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Showing our Solidarity

27 Sep 2022 | Kathy Wright In this month’s tweetchat, we discuss the battle to maintain teaching and learning when a country is at war.

Join us on Wednesday 28 September 2022 for the next #AdvanceHE_chat / #lthechat which asks us to consider the plight of academics and students from war torn regions in their battle to maintain teaching and learning in the most difficult of circumstances. 

Throughout the conflict in Ukraine Advance HE has kept in contact with colleagues there who we met through work with the British Council Ukraine and the Institute of Higher Education, Ukraine. Like many colleagues across the sector, we initially responded in February 2022 with humanitarian support but as the war is seven months in, the work of higher education has resumed, despite occupation and despite the destruction of specialist learning facilities.  

What are we learning from this war which might inform a sector response to other current and future armed conflicts in other parts of the world? 

How are we (in our safe countries) best able to support academics who remain committed to their students, both those who have fled as refugees to the UK and those who are still in their home country? 

What can we do to provide practical help to our colleagues (and consequently their students) teaching in war zones? 

The aim of this tweetchat is to learn from the experiences of others and to consider practical actions we might take within our universities and our networks to ensure that learning can still take place. Join us for the conversation on Wednesday 28 September 20:00 – 21:00 BST. 

Sharing stories

Ukrainian colleagues have been sharing their thoughts with Advance HE as the conflict has progressed. 

A panel of HE colleagues from Ukraine described their experiences and gave us ideas for how we might help them as part of the #AskUkraine panel discussion at Advance HE’s Teaching and Learning Conference in July 2022. You can watch a recording here 

‘Teaching Mathematics in a time of war’ - Dr Anastasia Yakovenko from Bogdan Khmelnitsky Melitopol State Pedagogical University, Ukraine shared her experiences of teaching under occupation in May 2022. You can read her blog here 

‘Learning to teach in wartime’ – Dr Olga Yashenkova from Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine, shared her experiences of learning to teach under occupation in June 2022. You can read her blog here 

A way forward: practical STEM website 

We have listened to the voices of our Ukrainian colleagues, particularly the request from Dr Kateryna Yeremieieva, Ukrainian State University of Railway Transport, Kharkiv, (now in Munich), who described the lack of specialist science labs and asked for support with resources for remote lab work. 

As a result of this contribution, a working group was formed with colleagues from Ukraine (British Council and the Institute of Higher Education and universities in Ukraine) and UK colleagues from Advance HE with STEM specialists, Dr Nigel Francis, Professor Ian Turner and Dr Pete Mylon, who had experiences of developing resources for remote lab work during the pandemic. 

Read the blog about the work of the group so far here  

The website is still under development and your support by sharing relevant resources would be appreciated. Support the work here  

Join @AdvanceHE_chat and @LTHEchat  on Wednesday 28 September at 20:00 BST using the hashtags #LTHEchat #AdvanceHE_chat 

Author:

We feel it is important for voices to be heard to stimulate debate and share good practice. Blogs on our website are the views of the author and don’t necessarily represent those of Advance HE.

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