Transforming Your Practice: A New Framework - Adventures in Advising

Guest host Dr. Ann Bingham sits down with Dr. Josephine Gabi for a conversation that glows with insight and gentle challenge. Together, they explore Josie’s framework for encouraging individuals to look inward 🌱, outward 🌍, and forward 🎛️ through introspection, outrospection, reorientation. The episode hums with bright questions, brave reflections, and fresh possibilities for deepening student belonging. Listeners will hear how they can thoughtfully examine their identities and assumptions, recognize the institutional forces shaping student experiences, and transform everyday practices into meaningful acts of equity. 

Also look ahead 🎉 to the 2026 UKAT Conference in Manchester, UK April 13-14, 2026! 

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Transcript

Matt Markin  0:00  
Well, hello and welcome back to the Adventures in Advising podcast. This is Matt Markin, and we have a guest host for this episode, and let's welcome back. Dr. Ann Bingham. Ann, how are you?

Ann Bingham  0:25  
Matt, I'm I'm doing really, really well. It's just amazing to be back here. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Matt Markin  0:33  
Yeah, and last time I saw you was at the UKAT conference, 2025, UKAT conference. And last time you were on the episode was episode 127, so it's really great to have you back, and I'm not going to waste any more time. I'm going to hop off. I'm going to bring on your guest. And yeah, please have a great conversation, and I'm looking forward to listening to this.

Ann Bingham  0:58  
Thank you, Matt. I'm very excited about this one. Hi Josie.

Josephine Gabi  1:03  
Hi Ann. How are you? 

Ann Bingham  1:06  
I'm great. Oh, it's so good to see you. I am so excited to talk to you again. I mean, last since we last met, you've been developing a new tool, the personal tutor, thinking and practice tool. Can you just explain a little bit about what that is or why you developed it?

Josephine Gabi  1:26  
Yeah, thank you so much. So lovely to have this conversation with you, Ann, as always. I've been developing a new personal tutoring and thinking and practice tool which invites personal tutors to reflect so deeply on who they are and the structures they work within, and the day to day relational decision making processes that shape the students experiences. My hope with these two is to support personal tutors to build what I see in higher education is an academic, personal and professional safety net for all our students, a net that helps students to stay afloat, to feel heard and to feel anchored through the kinds of complexities that we know can have an impact on their progression. So I will just start on why I developed it and the motivation behind it. As you know, I work with personal tutors who genuinely care about their students and their commitment is not really an issue here, and what many of them Express is a sense of constraint of working within the structures in higher education that are not always designed with equity or care at the center of everything that we do. Other personal tutors tell me that they feel unsure about how to navigate structural inequalities or how to move beyond the administrative side of personal tutoring into the deeper and more relational engagements. Sometimes this is to do with time constraints. I'm not too sure about your work, but personal tutoring, as I know across the sector, the allocation of it is sometimes it feels insufficient, but a major catalyst for personal tutoring, thinking and practice to came from my ongoing work, as you are already familiar with the awarding gap and how we can think differently and start to ask difficult questions, and what that means in terms of our accountability to the community that we serve. We know and as research repeatedly confirms that the awarding gap is not about student ability, it is not about their lack of motivation, aspiration or effort, but the awarding gap reflects the interpersonal, structural, institutional inequalities, those racialized, class and gendered and ableist logics that have shaped higher education for so many years. It is also reflected in the relational inconsistencies and the extent to which our students sometimes feel seen and held within academic spaces. So through my work, I kept seeing personal tutoring. It holds the potential to contribute to narrowing the awarding gap, but only if personal tutors are supported to understand the dynamics their students experiences and their own responses to students and how that impacts the student experiences. So the tool that I developed emanated from that desire to move beyond the surface level interventions. Towards the deeper relational and humanizing ways of working with students, those ways that honor their lived knowledges, what we tend to call lived experience, but I like to call it lived knowledge is to just honor the rich knowledge and experiences that our students bring when they come to higher education and the ways of being, and that challenges what we do and how we do it, and what is knowledge and who determines what is worth knowing.

Ann Bingham  5:31  
It's so important. There were so many points there that resonated with me. You know, I work at the University of Southampton, and we have an ongoing institutional work stream to develop the training and support and making sure that the personal tutors are supported. But it's, I think it's really important to acknowledge what you've said, that it's about supporting those tutors, to support their students adequately, and see the students and see that commitment and to see the you know, see those lived experiences or knowledge, as you put it, it's just you have to understand that, and you have to move with the student and their experiences, don't you to be able to develop yourself? I think it's so important. I'm really fascinated by this work, Josie, so I'd really like to ask you some more questions about it, if I might. So thinking about because you were working on the awarding gap, so was there a moment when you thought, I've got to do something. This was there light that came on at some point.

