When a teaching session does not go as planned, it can be tempting to move on quickly. Students seem disengaged, an activity falls flat or feedback generates more confusion than clarity, and we reach for another activity or resource before taking time to understand the problem. Worst case, we blame the student for not engaging.
Discussing the experience with colleagues can help us question our assumptions and see the situation differently. Yet opportunities for these conversations are often left to chance.
Action learning sets (ALS) create space for that understanding. A small group meets regularly to explore real challenges through attentive listening, open questions and reflection. The person bringing the challenge identifies an action to try, then returns to consider what happened and what they learned.
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At my university, we have embedded action learning sets in our postgraduate certificate in academic practice. Staff participants bring different disciplinary, professional and cultural experiences to the programme, and the sets give them structured opportunities to learn from those differences, as they develop relationships that support honest discussion about teaching.
Why relationships need space in academic development
It can feel difficult to justify time for conversation when our colleagues already have such crowded calendars. But the pressure to move quickly can narrow the questions we ask. We may assume that a familiar problem needs a familiar solution, or interpret a difficult teaching experience as evidence of our own shortcomings.
Karen Gravett’s Relational pedagogies: connections and mattering in higher education places meaningful relationships at the heart of learning. This has implications for how we support educators, as they need opportunities to engage in listening, recognition and shared inquiry within their own professional learning.
Our conference work on relational and compassionate academic development explored how these experiences can challenge the expectation that academics should always appear confident and competent. Participants described action learning sets as rare opportunities to think aloud, share uncertainty and develop critical friendships.
Creating these opportunities requires more than inviting colleagues to talk. It means protecting time, establishing expectations and helping participants develop the skills to question thoughtfully. The structure makes the relational work possible.
What action learning can help educators do
The benefits extend beyond finding an answer to the challenge presented. Here’s what we’ve found has worked for us:
- Examine assumptions: Questions can reveal how an educator’s expectations about learning, participation or motivation shape their interpretation of a situation.
- Encounter different perspectives: Colleagues from other disciplines can notice practices and assumptions that feel so familiar within a department that they go unquestioned.
- Develop professional agency: The presenter decides what to do next. This keeps responsibility and judgement with the person who understands the teaching context.
- Build collegial trust: Returning to a group creates opportunities to be heard and to contribute to others’ learning. Relationships develop through repeated attention to one another’s concerns.
- Practise relational teaching: Listening carefully, allowing thinking time and asking questions that extend understanding are skills participants can take into their classrooms.
In our research, one educator’s concern about student disengagement developed into a discussion of student time poverty, mental health and structural pressures. Questioning helped them reconsider their interpretation of student behaviour and rethink the purpose and format of their sessions.
Participants also reported carrying more relational and inclusive approaches into their teaching. These findings came from the wider PGCAP experience, in which action learning sets formed one part. They suggest the value of modelling the practices we ask educators to develop.
How to make action learning sets work
1. Protect recurring time
Embed sets within the programme timetable and explain their purpose from the outset. Position them as part of professional learning, with time to explore a challenge and return to it. Keep groups reasonably consistent where possible so that colleagues can build familiarity and trust.
2. Start with a current challenge
Invite participants to bring something they are facing now: a discussion in which few students contribute, a difficulty with feedback or a question about assessment. Encourage them to describe what they want to understand. They do not need a polished account or a neatly defined problem before the conversation begins.
3. Agree expectations together
Discuss confidentiality, respectful challenge, attentive listening and how participation will be shared. Make clear that participants can choose what to disclose. Consider relationships of seniority and authority within the group, and whether these might affect someone’s willingness to speak openly.
4. Teach questioning explicitly
Action Learning Associates describes three stages of questioning: clarification, exploration and action. These provide a useful structure. Begin by checking what the group needs to understand, then ask questions that help the presenter explore their thinking, before considering what they will do.
Useful prompts include: “What are you assuming about this situation?”, “Whose perspective have you not heard?” and “What would you like to understand better?” Watch for advice disguised as a question, such as “Have you tried using a quiz?”
5. Facilitate the process
A facilitator helps the group maintain its focus, notice assumptions and avoid moving too quickly into advice. Allow pauses after questions so the presenter has time to think. Intervene when the conversation becomes dominated by one voice or drifts into accounts of everyone else’s experience.
6. Make action manageable
Ask the presenter to identify a next step within their influence. This might involve seeking student perspectives, changing one element of a session or gathering evidence before deciding. Agree on what they hope to learn. Where the challenge involves workload or institutional processes, recognise what needs attention beyond the set.
7. Return to learning
At the next meeting, invite the participant to explain what they tried, what happened and what remains uncertain. We can still learn from an action, even if it did not produce the intended result. Give the group time to reflect on its questioning and listening as well as the teaching challenge.
Practical do-now ideas for programme teams
Identify an existing point in your programme where participants could explore current teaching concerns together. Introduce a short demonstration of questioning, then give groups a clear process and a facilitator.
After the session, ask what helped participants think, what made participation difficult and what they would change. Use that feedback to refine the next meeting. Look for evidence of changed understanding and subsequent action alongside participants’ views of the experience.
Educators need opportunities to make sense of their work with others. Action learning sets give that process a place in the curriculum and a structure that connects reflection to action.
For our postgraduate course, their value lies in the relationship between professional learning and everyday teaching. Participants experience careful listening, constructive challenge and shared responsibility, then consider how to make those experiences possible for their own students. Protecting this time communicates that thoughtful, relational practice is part of academic work and deserves institutional support.
Vanessa Mar-Molinero is a senior teaching fellow in academic practice at the University of Southampton.
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