

Journal cover for Public Humanities

Special Edition journal cover for Public Humanities: The How-To Issue

What a pleasure to think about academic blogging – or “doing” knowledge translation – with @kieranballoo.bsky.social and Alana Piper in #PublicHumanities, a brand new journal ed. @zoebulaitis.bsky.social and Jeffrey R. Wilson.

Check out our top tips for getting started! ⬇️

doi.org/10.1017/pub....

Nobel Prize for whoever writes a programme that automatically renames all older saved versions of a file ‘not-final’ when you save a version with ‘final’ in the name.

Did you know? By replacing your coffee with green tea, you can lose up to 92% of what little joy you still have left in your life.

Awareness, understandings, and teaching practices surrounding academic oracy in university preparation pathways University preparation pathways are an important equity mechanism for opening access to higher education to under-represented students. A vital focus of pathways education is on the academic litera...

New paper in @herdjournal.bsky.social with Marion Heron & @sallybaker.bsky.social. We explore the role (or lack thereof) of academic oracy (academic speaking and listening) in enabling education / pathways in Australia.

OPEN ACCESS:

a woman in a black jacket says " i 'll see you again in 25 years " ALT: a woman in a black jacket says " i 'll see you again in 25 years "

when i submit an article manuscript for peer review

Reclaiming the Teaching Discourse in Higher Education This book examines university teaching to encourage a move away from the singular lens of neoliberalism towards more a pluralistic stance that inspires a health…

@kieranballoo.bsky.social and I wrote a chapter in this book, released today! #Teaching, #wellbeing, #humanizing #pedagogies www.bloomsbury.com/au/reclaimin...

What’s in a name? Enabling education in Australia Our terminology matters in framing enabling education, particularly for students who have experienced educational disadvantage.

Enabling education is a public good, a true legacy of Whitlam-era policies that assert that higher education is for everyone. Emma Hamilton, Matthew Bunn, Kieran Balloo and Sally Baker discuss FEE-FREE Uni Ready. loom.ly/NkzLxm0

Universities’ policies on feedback speed do not meaningfully predict students’ satisfaction with assessment and feedback It is widely believed that an essential property of feedback’s effectiveness is its timeliness, and students frequently report untimely feedback as a significant source of dissatisfaction in their ...

Policies on turnaround time do not predict NSS. This definitely emphasises my own experience that NSS improvements are best achieved by hyper-local considerations rather than pan-University ones www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

That exciting moment when I realize I did *not* finish my coffee.

I’ve found the synchronous interactions in online supervision to be crucial to establishing trust. Asynchronous feedback is then generally understood and engaged with better following this. I think I’d find it challenging to achieve the same thing fully asynchronously, but I’m sure it could be done!

Absolutely - I’m sure OU has many good examples. More effort needs to go into designing the learning environment to ensure that dialogue (or simulated dialogue) occurs than is required in synchronous interactions. This isn’t always occurring in places without much of a scholarship around distance ed

We propose that scaffolding students’ active engagement with feedback is key. Along with Prof Naomi Winstone, we’ll be developing tools for educators and students to support this scaffolding, so watch this space!

As students become more ‘distant’, can feedback still hit the mark? Whether they are behind a computer screen or behind bars, all students need support with making effective use of feedback – whether or not the process is a two-way street

How do we continue to make feedback effective as students increasingly move away from studying on campus, with fewer opportunities for dialogue with lecturers (& other students)? @drrobnash.bsky.social & I ponder this question @timeshighered.bsky.social:

www.timeshighereducation.com/campus/stude...

I requested an article from 1985 yesterday vis Interlibrary Loan (ILL) and it’s already a PDF in my inbox.

At first it seems miraculous but I know that it’s because of libraries’ long-standing resource sharing agreements & the work of many hands. Thank you, ILL colleagues!

This year, be the nodder in the audience every presenter deserves

Screencap showing the jump from Oct 4 to 15

In 1582, a papal bull introduced the Gregorian calendar, still used today by most of the world. Because it’s 11 days ahead of the Julian calendar, countries introducing it simply skipped a third of October, and if you scroll back far enough in the iPhone calendar app you can see it change

My hottest take for the end of the year is that it is immensely more satisfying to cross things off a to-do list written on paper than any electronic equivalent.

HEADLINE OF THE YEAR WINNERS, 2018-2023 2018 PLUMAGE A TROIS Thomas the blind bisexual goose who was stuck in a two-decade long love triangle with two swans dies aged 40 2019 Penguins ignore police, return to sushi shop 2020 Hospital angrily denies snake discovered in operating theatre, insisting there was only a monkey 2021 When an Eel Climbs a Ramp to Eat Squid From a Clamp, That's a Moray 2022 The City of Ottawa wants to hear your garbage opinions 2023 British Museum asks public and experts to help recover stolen artefacts

Headline of the Year contest starts tomorrow.

Here are the winners from previous contests:

2025-26 Large Grants awarded - ACSES

Incredibly excited to be part of a team funded by ACSES to investigate how to support academics towards inclusive curriculum!

Led by Chris Browne and Sally Baker of ANU, with a few of my fav Bluesky friends too @sarahoshea.bsky.social @kieranballoo.bsky.social

www.acses.edu.au/2025-26-larg...

My regular suggestion: At the end of the semester why not reach out to someone whose work you taught and let them know? These days we have very little idea who teaches our stuff and in what contexts. It takes almost no time and can really make their day.

2025 Special Issue Launch ‘Reimagining Higher Education Learning Spaces' Are you interested in what the future could look like for learning spaces in Higher Education? Hear from contributors to the HERD 2025 SI.

Special Issue Launch! 📗🚀

‘Reimagining Higher Education Learning Spaces: Assembling Theory, Methods, and Practice’

Co-edited by Professor Sam Elkington and Dr Jill Dickinson.

🗓️ Wednesday 29 January 2025

Online 7-9pm Australian EST / 8-10am UK

Register here: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/2025-speci... 🎟️

This sounds unbelievably timely!

Trying out this new coffee alternative called “sleep”

before coffee: I hate everything

after coffee: I hate everything but nervouser

Cover of the Gen AI Strategies Report

TEQSA just released their #GenAI for #HE toolkit that summarises best practices from the Request for Information. Responses from 202 Australian institutions, organised into three sections: Process, People and Practice. www.teqsa.gov.au/guides-resou...

Can anyone help me find a post about AI-generated text in online qual survey studies?

I saw a post on here the other day about this as an issue, and possibly how to tackle it -- if anyone can help me find it that would me much appreciated! 🙏