Simon Paul Atkinson

Traditional whole-group teaching remains the most prevalent format in higher education, despite evidence that it is often the least effective at fostering deep understanding. Practice Note No. 3 argues that the lecture is primarily a design challenge rather than a format problem. Evidence shows that students in active learning environments consistently outper...

Course design teams often rely too heavily on academic entry requirements, inadvertently building curricula for an idealised student cohort that mirrors their own background. To address this structural problem, the Student Inclusion Model (derived from the work of Taylor and May) provides a framework for understanding the diversity of actual learners. It challenges educators ...

Tuition dependence is not a revenue risk that can be managed at the margins. It is a strategic trap that has progressively constrained the ...

This Practice Note addresses why learning outcomes in higher education are often ignored and how educators can transform them into practical tools for course design. To move beyond treating outcomes as mere administrative requirements, the note champions constructive alignment, ensuring that intended learning outcomes (ILOs), teaching activities, and assessments are coherentl...

This Substack article justifies the critical integration of student personas within learning design, arguing against generic, institution-wide archetypes. It positions persona development not as an administrative chore, but as an essential mechanism for designing courses tailored to actual student cohorts rather than static disciplinary content.

The text contextuali...