As we come to the end of our QAA funded Collaborative Enhancement Project, we have been reflecting on our shared experiences and what we have gained as a result of working together in this much needed space. 

First and foremost, this collective endeavour has led to the creation of a number of key project deliverables and outputs, all of which are available to colleagues across the sector on the Making Human Learning Visible project page. These include our:

• Critical Thinking Framework and workshop delivery resource pack.

• GPT tool design instructions offering educators a practical example of how prompting can scaffold critical and creative thinking in learning design.
  

The project has also enabled us to evaluate the effectiveness of these outputs and to reflect on our findings. Despite the limited size of the project, data gathered from staff surveys indicates that staff found the Critical Thinking Framework helped them to make implicit teaching processes visible. It provided language and structure for articulating critical thinking in diverse disciplines and facilitated more explicit modelling of thought processes for students. The framework was described as providing “freedom within parameters”, enabling staff to adapt it without undermining pedagogical autonomy. 

In addition, student survey data, whilst limited in scope, indicates that engagement with the Framework encouraged students to reflect more critically on their own learning, making them more conscious of the processes underpinning critical thinking. Whilst the framework does not deliver a quick-fix, it supports a process-oriented view of critical thinking as developmental, iterative, and context-dependent. The framework’s value, therefore, lies in fostering dialogue, reflection, and consistency while respecting local context. The findings of the project, including evaluation of this, can be found in the full the project report.

The collaborative and international nature of the project has provided an invaluable opportunity for all involved; it has enabled us to engage with a broad range of stakeholders, to contribute to sector-level discussions and to harness knowledge and experience from our respective localised contexts to tackle what is becoming a global challenge. 

A variety of dissemination activities have taken place across the project to keep people up to date with progress and to share our findings during each phase including presenting at the EFMD Bachelor Programmes Conference held at the University of Birmingham in November 2024 and the AdvanceHE AI Symposium in Manchester in 2024. Beyond the life cycle of the project, we are also in the process of planning to deliver joint workshops at both institutions and are due to present at the UKENIC25 conference in London in December 2025. 

Our shared reflections on the project have led to the realisation that making learning visible in this way could directly support broader institutional and sector goals around assessment and feedback, employability, and inclusive education. In a world where genAI is becoming increasingly invisible, and institutions are having to grapple with complex challenges, the project emphasised how making human learning visible can, in turn, also make the mechanics of teaching and assessment more visible too. This visibility is essential for ensuring the purpose and value of learning is clear and meaningful not only to students and teachers, but to all those concerned with the ongoing need for high quality education.