VIRTUAL: Applying Education

Abstract

This paper explores the liminal potential of structured academic reading retreats (Rhead, 2019) – whole day events delivered to a mixed staff-student cohort providing interdisciplinary discussion and learning. Focused on the art of navigating the complexity of academic journal articles, ‘open’ reading retreats attract undergraduates and postgraduates from a range of disciplines, as well as, and uniquely, academics who attend as ‘readers-in-residence’. Data gathered from participants generated four themes: 1. Academic reading retreats facilitate deep learning for staff and students through practice and rehearsal, differentiated guidance, and a balance between support and independence. 2. The retreats expose hidden and tacit disciplinary research, reading and textual features through cross-disciplinary discussion; they lay bare the demands of academic reading and establish its distinctiveness. 3. Participants’ identified impacts on their self-efficacy belief in terms of critical reading, academic writing and research. 4. A strong sense of community is established in retreats, linked to the sharing of goals and anxieties, with honesty from all participants appearing both revelatory and empowering. Academic reading retreats have potential for a university’s academic community through their dual role as both academic development and learning development events: For academics, retreats support teaching practices, focusing their attention on reading as disciplinary learning; for students, retreats appear to act on their identity as enquirers, focusing attention away from strategic assignment passing and towards the pursuit of deeper understanding; for all, they create a democratic, if temporary, community of scholarship that promises the elusive prize of authentic student partnership.