Giles Martin

@gilesdrmartin

School of Education at Bath Spa. Higher Education Practice and Educational Development. Mathematical physicist (retired), life long learner, water baby! SFHEA, FSEDA, SEDA PDF Vice-Chair

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Bluesky

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Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· 23d

meme with a fluffy super cute cat being apparently interviewed with a microphone in front of it, over two panels. First panel cat looking at mic and text says: Sir, are you aware you are universities minister? Second panel has cat looking up and slightly shocked. (Original meme is 'sir are you aware you are a cat' Also frequently used in positions where lots of people keep getting appointed).

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Jul 13

Link to first edition of journal: www.bathspa.ac.uk/media/bathsp...

Learning Innovation issue 1 cover, published July 2026

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Jul 9

UK level

Table with all NSS questions and UK 2026 positivity measures and results. See link in first post for better access and reading. Results are almost all 80s/90s percentages.

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Jul 7

Some interesting work here and experiments with local models. The uni also has v2 of local chatbot trained on website and SharePoint (for staff version). Key here seems to be identifying source and encouraging people back to that.

Screen showing title slide from presentation - when chatGPT became the problem

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Jun 11

Here's the main chart being discussed on value. This is of course perception of value, so interesting to consider the impacts of enhanced teaching, other non-teaching aspects of university, money (fees etc), but also media and similar narratives.

Chart showing value for money of your present course from 2015 to 2026, starting at 40% for good/very good (and 29% for poor/very poor), the positives fall and rise over time before a drop at the pandemic and then bounce and rise since to 25% (23% poor/very).

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Jun 11

A1 #LTHEChat In general, activities more in the upper quadrants of the DART diagram but also into more informal public/sharing. Basically activities taking things more systematic on one hand or more public on the other or both. Reading/literature backing Examination/exploration/researching Sharing

Dimensions of Activities related to teaching (DART) chart with two axes, Private to Public and Informal to Systematic, with quadrants labelled practice of teaching (private informal), scholarly teaching (private systematic), scholarship of teaching and learning (public systematic) and sharing about teaching (public informal), with a large number of example activities indicated across the 2D plane.

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Jun 6

Great to speak to so many people in the Dales in action groups, walks, and over dinner etc about progressing with with the U.K. SoTL Alliance.

Group photo of attendees at the the Dales Dialogue conference 2026

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Jun 3

Great to have a couple of opportunities for walking meetings out in the Yorkshire Dales as part of the event. We need more non-conference times.

A field grown tool with meadow flowers, red, white, and blue

Flower in front of a tree with very twisty and curving lower roots above a quarry

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Jun 2

The institutions from last year as members of the U.K. SoTL Alliance

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Jun 2

Definitely back in Yorkshire. Good cuppa before first meetings and walking meeting out in the Dales.

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Jun 2

Headed yesterday to Leeds ready for this weeks Dales Dialogues in HE, with thanks to the work and hosting from the uni of Leeds. Looking forward to a lot of discussions on the new working groups for the #SoTLAlliance we set up last year, and hearing what’s happening at other institutions.

Dales Dialogues in Higher Education Mon 1 - Thur 4 June 2026, Leeds. Image of fields in the Dales.

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· May 19

Ah, must be assessment and marking time...

Turnitin error message, including the text "It's not you. It's us".

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· May 19

Anakin and Padme meme in four panels with Anakin saying TPS contributions will fall and a hopeful, naive, Padme smiling and asking 'with some going to staff pay, right', only to be faced with Anakin's blank no answer that is an answer look, and poor now not quite believing it Padme in the final panel still wondering, but knowing, nope, nothing for staff pay.

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· May 17

Lovely end to party in the city ‘26 with a day of choirs in Green Park station on the sat, after the main event on Friday night. 50 venues, 250 acts, free and fun.

A choir performing under an old train station canopy with crowd and “party the city” banner

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· May 15

At the latest @seda-ed-dev.bsky.social SoTL CoP webinar, with a focus on ethics in SoTL. Lots of good discussion from the speakers from Calgary, Dublin and Leeds, and 80 in the audience. Looking forward to ideas to support academics on ethics in a form/area outside usually their 'home' discipline.

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· May 5

This is a nice idea: There are a set of tree trails in Bath. Found paper maps/guides at the library so decided to wander around the University of Bath campus route. I’ve been walking or running around the Woodlands and the fields and campus for over 10 years but never had a guide to the trees.