Josephine Gabi  6:47  
Yeah, absolutely, it was when I looked across different programs and saw that students were having different experiences depending on which tutor they had and how supported those tutors felt and how empowered they were to challenge those structural inequalities that exist at different levels within higher education. I then realized that we could not close awarding gaps if personal tutors were not given the processes that they need in order to be able to be effective in their role. So we needed a reflective and reflexive tool that supported personal tutors to look inward and outward and then reorient their practice with intention and humanity. So the first part of it in terms of thinking about how personal tutors can start to do this work in a more responsive and responsible way, is to start thinking about introspection, what I call introspection. So it's about looking inward. This is about examining their positionality, where we think about our social locations, our assumptions, and the histories that we carry, our identities, and how those identities shape how we interpret situations and how we respond to students and how we draw conclusions about their behavior, their motivation, their academic capabilities as well. So introspection is about asking those interrogative questions where we self interrogate. How is my world view influencing the way that I interpret students actions. That's just one example. Another one would be, which assumptions Am I making without even realizing I do it? Because sometimes these things can happen unconsciously. So it's about being conscious of the practices and processes that shape our personal tutoring practice. Another way of thinking about this and self interrogating is thinking about in what ways might I intend unintentionally be reproducing inequalities. So this is not about feeling guilt or shame. It is about being aware, and it is about responsibility and accountability. So responsibility to understand how we are, who we are, and also how our identities, our experiences of this world, might shape that relational space between us and our students so that our students can feel seen and heard and valued as well. Students feel this even if when it is unspoken, and this is so important to be really thinking about positionality, and that's most of the time we don't. Tend to think about who we are and how we come across, and how our students experience our relationship with them.

Ann Bingham  10:10  
Wow, I'm there's, there's so much there. I think, I think, as you were saying it, I was thinking, oh, there are times that I'm sure I've had a conversation with my students, genuinely trying to help, but maybe making assumptions subconsciously reflect on that later on. Oh, I think this is amazing. Josie, that resonates so much, resonates so much with me. I can imagine, though, that level of introspection might be a little bit uncomfortable for tutors at first, especially if they're not used to working in that way. Where would you get them to start with that?

Josephine Gabi  10:58  
Yeah, I know, I know it's it can be difficult. All I can say is, start gently. Reflection does not need to be grand or time consuming. It can be a quiet practice. So this is about reflection and reflexivity. So after a tutoring meeting, for example, a personal tutor can ask this self interrogating questions, why did I respond in that particular way as we we know when we meet with students, sometimes we respond in a particular way, but it's about being reflexive and reflective about that, and then asking, Why did I respond in a particular way? Is there another way in which I could have responded to this, a different way of responding, and what part of my identity, who I am? Did that interaction activate over time, patterns emerge, and those patterns become invaluable. So if we don't take the time to reflect on our practice, to ask those different and difficult questions, then we continue to reproduce those inequalities practices and processes that don't work. And this leads me to, then the second aspect of this thinking and practice too, which is out introspection, where personal tutors need to look outward. So because personal tutoring does not exist in isolation, we work in higher education institutions. And our practice is shaped by institutional cultures, and we are part of that. We also shape institutional cultures, which is why it is important for us to be active in things, in terms of what we do. So it includes institutional cultures, policies and assessment practices, departmental norms and other broader societal structures that also shape how students navigate every day life in higher education so out introspection requires us to notice the systems around us. This is where personal tutors can ask this. Some of these questions are about who benefits from our current policies and who does not, and what might be the barriers, intended or unintended barriers that are built into our systems and how, for example, racism, classism, ableism, sexism or homophobia, shaping student outcomes. This is where awareness of the awarding gap is essential without looking outward. It also becomes easy to individualize issues that are actually structural, that we should be constantly also challenging those inequalities and how they are reproduced in our practice.

Ann Bingham  14:14  
Yeah, wow. And it can be such a complex scene to navigate, can't it when you think about the different policies that are in place, yeah, and we do need to challenge them. We do.

Josephine Gabi  14:30  
Sometimes we don't tend to think about it, but is is really important, because personal tutoring doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's part of an institution. Is part of the institutional practices and processes. 

Ann Bingham  14:45  
And I can see, yeah, I can see, through using this tool that you're going to get a much better consistency for students across across the personal tutoring network, aren't you? Yeah. I. That's really great to see. I wonder if you could help our audience here. Could you perhaps give an example of when outwards, looking outwards, actually shifted how you supported the student? Because I'm fairly sure you've done this many times?

