Have you ever had a teaching and learning conundrum, but no one you felt safe to discuss it with; or experienced what felt to you like a  ‘teaching failure’ - an idea that seemed brilliant in theory, but in practice did not play out as you had hoped for you or your students?

Alternatively, have you had a moment of sheer ’teaching brilliance’, where the teaching approach you developed was effective and enjoyable, and felt worthy of sharing with others who truly understand, and may also learn from it?

Who do you feel safe to share these teaching stories with and who will help you to learn from both the challenges and the successes?

TATAL may be your answer.

Since 2008, Talking About Teaching and Learning (TATAL) has been a conversation community, built on a foundation of safety, trust, and expertise, within the broader HERDSA community. We currently have approximately 250 ‘TATALers’ actively engaged in various spaces of higher education teaching and learning internationally. TATALers represent a diverse group of discipline academics, teaching specialists, educational designers, and many others engaged in teaching and learning.

TATAL at HERDSA 2026

If you are attending the HERDSA 2026 Conference, we encourage you to join our pre-conference workshop if you would like guidance on articulating your teaching philosophy. You may also wish to deepen your understanding of teaching and learning pedagogy, connect with a supportive community, or identify a mentor to begin your HERDSA Fellowship portfolio journey. Importantly, the workshop also offers an opportunity to become part of the TATAL community.

Facilitated by an experienced, international team of passionate teaching and learning leaders, this highly interactive workshop brings together up to 25 participants for a supportive and reflective deep dive into contemporary teaching and learning practice.

TATAL creates a safe, collegial space to talk honestly about the realities of academic work, build confidence in articulating your teaching, and begin (or refine) a personal teaching philosophy. The journey starts online before arriving in Singapore, continues through a full-day pre-conference workshop, and extends throughout the conference and beyond through optional ongoing mentoring and collaboration.

Becoming a TATALer

 Becoming a TATALer involves:

• engaging with pre-conference online modules containing content, discussion, and guided free-writing via the HERDSA TATAL LMS (available two weeks prior).
• participation in a full-day workshop supported by TATAL facilitators to encourage you to discuss, reflect, create, and share your education practice and pedagogy through free writing, reflective conversations, and teaching philosophy construction individual and small groups activities
• networking at an optional breakfast meeting during the conference week
• opportunity to continue your TATAL discussions in monthly online meetings with your group.

The voluntary monthly meetings are exciting opportunities to progress and evolve in your teaching and learning journey with other like-minded TATALers; many who are commencing their HERDSA associate fellowship and may share their portfolio development for peer feedback.

The meetings are highly dynamic, based on the professional growth and developing pedagogical and practice needs of TATALers, while also aligning with global higher education issues. For example, in recent years, several TATAL groups have shifted the focus of their reflective collaborative practice from teaching philosophies and portfolios to topics related to the pandemic disruption, e.g. online delivery and wellbeing, as well as the more recent AI topics (see for example, [1], [2]).

TATAL groups do not stop at sharing and reflecting on their teaching and learning practice within their group, but further and deepen such reflection into research in the scholarship of teaching and learning and broader education research, bringing the impact of the human-focused and care-driven TATAL model to the broader higher education teaching and learning community.

Partially subsidised by HERDSA, TATAL is a rare chance for time-poor educators to pause, reflect, connect and leave with renewed clarity, confidence, and community.

If this sounds like an opportunity and community you would like to be part of your ongoing teaching and learning journey, register for this HERDSA 2026 pre-conference workshop: Workshop 01 TATAL (Talking About Teaching and Learning).

Image source: Microsoft Copilot

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