The lacunae blog is compiled by Jenni Carr, Catriona Cunningham, Jennie Mills and Natasha Taylor.

We met whilst working as Academic Development Officers at the Higher Education Academy (HEA). Part of our role involved developing workshops for academic staff who were new to teaching and for more experienced staff who wanted to continue to develop innovative approaches to learning and teaching. We have all since moved on from the HEA, but wanted to continue to collaborate on work that focuses on the value of interdiscplinarity and seeks to engage with the affective aspects of learning and teaching.

Why ‘lacunae’?

In September 2015 a conference was held at Canterbury Christ Church University called ‘Re-enchanting the academy’. Our workshop for this conference focused on exploring learning and teaching spaces that enabled learners and teachers to “suspend the rational world of enhancement and embark upon a journey to a fairy tale realm of enchantment”. We constituted these spaces as lacunae – gaps which are full of potential not emptiness – spaces in which wonderment can manifest.
A blog post about the workshop is available via this link.

What next?

Our plan is to use this blog to continue to articulate our approach to learning and teaching – discussing the aspects we value and our developing practices.

The blog will be constructed around four lacunae:

• Conversations – round-table discussions between the four of us about our academic practice.
• Issues – opinion pieces on current issues impacting on learning and teaching.
• Resources – discussion of learning and teaching resources that colleagues may find useful.
• Conferences – reports from learning and teaching events we attend.