Josephine Gabi  15:21  
Yeah, absolutely. So, one example is working with students who consistently miss deadlines. When I widened the lens, I realized that many were managing very complex lives, caring responsibilities, for example, demanding jobs, Visa constraints, particularly for our international students, and financial stress, food insecurity, as we know, these economic challenges are impacting our students a lot. Racial discrimination is also another aspect that I realize most of our students, when they go on placement, they experience racial discrimination and long commutes. We have more students who commute to higher education and students with disabilities that were not fully accommodated by our practices and processes. Sometimes we don't tend to think about these things, so when you understand that, you then stop asking particular questions, like, what is wrong with this student? Why is this student consistently missing deadlines? And start asking different questions. For example, what has happened around this student? It's about having those open and honest conversation with the students. Outrospection then transforms our approach to personal tutoring, from judgment to curiosity, from frustration to compassion, where we we really want to understand these students experiences. It then takes me to the third one, reorientation. So the first one is introspection, and then you move on to outrospection, where we challenge our institutional practices and processes that reproduce inequalities. And then the third one is reorientation. Is about an openness to plurality. There are some experiences that our students have, and when they come to higher education that we may not experience. It's about being open to those experiences. Is about being open to different ways of knowing and different ways of being in the world as well. So this final part of reorientation is where introspection and outrospection converge. And then we ask, how might I now do things differently. I have self interrogated, I've looked inward and I've looked outward. How might I now do things in a different way? So reorientation is about those minor adjustments. It is about being open to plurality, multiple ways of being, learning, communicating and thriving in higher education. So I've got some examples that I can give in relation to this. This is about building trusting relationships with our students and challenging those deficit narratives and including the language that we use. I have recently become very uncomfortable with our use of support. A lot the language around supporting students is can be disempowering, because if we think about students who have gone through our education system from early years to higher education and consistently hearing language around support and language around benefit support as well. And when they come to higher education, we continue to talk about support. I'm not saying students don't need support. I'm fully aware that our students need support, but how we use it as part of personal tutoring, we need to rethink how we use it, because it comes across as a deficit, and it comes across that our students are lacking something, so that way we are not open to what they are bringing. It reminds me of one day I was just thinking about this language around support and thinking about myself when I meet with my line manager. And if my line manager is consistently telling me that they want to support me, most of the time they want to support me, how would I feel? So maybe if we start thinking about personal tutoring around that particular language, would shift how we talk to our students and not make personal tutoring in remedial exercise, because there are some students who do really well. We need to have those conversations with them and to continue to encourage them to keep on doing what they are doing. So it's about co-creating plans with students. It's about adapting approaches to cultural and contextual needs and recognizing students lived knowledges and lived experiences that may look and feel different from our own experiences and value them as legitimate. And it's also about questioning institutional practices that produce or reproduce inequalities. So reorientation is the transformative space. It is where equity becomes practice rather than just a principle. It becomes a lived experience, rather than something that exists out there, something that we we just put on our website, and it's not a lifted reality for our students, as well as personal tutors as well.

Ann Bingham  21:13  
That is so refreshing. That is so refreshing. And I often feel that just telling students that they have support. They need support. We can support you. Has negative connotations, and I think that's the first time I've heard it expressed so well. So thank you, Josie, thank you for that. So this is, this is quite a culture shift for some of our tutors. I think, How can we, how can they practically integrate that plurality into their day to day work so that it doesn't feel like, you know, a big it is a big thing. We know it's a big thing, but how can we get them to sort of embed it into everyday practice?

Josephine Gabi  22:00  
Well, by just letting go of the idea that there's one right way to be a student or one standard way to be a personal tutor, plurality means asking students what support looks like, support in courts looks like for them, rather than assuming it means recognizing cultural differences in when students come to us asking questions or come to us for support in courts. It means being also flexible where possible, and it means seeing personal tutoring as a collective practice where we work with students, not on them, but we co create this with students. So plurality is deeply humanizing for me. And when you put introspection, outrospection and reorientation together, you get a very powerful tool for relational and equitable practice, a way of noticing, a way of listening, a way of responding to students with more depth and more intentionality. It also helps personal tutors to ask, Where am I in this interaction? Where am I in this encounters with our students. How do we see ourselves as personal tutors in relation to our students, what structures are shaping this student experience, and how can I reorient my practice to support them meaningfully? And when personal tutors do this consistently, we begin to see things shift. We start to see belonging deepen. We start to see students feeling safer. We start to see students feeling seen, and students progressing differently. In other words, we start to see the conditions that support students in closing the awarding gap. So this is not, this is not about what students do, but this is more to do with our own practice. We should be. We should create the conditions that allow students to to thrive in higher education.

Ann Bingham  24:12  
I really think that's brilliant, getting those conditions right. Then you can imagine, you can you must see a culture change within the students themselves, when they start to feel seen, when they start to feel accepted, because I think that is a problem, but I personally see is no and I just think, oh my goodness, I can imagine their growth. I remember how I felt as a female in the STEM subject. It's not the same thing, I know, but actually being one of the few females in that area at that time, the first time my work was recognized, and I had some recognition for what I was doing. It. I remember how good that felt. So I can only begin to imagine how it must be for those students. It must be amazing. It's just incredible work. Josie, it's incredible work. So I've I said I'm going to take this back to my institution. And where do I start? One simple thing, one easy thing that I can do, one small step that I can take to get myself started. What would you say?

