View of Juniper Hall from Box Hill

Last weekend I attended the INLT Writing Retreat, at the Juniper Hall Field Centre set in “an unspoilt area of the chalk North Downs”. The INLT (International Network for Learning and Teaching in Geography) is a group of geographers who want to improve the quality and status of learning and teaching of geography in higher education internationally, and every couple of years or so, get together for a writing retreat. 

I’d never been on a writing retreat before, and I really had no idea what to expect. In fact, I may not have even attended if it wasn’t for a HEA GEES workshop in Manchester on 23rd May where Helen Walkington plugged the INLT writing retreat workshop.

Once signed up, we did some work on our group topic (GIS Learning, spatial literacy and spatial citizenship) beforehand and laid out a few ideas. However it wasn’t until we were in the room together that the ideas for our JGHE paper started flowing. A mixture of writing group sessions and sessions with everyone enabled us to develop our ideas, get some very useful feedback, refine the ideas, collect some data, and do some data discussion all in a day and a half!

It was an amazing experience and I would recommend attending a writing retreat for anyone who wants to get their teeth into a discussion in their area, and get to meet some of the big names in their field.

Also posted on INLT website at: http://www.ucd.ie/t4cms/Collated%20reflections%20formatted.pdf.