A booklet entitled Bath Urban Treescape. Tree trail I: Claverton Campus University of Bath.

A Woodland walk at the start of the trial

A large wide amateur common beech tree at the end of a small planted wood on National Trust ground on the trail. Or at least I hope it is that tree as I’m not an expert otherwise I was looking in completely the wrong place. It’s still a very pretty tree though.

A large mature tree along the trail with very windy branches.

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Apr 27

Note to self, more lunchtime spring walks.

The view from Bathwick meadows in full bloom of buttercups everywhere, looking over Bath with a clear blue sky and not an assignment to mark in sight.

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Apr 22

Your midweek springtime timeline cleanse means lambs are on campus!

White and black lambs in the field on newton park campus.

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Apr 16

Bluesky has other ideas...

Bluesky screenshot during server issues on notifications page with All and Mentions headings and a big bad red banner with an exclamation mark and Forbidden on it.

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Apr 9

I found the graph there interesting (2007-2016) particularly noting the means produce a fairly stable pattern, one that increases towards a plateau over the years. Interesting to consider possible conclusions from that including 'natural' limits and natural different satisfaction relative for areas.

graph showing the mean student satisfaction measured using the NSS from 2007 to 2016. The graph shows a fairly stable pattern over the questions with assessment and feedback the lowest, but the entire pattern rising over the years to broadly plateau.

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Mar 26

A6 #LTHEchat 1. Walkies at lunch to the meadow overlooking the city. 2. Cats (this one randomly decided to come into the office). 3. Tea, a nice oolong mid morning/afternoon (and several other times). 4, intellectual, motivated chats with people who love learning. So if pick one, 5. Learning.

Photograph taken from the Bathwick Meadows overlooking the city of Bath

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Mar 24

Good to hear on Friday about work on building SoTL cultures at Warwick and Leeds (@theedukater.bsky.social and some of the work I get a glimpse at as EE there). Thanks to those organising SEDA's SoTL-CoP. May meeting on research ethics is soon and should be interesting.

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Feb 25

Adding to my quick tips for presenting, based on common issues observed that can lead to panic. This is less well known and does mean installing PowerToys first, but when trying to present on laptop and with second big (class) screen, often I lose the cursor! Tap CTRL x2 bsky.app/profile/gile...

image of person presenting. TIPs. Windows 11. Title text: Presenting with a laptop and big screen? Keep losing your cursor? Install PowerToys and enable Find my mouse. Then double tap the left control key to highlight where it is!

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Feb 12

People often feel the negative impacts but not the positive impacts of changes and measures to address things. It isn’t all sacrifice. Show, measure, celebrate, use savings for something. Am reminded of this cartoon

Cartoon. Man presenting at a Climate Summit with a slide listing many bullet points like energy independence, preserving rainforest, sustainability, green jobs, and more. Audience member is asking the question what if it’s a big hoax and we create a better word for nothing?

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Feb 11

Hi neighbour! @louiserees.bsky.social

UK Higher Ed Commons map zoom in with Louise Rees and Giles Martin next to each other - hi neighbour!

the bluesky map of accounts showing me in the bottom left quadrant

map of account dots with me and showing the label UK Higher Education Commons

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Feb 10

After too much bsky scrolling:

A cat stretched out on a bench in Istanbul

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Jan 28

Not a bad view to welcome everyone on a cold wintery (fortunately not flooded; also water now restored to campus) morning.

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Jan 28

Welcome to our new cohort on our PGCHE today!

Image of the castle by the lake at Newton Park campus. Text: Welcome to the PGCHE, session 1. Wednesday January 28th.

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Jan 22

In May we return to feedback, just in time for marking period, but what is useful feedback? van Heerden, M. and Bharuthram, S. (2025) ‘Whose “useful” is it anyway? Considering the complexity of “useful feedback” to improve the feedback dialogue’, doi.org/10.1080/1470....

Image of a coffee cup in a book on a table. What is useful feedback? Higher education reading group Wednesday and may the 27th 12:30 PM

Giles Martin@gilesdrmartin· Jan 22

April it's time to return to genAI but look at evaluative judgements in our new age/era: Bearman, M. et al. (2024) ‘Developing evaluative judgement for a time of generative artificial intelligence’, Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 49(6), pp. 893–905. doi.org/10.1080/0260....