Enhancing professional development for Third Space roles: reflections on the added value of Learning Circles
This paper explores how Learning Circles can support higher education staff in navigating the complexities of contemporary educational landscapes with greater confidence, creativity, and efficacy. It presents qualitative research rooted in the three-year Erasmus+ project CIRCLET, involving five Eur...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Association for Learning Development in Higher Education (ALDinHE)
2025-01-01
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| Series: | Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education |
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| Online Access: | https://journal.aldinhe.ac.uk/index.php/jldhe/article/view/1228 |
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| _version_ | 1832576265719119872 |
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| author | Linde Moriau Réka Matolay Emma McKenna Andrea Toarniczky Judit Gáspár Márta Frigyik Catherine Bates |
| author_facet | Linde Moriau Réka Matolay Emma McKenna Andrea Toarniczky Judit Gáspár Márta Frigyik Catherine Bates |
| author_sort | Linde Moriau |
| collection | DOAJ |
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This paper explores how Learning Circles can support higher education staff in navigating the complexities of contemporary educational landscapes with greater confidence, creativity, and efficacy. It presents qualitative research rooted in the three-year Erasmus+ project CIRCLET, involving five European universities. Learning Circles were implemented as a core component of professional development programmes, aiming to foster quality integration of Community Engaged Research and Learning (CERL) in academic practice. Drawing on a collaborative autoethnographic research design, we reflected on our experiences as Learning Circle designers, facilitators, and participants to identify manifestations of professional growth emanating from our project activities. We build on four different Learning Circle examples, analysing their features through a Third Spaces lens. We demonstrate that Learning Circles have the potential to create agentic, distributed, and adaptive professional learning spaces, enabling participating staff in reimagining their professional space, so that they feel better prepared to assume the hybrid roles and responsibilities that practices of engagement typically entail. We put forward a number of guiding principles for Learning Circle facilitators, emphasising the importance of promoting inquiry-led approaches, embedded in day-to-day practice, fostering active participation and critical reflection on one’s positionality.
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| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-1fd6a6855e004dfa92b4bcdee4a6aed2 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 1759-667X |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-01-01 |
| publisher | Association for Learning Development in Higher Education (ALDinHE) |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education |
| spelling | doaj-art-1fd6a6855e004dfa92b4bcdee4a6aed22025-01-31T07:56:41ZengAssociation for Learning Development in Higher Education (ALDinHE)Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education1759-667X2025-01-013310.47408/jldhe.vi32.1228Enhancing professional development for Third Space roles: reflections on the added value of Learning CirclesLinde Moriau0https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6537-6947Réka Matolay1Emma McKenna2Andrea Toarniczky3https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1247-3609Judit Gáspár4https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1908-1616Márta Frigyik5https://orcid.org/0009-0008-2397-9713Catherine Bates6https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4060-9983Vrije Universiteit BrusselCorvinus University of Budapest, HungaryQueen’s University BelfastCorvinus University of Budapest, HungaryCorvinus University of Budapest, HungaryCorvinus University of Budapest, HungaryTechnological University Dublin This paper explores how Learning Circles can support higher education staff in navigating the complexities of contemporary educational landscapes with greater confidence, creativity, and efficacy. It presents qualitative research rooted in the three-year Erasmus+ project CIRCLET, involving five European universities. Learning Circles were implemented as a core component of professional development programmes, aiming to foster quality integration of Community Engaged Research and Learning (CERL) in academic practice. Drawing on a collaborative autoethnographic research design, we reflected on our experiences as Learning Circle designers, facilitators, and participants to identify manifestations of professional growth emanating from our project activities. We build on four different Learning Circle examples, analysing their features through a Third Spaces lens. We demonstrate that Learning Circles have the potential to create agentic, distributed, and adaptive professional learning spaces, enabling participating staff in reimagining their professional space, so that they feel better prepared to assume the hybrid roles and responsibilities that practices of engagement typically entail. We put forward a number of guiding principles for Learning Circle facilitators, emphasising the importance of promoting inquiry-led approaches, embedded in day-to-day practice, fostering active participation and critical reflection on one’s positionality. https://journal.aldinhe.ac.uk/index.php/jldhe/article/view/1228boundary worklearning circlescommunity engaged research and learningthird space professionalism |
| spellingShingle | Linde Moriau Réka Matolay Emma McKenna Andrea Toarniczky Judit Gáspár Márta Frigyik Catherine Bates Enhancing professional development for Third Space roles: reflections on the added value of Learning Circles Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education boundary work learning circles community engaged research and learning third space professionalism |
| title | Enhancing professional development for Third Space roles: reflections on the added value of Learning Circles |
| title_full | Enhancing professional development for Third Space roles: reflections on the added value of Learning Circles |
| title_fullStr | Enhancing professional development for Third Space roles: reflections on the added value of Learning Circles |
| title_full_unstemmed | Enhancing professional development for Third Space roles: reflections on the added value of Learning Circles |
| title_short | Enhancing professional development for Third Space roles: reflections on the added value of Learning Circles |
| title_sort | enhancing professional development for third space roles reflections on the added value of learning circles |
| topic | boundary work learning circles community engaged research and learning third space professionalism |
| url | https://journal.aldinhe.ac.uk/index.php/jldhe/article/view/1228 |
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