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Jennie Mills

Jennie reimagines the education we have today. A pioneer in digital education with emergent expertise in GenAI, she grapples honestly with its complexities. Through playful, arts-based methods and creative pedagogies, she helps educators discover better questions rather than easy answers, with collaborative approaches that prepare learners for uncertain futures.
Year
2025
Institution
University of Warwick
Job Title
Associate Professor

Jennie is curious about how people learn and fascinated by what happens when you disrupt conventional approaches to teaching. As an Associate Professor at the University of Warwick’s Academic Development Centre, she works with educators to discover better questions rather than seeking predetermined answers.

Her teaching philosophy emerged from her early work as an Associate Lecturer the Open University, where she learned that the most powerful learning happens when students shape their own questions. This belief drives everything she does, from her ground breaking 'AI Revolution' module, where students collaborate with AI to explore futures through storytelling and speculation, to her work with LEGO SERIOUS PLAY®, poetry, and visual arts as tools for deep reflection.

A pioneer in digital education, Jennie has been exploring how technology can enhance rather than replace human connection in learning for over two decades. She believes education should prepare us for uncertain futures, not just transmit existing knowledge. She creates spaces where both students and colleagues can sit with productive discomfort, challenge their assumptions, and discover what they didn't know they knew. Her arts-based approaches help people access tacit knowledge and think metaphorically about complex problems.

Through her professional development programs, international workshops, and research into playful learning and AI collaboration, Jennie supports educators in questioning fundamental assumptions about their practice.

What drives Jennie is the moment when someone realises they've been asking the wrong question entirely, and suddenly sees new possibilities for learning, teaching, and being in the world.

Advance HE recognises there are different views and approaches to teaching and learning, as such we encourage sharing of practice, without advocating or prescribing specific approaches. NTF and CATE awards recognise teaching excellence in a particular context. The profiles featured are self-submitted by award winners.