Guest:

Stefanie Savage-Campbell is an education enthusiast with over 15 years experience in Further and Higher Education. She is passionate about innovation in educational spaces: including entrepreneurship, digital technologies, pedagogy and curriculum design and delivery. She is currently working at the Centre for Educational Development on collaborative strategic projects across Queen’s University Belfast.

Episode Summary

Hosts Julie Lindsay and Jim Harris welcome Stefanie Savage-Campbell, Senior Educational Projects Manager at Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland, who is also part of the JISC Beyond Blended pilot group. Stefanie discusses her role in managing strategic projects across the university, noting that she often occupies the “weird third space” between professional services and academic staff. The conversation explores her project management approach, which prioritizes listening, flexibility, and working alongside people in an agile process rather than strictly enforcing deadlines.

A central theme is the importance of Universal Design for Learning (UDL), which Stefanie defines simply as giving people “options”. She shares an example of how allowing students to choose their own group size (even working alone) resulted in immediate and high engagement. The discussion transitions to the ethical and practical implications of AI, particularly the concept of creating a “digital twin” or an AI agent that captures an individual’s professional persona.

The episode strongly emphasizes the human element in education, highlighting the value of visceral, shared experiences and peer observation in teaching. Jim and Stefanie draw parallels between successful educational community building and working in a Brazilian samba carnival band, where listening, serving the “song” (or the mission), and shared ownership are key to success. They conclude that the core purpose of education remains the same—to learn—and that the best learning environments prioritize connection and belonging over extrinsic motivators like leaderboards or badges.

Tune in as Julie, Jim and Stephanie explore:

• Stefanie Savage-Campbell’s role bridging professional services and academic staff in institutional strategic projects at Queen’s University Belfast.
• The tripartite need for professional services, academics, and students to work cohesively on university projects.
• Stefanie’s flexible, agile approach to project management focused on working in partnership with people and supporting them rather than imposing rigid deadlines.
• Julie’s desire to capture the “Steph persona” to build an AI agent that acts as an equal learning partner.
• Jim’s reservations about digital twins following an experience where a Microsoft Co-pilot pilot generated an email response in a colleague’s persona using previous conversations.
• The idea that AI, by handling “day-to-day niggles,” might free up humans to focus on the “lovely parts of being a human” and promote more in-person interaction.
• Universal Design for Learning (UDL) as an underpinning principle that prioritizes options for students, such as choice in group sizes, which leads to higher engagement.
• The concept of belonging in the teaching environment and the challenge of discouraging the “solo experience attitude” among students.
• Jim’s technique for building community and belonging in his esports module by having students co-create a playlist on Padlet.
• The connection between learning and music, specifically the value of listening and responding in a jazz band or a Brazilian carnival group, emphasizing shared ownership and contribution.
• The need to recognize that moving learning online or using a hybrid approach means the experience is different, not necessarily lesser; it is a mistake to “chuck” an in-person class straight onto an online platform.
• Jim’s argument against using gamification (like leaderboards and badges) in learning, as it introduces extrinsic motivators that suggest learning is boring and crushes opportunities for intrinsic community building.

Interesting facts, quotes, ideas, side chats (eg jokes) etc

• Stefanie describes herself as a “jack of all trades”.
• Stefanie has a background in English literature, including an undergraduate dissertation on dystopian literature, which informs her view of AI.
• Jim’s favorite book relating to frameworks is Tangents within a Framework.
• Stefanie worked as a pedagogy mentor, sitting alongside people in their teaching practice for 8 to 10 weeks, noting that peer observation is the “number one thing” for learning how to teach well.
• Stefanie is a musician (trumpet, French horn, guitar, drums) and has been a Brazilian carnival performer (mainly drums) for about 15-16 years with Beat Carnival in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
• The founder of Beat Carnival brought Brazilian carnival to Northern Ireland amidst the “troubles”.
• Jim owns a Cuica (a Brazilian friction drum) and has attended Carnival twice in Recife, Brazil.
• Jim shares an AI-generated joke about gamification: “Why did the gamification expert get promoted? Because they knew how to level up employee engagement and score big wins”.
• Stefanie shared that Queen’s University Belfast is a popular site for Game of Thrones filming (specifically early Winterfell scenes).