CYG: Teaching & Scholarship Research
Introductory page for our first CYG (CYGNA special interest group) uniting members interested in pedagogical research
CYGNA's First Special Interest Group (CYG):
Teaching & Scholarship Research
This is a new special interest group (CYG) aimed at women academics interested in teaching-led research and/or employed on a teaching and scholarship contract. The jam session that initiator and CYG chair Jane Neal-Smith organised to assess interest in this CYG (see image above) clearly indicated the level of interest in this exciting new CYGNA initiative. Jane is supported by Margaret Fletcher, Sîan Stephens, and Elizabeth Yi Wang.
The Teaching & Scholarship Research CYG aims to support women academics in their scholarship development, dissemination and promotion by building a network of like minded academics who can provide scholarship based opportunities which would allow its members to collaborate with each other, speak at partner institutions, or conduct research across institutions and locations. The group will meet every second month online with a face to face meeting once a year.
The slides can be downloaded here.
Aims and objectives
- To support teaching led research
- To encourage creativity, innovation and positivity across all teaching and higher education activities
- To raise a collective voice on the importance of teaching scholarship
- To create effective mechanisms for supporting women academics interested in scholarship and pedagogic research
- To recognise and support the broader impact of teaching and scholarship
- To effectively network and open up opportunities across disciplines, institutions and to develop women academics
How to join?
Contact the founder and chair Jane Neal-Smith who can put you on the dedicated mailing list.
CYG Facilitators (2024-current)
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Jane Neal-Smith Founder & chair Email Jane York Univ. United Kingdom |
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Margaret Fletcher Email Margaret Univ. of Glasgow United Kingdom |
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Sîan Stephens |
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Elizabeth Yi Wang Email Elizabeth Univ. of Leeds United Kingdom |
CYGTSR inaugural webinar
We are delighted that Professor Moira Fischbacher-Smith was our guest speaker for the CYGTSR SIG’S inaugural webinar, held on Thursday 13 February, 2025. Chaired by Professor Margaret Fletcher, University of Glasgow, Moira’s presentation was followed by a Q&A session facilitated by Margaret - CYGTSR Facilitator - and CYGNA Lead Team member Dr Christa Sathish, University of Westminster.
Moira is Professor of Public Management and Vice-Principal, Learning & Teaching, at the University of Glasgow where she is responsible for leading the development and implementation of the learning and teaching strategy. This talk discussed what mechanisms have been implemented at Glasgow in the area of teaching and learning. It included how to stay motivated as a teaching focused member of staff and finding a pathway through the T&S landscape. Moira outlined some challenges of leading the strategy; in a research intensive university and successes in developing a teaching and scholarship community. Some key initiatives include an annual teaching and learning conference, awards and community blogs. Moira highlighted online ‘write and shine’ sessions for staff as something she thought was very engaging and supportive for the teaching and scholarship community.
The webinar was truly international with 17 attendees from 8 countries: UK, Ireland, Portugal, USA, Germany, Finland, France, Sri Lanka. A picture with 12 of the attendees is below. Many thanks to the attendees for supporting the session and their contributions to the discussion.
CYGTSR second webinar
The teaching and scholarship research CYG hosted their second webinar titled “With or without ChatGPT? How well do students using ChatGPT score on assessments?” presented by Dr Lyubomira Gramcheva and Dr Vesco Paskalev. The slides can be downloaded here.
The session was chaired by Dr Jane Neal-Smith and supported by Professor Margaret Fletcher. Lyuba and Vesco gave an overview of the research, the methodology and their findings. The conclusions and recommendations are as follows:
- Student performance improves only a little with ChatGPT.
- The effect is stronger for weaker students.
- For students on the high end it has the opposite effect.
- This conclusion must be brought home to students, i.e. must be demonstrated by in-class experiments.
- The ChatGPT effect decreases with problem questions and more contextual/targeted/specific/demanding tasks.
- Current assessment methods can and should be made AI-proof.
- AI use is widespread but the panic is not warranted.
- Some markers believe they can spot AI use but many are not good at it. Toolkits and training can help.
After the presentation there was a Q&A session which provided a lot of helpful support about generative AI in assessments.
Bios
Dr Lyubomira Gramcheva is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Middlesex University. Her area of research lies at the intersection of the law of contract, comparative law, and law and economics. She works on developing an innovative interdisciplinary methodology that joins New Institutional Economics and comparative law. Lyubomira is involved in the Common Core of European Private Law Project (https://www.common-core.org/) and contributed to the "Contractual Remedies in Europe" sub-project. Currently, Lyubomira teaches Global Trade Law. She has developed a research interest in teaching and learning, particularly in students’ engagement strategies and has published on effective feedback and developing self-regulated learners.
