1. Realising the potential of student engagement through partnership..
Colin Bryson and JESS BELCH
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2. The nature of student engagement
Holistic and socially constructed
Every student is an individual and different (Haggis, 2004)
Engagement is a concept which encompasses the perceptions, expectations and experience of being a student and the construction of being a student in HE (Bryson and Hand, 2007).
Engagement underpins learning and is the glue that binds it together – both located in being and becoming. (Fromm, 1977)
Powerful and deep learning requires strong engagement
Salience of transformative learning
Becoming – self-authorship (Baxter Magolda), self efficacy (Tinto), critical being (Barnett), graduate identity (Holmes)
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3. To involve and work with students in partnership
To establish an annual conference drawing together leading edge work on SE - and to feed into publication through journals and books. To create a bank of useful resources for us to share.
To disseminate good ideas and practice via our journal and other methods – Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal
Develop and support themes and interests through SIGS
To facilitate communication between us (web, network etc)
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4. Why partnership?
Grew out of our holistic student engagement strategy (Bryson, 2014; Furlonger et al, 2014)
Resonates with student engagement and seeking transformative learning
Roots in critical and radical pedagogy
Counter to neo-liberalism and the model of students as consumer (A Manifesto for Partnership, NUS, 2012; Neary; McCullough)
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5. The virtues of partnership
Epitomises positive values in society
Ethical
Democratic
Enables Higher Education to a make a more profound contribution to society
Education should be exemplary but also dynamic, be progressive and ‘public’
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6. Cook-Sather, Bovill and Felten (2014:6)
We define student-faculty partnership as a collaborative, reciprocal process through which all participants have the opportunity to contribute equally, though not necessarily in the same ways, to curriculum or pedagogical conceptualisation, decision making, implementation, investigation or analysis
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7. The ethos of partnership
Principles of respect, repricocity and responsibility (Cook Sather et al, 2014)
The participant must perceive (Bryson, Furlonger and Rinaldo, ):
That their participation and contribution is valued and valuable;
A sense of co-ownership, inclusion, and equalising of power relations between students and staff;
A sense of democracy, with an emphasis on participative democracy;
Membership of a community related to learning and educational context
And this needs to be realised in practice – a virtuous circle
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8. What is partnership?
Pause here to ask participants to identify through discussion how partnership might be enacted, what sort of roles and practices
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9. A typology of SaP roles (Cook-Sather et al, Healey et al, 2014)
Consultant to staff
Co-designing
Co-researching
Change-agent (Dunne and Zandstra, 2011)
Peer leading
Focussed on SoTL, curriculum, QA/QE, subject based
look under ‘change agents’
What’s missing?
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10. Benefits of partnership
(Cook-Sather, Bovill and Felten, 2014) Enhances (for both students AND staff)
Engagement (motivation, in the learning process itself, sense of responsibility, recognition)
Metacognitive awareness and identity
Actual L&T and classroom experiences
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11. Institutional examples
The Teaching and Learning Academy ( )
SALTs and similar schemes (Brynmawr, Winchester, BCU, Exeter, UCL)
Lincoln – a comprehensive approach
So what are examples here?
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12. Seeking to embed partnership
Combined Honours at Newcastle
Diverse and complex
Individuals doing unique degree
Missing sense of identity/ belonging
But few resources and so difficult to influence the existing curriculum
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13. The power of partnership- A students view
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14. Who am I?
Jess Belch
Combined Honors student in History and Politics Stage 2
Student Representative in Stage 1 for the Student Staff Committee
Current Chair of the SSC 2017/18
Member of the Combined Honors Committee as Female Sports Sec 2017/18
I really see the value in student/staff partnership and have opted to take 1 Combined Module in Graduate Development to enhance graduate attributes and skills through a specially designed curriculum
Talk about self here
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15. Why is student engagement so important?
Motivation
Enriched learning experience
Empowerment ?
Making connections
Emotional development
Empowerment- a sense of self belief. We co-own this degree alongside the facilitators that make it happen. We are made to feel like we have a voice in decisions that affect our learning here at Newcastle University
Motivation- makes more students more active involved in the Combined Curriculum and the wider CHS opportunities made available to us
Enriched learning experience- students are more engaged in what they are learning and get the most out of their degree. Better learning experience.
Emotional development- stronger ties within the CH community- wanting share and change aspects of our degree, networking and making life long friends
Making connections- between subjects, between staff, between fellow students- student engagement faciltiates all of this.
“Engaged students are more likely to perform well… and contribute to a safe, positive and creative school climate and culture” (H, Marks 2000)
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16. Student Voice in Combined Honours
Broad range of opportunities provided to Combined Honours students:
Peer Mentor Scheme
Peer Welfare Ambassadors
PASS
Combined Honours Society
Explain through what these schemes are, the value in them- explain how student engagement is maximized by students starting through one program
“heard it through the grapevine”- if a student involves themselves in one, they are more than likely to be in other roles, socities and positions across Combined. Not only is this maximizing our student experience culturally and educationally, but we are inputting feedback back into the Combined Curriculum
Student Staff Committee
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17. The Student Staff Committee
An empowered SSC
A Chair/ Secretary
Stage representatives from Stage 1 to Stage 4
6 annual meetings to discuss agenda’s brought forward by a diverse cohort
The SSC has been the driving force of many major structural decisions made in the CH program; from the creation of new modules to our peer mentor system.
