On 7 July 2022, I had the pleasure of co-delivering a workshop at the Advance HE Teaching and Learning Conference 2022 ‘Improvisation Skills for Teaching: Innovative Approaches for Positive Student Engagement’ with our partners Imogen Palmer and Stephen Brown from the Bristol Improv Theatre. I have been closely involved in designing the Improvisation Skills for Teaching (IST) programme at the University of the West of England (UWE Bristol) and had taken part in numerous IST workshops over the years. Yet, observing Imogen and Stephen’s expert delivery to an external audience, was so very insightful. It brought to the fore, for me, some of the implicit assumptions and elements that we have incorporated in the programme. These assumptions raise important questions about how we support staff in developing their teaching skills.