Dr Vesco Paskalev is an honorary Senior Lecturer at Brunel, University of London where he taught Law, Science and Technology Studies, Jurisprudence, Public Law and Environmental Law. His fields of interest are risk regulation, comparative constitutional law, European Union law and environmental law and policy. Adopting the perspective of the Science and Technology Studies (STS) he conceives legal regulation, public participation and scientific argumentation as mutually dependent and studies how each of them affects and is affected by the other two.
CYGTSR third webinar
For their third webinar the teaching and scholarship research CYG were pleased to host Dr Patricia Xavier and Prof. Sarah Jayne Hitt from the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering (NMITE). Prof. Hitt and Dr Xavier shared their insights and experiences as teaching-focussed researchers in the engineering sphere, and led a lively discussion on the challenges facing academics who focus on teaching and teaching based research. Discussion points included:
- How to make the most of institutional needs for securing internal support and resources
- How to make teaching-research REF-able
- How terminology might affect prestige e.g. ‘higher education research’ vs. ‘pedagogic research’
The key take-away was a celebration of doing research into what we love and a call for interdisciplinary collaboration among pedagogic (or ‘higher education’) researchers.
Speaker Bios and NMITE
Professor Sarah Jayne Hitt was one of NMITE’s founding faculty members, joining the institution in 2019. Before that she worked at the Colorado School of Mines, where she was Director of the Writing Center and Director of the McBride Honors Program in Public Affairs. Professor Hitt also serves as Project Manager for the Engineering Professors Council’s Ethics, Sustainability, and Complex Systems Toolkits.
Dr Patricia Xavier is an engineering educator, interested in interdisciplinarity and its complexities. She is the Programme Lead for BSc Construction Management. Patricia is fascinated by engineering identities and habits, and what it means to become an engineer. Her research includes characterising the intersection between personal and professional value systems, how the process of training appears to prioritise certain habits (e.g., an adherence to tradition and authority), and de-prioritises others (e.g., the role and value of considering emotion and ethics in engineering design).
NMITE (The New Model Institution for Technology and Engineering) is a new university in Hereford that is designed to be different. NMITE uses block learning, challenge-led assessment and liberal studies-informed team teaching to curate immersive learning experiences and develop work-ready graduates. The courses in Integrated and Mechanical Engineering and Construction Management all have intensive industry engagement built in, with students getting regular opportunities to work on challenges set by industry challenge sponsors. The liberal studies teaching encourages student to engage critically with the roles that engineering and technology have in shaping society. NMITE also has open entry criteria and does not require maths or physics A-level to start Year 1 of the engineering programmes, instead providing catch-up opportunities for students to build up from their GCSE-level knowledge during their first year of study. NMITE provides a model for alternative thinking about Higher Education – challenging traditional assumptions about what kinds of students can become great engineers and about what engineering learning looks like.
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Related pages
- About Cygna - Background on the CYGNA network
- Quick overview - Overview of presentations in our meetings with linked slidedecks
- Meetings - Information about forthcoming CYGNA meetings, and links to prior years
- Membership - Information for and about the Cygna network membership
- Readings and inspirations - Inspirational readings and resources for female academics
- The Cygna charter - Documents our CYGNA charter
- Cygna videos - Repository of introduction videos of our new CYGNA coordination team
- Cygna history - Tracing the history of our network since 2014, includes links to all of our meetings
- Frequently asked questions - Everything you may want to know about the CYGNA network and more
- The SWAN project - Initiated by Christa Sathish and Clarice Santos and implemented by Jacqueline Leon Ribas, this project created two swans reflecting CYGNA’s equal, inclusive, collective identity and the diversity of the network and its members
- Conference meet-ups - Provides brief write-ups of CYGNA conference meet-ups
- 10-year Anniversary event - Programme page for our 10-year anniversary event
- International Women's Day - Our collection of posts for international women's day
- CYG: Teaching & Scholarship Research - Our first CYG = SIG = Special Interest Group
- CYG: Career stage CYGs - Introductory page for our new career stage CYGs
- Cygna Writes - Introductory page for our new CYGNA Writes initiative - Writing in Community, Achieving in Silence
- Cygna Collaborations - Reports on some of the many collaborations our swans have engaged in across the CYGNA network
Related video
Copyright © 2025 Anne-Wil Harzing. All rights reserved. Page last modified on Thu 16 Oct 2025 10:23
Anne-Wil Harzing is Emerita Professor of International Management at Middlesex University, London. She is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business, a select group of distinguished AIB members who are recognized for their outstanding contributions to the scholarly development of the field of international business. In addition to her academic duties, she also maintains the Journal Quality List and is the driving force behind the popular Publish or Perish software program.
