How academics learn (or not!): an adventure in space and time (and matter)

For academics in UK Higher Education (HE), professional learning (PL) is a complex and messy endeavour, especially in a climate of managerialist targets and performance. To maintain their authenticity and credibility, academics are expected to be cognizant with a range of knowledge domains that cut across various epistemic boundaries, often sitting outside of their subject discipline or teaching practices suggesting conflicting priorities in what is learnt (e.g. subject discipline versus institutional policies).

Using sociomaterial approaches as my theoretical framework, I explore how those conditions (e.g. academic role), situations (e.g. time pressures), spaces (e.g. shared offices), technologies (e.g. e-mail) and discourses (e.g. UK HE policy) can come to enable or encumber an academic's engagement with PL. The study has highlighted that, for some academics, the need to ‘hide’ or ‘escape’ to spaces that enables them to learn/work freely has become paramount. Furthermore, specific rituals and routines (i.e. listening to music, drinking coffee) have enabled academics to focus their attention towards learning/working. The findings of the study suggest that social constructivist models of PL are inadequate and fail to recognise the ‘invisible’ dimensions to the PL of HE academics.