Where are we and where are we going, with student engagement?

COLIN BRYSON AND ASIA SCHOLEFIELD

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, email network etc)

http://www.raise-network.com

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Early work with colleagues – paralleled New Zealand and South Africa

Major longitudinal study over 4 years and subsequent studies at Newcastle

Informed by a much wider perspective on the literature e.g. school sector, Mann, Case, Dubet, Kraus, Zepke, Tinto…

Understanding and Developing Student Engagement, Routledge, 2014

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The start of the student engagement focus in the UK

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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Exploded across the sector, coincided with rising salience of student experience and fees

Thousands of publications and examples of implementation

Created new roles and job titles

Dominant in policy making at every level

No longer led by any ‘group’ or ideology…

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The rise and rise of SE

Conceptual slipperiness and ambiguity – but it a multi-construct notone narrow thing

A very messy and rather contested literature

Forgetting the difference between students engaging and engagingstudents

The appropriation of student engagement and antithetical policy andpractice done in its namePolicy ‘claims’

Compliance and coercion

One size fits all – the fallacy of the ideal student

‘Doing’ student engagement

SE activities as human capital accumulation – for the CV or even worse-performativity

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A load of issues

Engaging educationSo how do we do offer authentic engagement?

How do we ensure we are inclusive?

Appreciating the nature of engagement

Recognising that our environment is not always conducive

Taking a strategic and active approach

PARTNERSHIP

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Origins of partnershipAt least a century old idea

Roots in critical and radical pedagogy

Counters neo-liberalism and the model of students as consumer

A Manifesto for Partnership, NUS, 2012

McCulloch, 2009 – co-production

Neary – student as producer

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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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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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The ethos of partnership

Principles of respect, repricocity and responsibility (Cook Sather et al, 2014)

The participant must perceive (Bryson, Furlonger and Rinaldo, 2015):

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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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

See also Mercer-Mapstone et al (2017) a meta-analysis of 65 studies

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Our contextCombined Honours at NewcastleDiverse and complexIndividuals doing unique degree Missing sense of identity/ belongingBut few resources and so difficult to influence the existing curriculum

Began with holistic SE strategy in 2008

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Asking the students at every opportunity and enabling them to be agentic

Legitimacy of committee of elected student representatives as voice of students…from feedback to consultation to co-governance

Peer leadership - Mentors, Peer Welfare Ambassadors, PASS, CHallenge, CHS, Commuter Network, Graduate mentoring – the Student Engagement Steering Group

Co-researching and co-evaluating

Building a community – common room, activities

Co-creating a curriculum – pedagogies for engagement (project based, authenticity, assessment as learning, co-determination)

So what do we do?

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Partnership in the curriculum

Student as consultant

Scholarship

Co-creation (3 modes)Experienced students reviewing or designing‘Live’ design- co-running the module as they do itDesigning the module together then doing it

Curriculum strategy – co-governance

Pedagogies of partnership

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A new curriculumGraduate Development module 20 credits in second/final year

based on a role in CH

portfolio, project and professional review

Project modules in final year 20 credits or 40 credits

can be based on one or several subject areas (or none!)

weightings and mark scheme decided between staff and students

New project module in second year

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Challenges and barriers

Getting started! (too busy, gatekeepers, confidence etc)

Resources?

Getting staff colleagues on board…

Will (all) the students take part?

Will students be too radical? Can I say no?

Vulnerability and risk to students and staff (Teaching and Learning Together in HE, 2018)

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Risks and issues

Power gaps – reflect on assumptions and how we behave

Keeping it fresh, exciting and radical

Coping with feedback in a performative world

Lack of predictability (and limits)

Inclusivity: selective vs universal (Bryson et al, 2018 inter alia)

Reward – wrong incentive (transactional) vs no incentive (exploitative)

Consent, apathy and opposition

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Feedback (in Lea, 2015:170)

I can honestly say, one of the 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

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•Notion of threshold concepts and liminal spaces (Land et al, 2014)

•From safe spaces to brave spaces (Arao and Clemens, 2013)

•Considerable investment of energy and time

•Need to be considered, scholarly, to problemtise and critically reflect too

But partnership is a journey where we need to accept that we might never reach the destination – but still worthwhile

It’s been the most wonderful working and personal experience!

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Partnership is not easy!

Arao, B., and Clemens, K. (2013) From safe spaces to brave spaces: A new way to frame dialogue around diversity and social justice.

In L. Landreman (Ed.) The art of effective facilitation (pp. 135-150). Stylus Publishing, LLC.

Bishop, Daniel (2018) More than just listening: the role of student voice in higher education, an academic perspective.IMPact: The University of Lincoln Journal of Higher Education, 1 (1). Available at http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/31742/

Bourke, R, Rainier, C. and de Vries, V (2018) Assessment and Learning Together in Higher Education, Teaching and Learning Together in Higher Education, 25

Bovill, C., Cook-Sather, A., Felten, P. , Millard, L. and Moore-Cherry, N. (2016) Addressing potential challenges in co-creating learning and teaching: overcoming resistance, navigating institutional norms and ensuring inclusivity in student–staff partnerships. Higher Education 71: 195. Available at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-015-9896-4

Bovill, C and Woolmer, C.(2018) How conceptualisations of curriculum in Higher Education influence student co-creation in and of the curriculum. Higher Education. Available at: https://doe.org/10.1007/s10734-018-0349-8

Bryson, C. and Furlonger, R.(2018) A shared reflection on risk in trying to work with students in partnership. Teaching and Learning Together in Higher Education. Available at: https://repository.brynmawr.edu/tlthe/vol1/iss24/

Bryson, C., Brooke, J., Foreman, S., Graham, S. and Brayshaw, G. (2018) Modes of Partnership- Universal, Selective, Representational and Pseudo Partnership. Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal, 2.1

Bryson, C., and Callaghan, L. (2018) Repositioning Higher Education to counter neo-liberalism. A critical study of the outcomes of working in partnership between students and staff. Proceeding of the HECU9 Conference, Capetown, South Africa, Nov 17-18th

Cook-Sather, A., Bovill, C. and Felten, P. (2014) Engaging students as partners in teaching and learning. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

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References

Freire, P. (1970 Pedagogy of the oppressed. Penguin, London

Hancock J and Lubicz-Nawrocka, T (2018) Creating spaces; embracing risk and partnership in HE. Teaching and Learning Together in Higher Education. Available at: https://repository.brynmawr.edu/tlthe/vol1/iss24/

Healey, M., Flint, A. and Harrington (2014) Engagement through partnership: students as partners in learning and teaching in higher education. Available at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/students_as_partners/Engagement_through_partnershipAccessed [1/11/14]

Land, R. , Rattray, J. and Vivian, P. (2014) Learning in the liminal space : a semiotic approach to threshold concepts. Higher Education., 67(2): 199-217.

Mercer-Mapstone, L. and Clarke, A. (2018) A partnership approach to scaling up student/staff partnership at a large research intensive university. Journal of Educational Innovation, Partnership and Change, 4(1)

Neary, M with Winn, J (2009) Student as producer: reinventing the undergraduate curriculum, in M Neary, H Stevenson, and L Bell (eds) (2009) The future of higher education: policy, pedagogy and the student experience. Continuum: London, 192-210.

Wenstone, R. (2012) NUS- a Manifesto for Partnership. Available at: http://www.nusconnect.org.uk/resourcehandler/0a02e2e5-197e-4bd3-b7ed-e8ceff3dc0e4/ Accessed [14/03/14]

Werder, C and Otis, M (2010) (Eds.) Engaging student voices in the study of teaching and learning. Virginia: Stylus.

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