Alison Gilmour

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20032022

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Personal profile

Overview

Dr Alison Gilmour is a higher education academic in learning and teaching with diverse experience gained through: leading cross-functional project teams to enhance teaching and academic practice; successful development, mentoring and panel reviewing for accredited teaching recognition schemes; and demonstrable high-impact teaching, module leadership and CPD leadership.

With experience of teaching in four HEIs, she is a passionate advocate for widening participation and the use of curriculum design and pedagogies of care to support successful pathways into, through and out of higher education for diverse groups of students.

 

Area of academic expertise - outline

Alison joined the University of the West of Scotland as a Lecturer in Learning Transformation in September 2021 having worked as an Associate Professor and Lecturer in Learning and Teaching at the University of Greenwich and as an Educational Advisor teaching on taught programmes in educational development at Queen Mary University of London.

Prior to this, Alison worked for seven years in Learning and Teaching Enhancement at the Open University in Scotland as a Project Officer and Learning Enhancement Manager, managing a broad portfolio of projects encompassing learning and teaching enhancement, academic staff development, student experience and widening access. 

She has co-led a number of cross-sector projects in the Scottish Higher Education sector: on the professional development of university teachers in Scotland (2012-14); an analysis of student perceptions of good feedback practice within student-led teaching award data (2018); and an exploration of the nature of retention and progression data within Scottish HEIs (2019). More recently her interest in the area of embedding wellbeing in the curriculum has led to her involvement in the Advance HE Project: Embedding wellbeing in the curriculum (2019-20) and the QAA Collaborative Enhancement Project: Embedding Mental Wellbeing (2021-2022).

Alison’s academic background is in Sociology and Economic and Social History focused on the use of oral history to explore industrial relations and work cultures in post-1945 Scotland (specifically the Linwood car plant). In 2006, after completing an Economic History Society postdoctoral fellowship, she moved into the field of learning and teaching enhancement.

 

Current teaching activities and interests

As an experienced module leader on Advance HE accredited taught programmes in learning and teaching, and as mentor and reviewer for accredited pathways for Advance HE fellowship, Alison combines her expertise as teacher and developer aligned with the UK Professional Standards Framework.

Since 2009 Alison has been an Associate Lecturer (history and social sciences) for the Open University.

She continues this undergraduate teaching alongside postgraduate supervision (education; blended learning) at the University of Greenwich.

 

Current research activities

Given the nature of her expertise in the professional development of academic practice, Alison's scholarly focus is on practice-oriented outputs. This shapes her decision to disseminate through channels including: blogs Twitter; university web-pages, intranets and internal development spaces; invited workshops and talks; open educational resources; peer-reviewed reflection pieces; as well as more traditional peer-reviewed journal articles.

Research and scholarship interests concern varied aspects of academic practice most recently related to:

  • teacher experiences of blended learning;
  • building online communities at a distance;
  • compassionate-focused pedagogy and pedagogies of care; and
  • the agency of academic developers.

 

Target collaborative organisations

Alison is open to exploring potential collaborative opportunities, or invited workshops/ talks/ keynotes with contacts from other educational organisations (such as HE or FE) or Third Sector groups.

She has been an invited speaker, workshop facilitator and podcast guest for UK-based and international higher education events.

 

External positions

External Examiner, University of Essex

1 Oct 2021 → …

PhD Supervisor (School of Education), University of Greenwich

1 Feb 2020 → …

Associate Lecturer, The Open University

1 Oct 2009 → …

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Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years

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