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18. My student voice experience in Combined
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19. SSC Chair 2017/18 Possible agenda items as a Committee:
A couple of year group forums to network each semester
Reform methods of communication to our constituents
One Facebook utility page for all Combined Honours services and utilities
Open up more roles and opportunities for 1st year students
A scheme to best support students about to prepare for their year abroad
A better network to support international students arriving in the UK
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20. Issues and challenges Are there any?
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21. Challenges to the standard mode and ways forward
Getting started!
Resources?
Getting staff colleagues on board…
Will the students take part?
Vulnerability and risk to students and staff
Avoiding pseudo-partnership
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22. More challenges Keeping it fresh, exciting and radical
Will students be too radical? Can I say no?
Lack of inclusivity - opportunities for few and not all
Selective investment thus a bit elitist?
Behaving ethically and fairly – phronesis (Taylor and Robinson, )
Reward –wrong incentive (transactional) vs no incentive (exploitative)
Student representation - misfit with this model?
From Cook-Sather et al
The students did a great job redesigning the course last year, do we need to do that again with the new students? (I’d call that keeping it radical…)
Disagreeing with student advice or proposals…or students who are too challenging
How do students readjust to traditional courses after being partners?
I’m concerned that only the brightest and most engaged students will take part…
What criteria should I use to select student partners?
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23. Selective partnership
Individualised relationships between student: staff
Great benefits for the students who do get involved but perhaps less so for others…..
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24. Reflections on our approach
Involves around 80 students in roles per year –over 15%
Wider opportunities for involvement – co-researching and internships, presenting at conferences, new ideas
PICNIC – short term student exchanges
Outcomes very strong – massive improvement in quality of student experience – students and schemes win awards; strong evidence (cohort surveys etc) –satisfaction in the NSS (average 97% over last five years); recruitment growth
But, how do we involve more students more directly? So they all gain the benefits…..
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25. Bringing in Universal Partnership
A partnership ethos and culture FOR ALL STUDENTS
Collective and inclusive
The curriculum offers ‘whole class’ participation
Requiring
Co-ownership of the agenda and process
Democratically agreeing important dimensions
Building student:student (as well as staff:student)
Ensuring all gain benefits and all ‘feel’ like a partner
Changing identities – LEARNING COLLEAGUES
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26. Co-design of curriculum
3 modes of student involvement
(Experienced) students (re)design a module
Students designing the module as it proceeds.
Students design a future module that they will do
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27. Partnership within modules
7 modules across all stages of degree
Doing as much as possible in partnership, includes co-deciding:
Shape and delivery (in part) of the module
Students choose own projects/topics and thus drive content
The types of assessment, weighting and deadlines
Criteria (and thus learning outcomes) and ‘standards’
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28. Issues for the universal/curriculum model
Students sign up for the module and not necessarily partnership
Some don’t like partnership–– a sense of frustration as ‘too much risk’ and unwanted responsibility that did not chime with their aims
More challenging for students at earlier degree stage? BUT scarier later on?
Tension between democratic principles vs ethics; collective v individual
Module feedback is sometimes interesting!
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29. Feedback (in Lea, 2015:170)
I can honestly say, one of most stressful, confusing and alienating experiences I have ever undertaken. But by far the most rewarding… I understood more and grew far more than at any other point in my university career, and it completely opened up my other courses as I started to look at them from a far broader standpoint and see the possibilities each held Sam Louis
Talking about doing the final year graduate development module…
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30. Operational issues… Sharing power effectively
Enabling the quieter voices to be heard
Safe spaces….
‘Foregrounding’ assessment
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31. Taking it further in CH
Rolling out further a more universal mode and creating partnership communities
Increasing our schemes (variety and nos.)
Enhancing the work of the SSC
Developing a new type of curriculum and pedagogy
From first year to final year through patch- work/portfolio assessment as learning, working collaboratively with students developing ongoing projects at their own pace. Staff being facilitators and co- learners rather than judges (Mann, 2001)
Sara
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32. Final advice – context is important
Start small, in the spaces that you can find
Start early in the student journey
Be patient
Form alliances
Don’t coerce or rush in – induct and nurture (staff too!)
Be conscious of your behaviour and how it is perceived
Seek advice and listen to it
Learn from mistakes
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33. Conclusions
Partnership works and enables strong SE and transformative learning in a mass HE system and offers much – has rejuvenated me!
Working and thinking outside comfort zones, but not too far outside…
A mixed model legitimated by student representation mechanisms
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