Alejandro (Ale) Armellini leads digital learning and pedagogic innovation across the University of Portsmouth’s five faculties. Ale developed the university’s Digital Success Plan for Learning and Teaching, for which he consulted and engaged staff and students with a view to enabling transformational learning through inspirational teaching across disciplines and modes of study.
Based on the principles and practice of active blended learning (ABL), and in collaboration with stakeholders, Ale designed, launched and leads on an ambitious institution-wide pedagogic redesign project for blended and connected learning, Portsmouth’s distinctive approach to learning and teaching. Before joining Portsmouth, Ale was Dean of Learning and Teaching at the University of Northampton, where he developed, researched and published extensively on ABL. He was the strategic lead for the redesign of the entire portfolio to ABL.
This project not only embedded this approach but provided a unique opportunity for staff to engage in innovative staff development, which informed their journeys to professional recognition. It also shaped the design of the Waterside Campus, which opened in 2018 without lecture theatres, among other radical features. Active student engagement and pedagogic innovation are central to Ale’s own extensive teaching practice, which he has modelled and shared internationally. His ability to engage colleagues as he leads complex, large-scale change processes has been a hallmark of his career as a leader in higher education.
A key feature of Ale’s research is his determination and commitment to giving opportunities to current and former students, as well as early-career colleagues, to produce publishable research outputs, particularly in the field of learning and teaching. As a qualified and experienced mentor, he uses this expertise and creativity to promote positive change and enhance the development opportunities for students and staff, within and beyond his university. Ale is a Principal Fellow of Advance HE and a Fellow of the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA).
Ale’s research and doctoral supervision focuses on ABL, learning innovation, institutional capacity building and open practices. He holds visiting professorships at UK and overseas universities and regularly features as a keynote speaker at major academic events globally.