Josephine Gabi  25:36  
Yeah, it's not it's not too difficult. The starting point is to ask yourself, what students actually experience when they sit in front of you. It's not what you intend, but what is it that they experience? That they will tell you where to begin.

Ann Bingham  25:56  
Oh my goodness, yes, I love that. I love, I love what you've just said, it's just, it's not what I intend, it's what they experience. How profound.

Josephine Gabi  26:10  
Is that experience of it that is important, because sometimes we may have good intentions, but then what is that experience? So that is the starting points that will will tell you where exactly to begin. 

Ann Bingham  26:30  
Thank you, Josie. Where do you see this going next? I mean, this is an incredible tool. I mean, what? Where is it going? It can't, can't stay in your little world. We all need this.

Josephine Gabi  26:45  
I just hope it becomes something that personal tutors can adapt critique and develop in ways that suit their context. I see it as becoming part of self development and part of institution wide conversations about equity, care and belonging, and how we develop those relational pedagogies in our work with students. So my hope is that it contributes to environments where all students, particularly those from marginalized under, represented underserved, feel seen, had valued and be able to thrive in higher education and achieve good honors degrees and graduate outcomes.

Ann Bingham  27:30  
And then to I mean, I'm just fascinated by all of that, and I'm sure we'll get to chat about it when we next meet. And I was thinking about this earlier. Now, I guess the next time we meet would be at the UKAT conference.

Josephine Gabi  27:45  
Absolutely, I am so excited about the UKAT conference, and would really welcome everyone to come to Manchester Met. We are hosting the UKAT conference, and the theme for the conference is Spotlight on Student Futures, exactly what we are talking about. What is it that we are championing in relation to what we want to see the future of our students be?

Ann Bingham  28:16  
I think it's a fantastic conference. As you know, Josie have been involved at this for a long time, but it's one of those, would you say it was like a friendly conference? When you want to come and present, it's a lovely atmosphere to especially if you're, you're, if you're new to presenting. I found it. It was the first time I ever presented at a national conference, and I, I was worried about that, you know, when I did it, but it was such a friendly atmosphere. And now, whenever I have something new that I want to work on, I take it to the conference and I ask for input, either in by giving a presentation, doing a workshop and getting people's feedback that way, you know, or by those hundreds of conversations that you have throughout the week to just sort of Yeah. It's so exciting, and it's amazing what other people are doing and what ideas other people have. So I am very excited to see you now. I know it's in April this Do you have the dates?

Josephine Gabi  29:23  
There is 13 to 14, April, 2026, I wanted to ask you a question. Anne, do you think it's such a welcoming and nurturing conference, because it's a conference for personal tutors who are already caring.

Ann Bingham  29:45  
Oh, what a brilliant question. What a brilliant question. Yes, I think, I think part of it has to be that we challenge each other, don't we? There are challenges some people. People. People give you really valued, valuable input. So it's nice, but it's constructive. And I think something, they say, We're all yes, we're all personal tutors. A lot of us are also academic. Yes, yes. So that research element of it is really, really important to us. And so to find, you know, it's a great opportunity, isn't it, to find out what's going on across the sector. And because being a personal tutor can be isolated, I think.

Josephine Gabi  30:35  
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think when we come together to the UKAT conference. It's all about putting our ideas together, learning about those different practices and processes that's happening across the sector in order to transform our own practice and become better as well.

Ann Bingham  30:57  
Yeah, I think, I think I do. I really, I really. I enjoy it. I enjoy it very much. I love the the fact that people also understand the role, don't they? Yes. So when, when you're in that environment with 250 other personal tutors, or people related to the personal tutoring work that we do, I mean, we go by lots of names, but we're still there to do more, to find out more to find out what you're doing. You will tell me about some difficulties you're having. I might have some suggestions. Those teeth, no, those tea breaks, just get bigger and bigger and bigger at every session, don't they? As more and more people want to join in those conversations. It's a really happy I think it's just a really happy conference. So glad you're hosting it this year Manchester.

Josephine Gabi  31:50  
I'm looking forward to welcoming everyone to the UKAT conference at Manchester Met next year.

Ann Bingham  31:59  
Great, brilliant Josie, thank you so much. It's always a pleasure to talk to you. I love working with you, and to get this opportunity to talk about your new personal tutoring tool is just fantastic. Thank you very much.

Josephine Gabi  32:18  
Thank you so much, Ann, and thank you so much everyone for listening until next time. Keep looking inward, looking outward and gently orienting.