Why w work rking i in partn tnership is the r right t t thing - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Why w work rking i in partn tnership is the r right t t thing t to do

CO COLIN B BRYS YSON ON A AND H D HAZEL G GORDON COLIN.BRYSON@NCL.AC.UK H.GORDON1@NCL.AC.UK

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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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 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. Call for submissions open – see website 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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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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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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What is partnership?

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A typology of SaP roles

• Consultant to staff
• Co-designing
• Co-researching
• Change-agent (Dunne and Zandstra, 2011)
• Peer leading

Focussed on SoTL, curriculum, QA/QE, subject based

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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

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Institutional examples

• The Teaching and Learning Academy

(http://library.wwu.edu/tla )

• SALTs and similar schemes (Brynmawr, Winchester,

BCU, Exeter, UCL)

• Lincoln – a comprehensive approach

So what are examples here?

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Modes of partnership

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Pseudo-partnership

• May have a gloss of partnership features
• Student as proto-academic
• Staff as patron
• Ironically- student may ‘feel like a partner’

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Collective

• Ethically and socially legitimate – co-governance
• Can be corrupted or set up in such a way as to undermine

partnership (oligarchies exclude)

• Participative rather than representational?
• Mutual rather than adversarial
• Very challenging to establish and sustain…Communes and

co-operatives

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Selective partnership

• This is the standard model - currently
• Individualised relationships between student:staff
• Great benefits for these students but….after deeper

evaluation and reflection

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Issues for this model

• Lack of inclusivity - opportunities for few and not all
• Selective investment
• Those that participate already have the most social capital!
• A bit elitist?

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Bring nging ng i in Univer ersal Partne nershi hip p

• 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)
• And all ‘feel’ like a partner and all benefit

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Co-design of curriculum

3 modes of student involvement

• 1. (Experienced) students (re)design a

module

• 2. Students designing the module as it

proceeds.

• 3. Students design a future module that they

will do

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A case study

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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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Who am I?

• Hazel Gordon
• Psychology and Philosophy Stage 3
• PASS Advisor in stage 2 and 3
• Combined Final Year Project
• Presented at student led research project at RAISE 2017
• Social Secretary of the Canoe Society

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Why is student engagement so important?

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?

Confidence Opportunities Enriched learning experience Emotional development

“Engaged students are more likely to perform well… and contribute to a safe, positive and creative school climate and culture” (H, Marks 2000)

Making connections

Involving the students

Student representation:

• Student-Staff Committee
• Empowerment- Student led, working groups
• Active agenda – providing solutions
• The engine room of change
• Staff supported

Success stories

Little things and bigger things

• Change the name of the degree
• Defending the degree
• New curriculum and module co-design

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Enhancing engagement in CH

Peer leadership - Schemes student led but strong staff support

• Mentors, Peer Welfare Ambassadors
• PASS
• CHallenge, CHS
• Commuter Network
• PICNIC
• Graduate mentoring
• Building a community:
• Common room and reception
• Social agenda – the CHS & CHallenge
• Joining it all up – events and activities are shared and promoted by all parties

The Graduate Development modules – rewarding good practice and enabling projects

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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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Reflections on our approach

• Involves around 80 students in roles per year
• Wider opportunities for involvement – co-researching and

internships, presenting at conferences, new ideas

• PICNIC – short term student exchanges
• Another 100 students do our modules
• 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, does this work smoothly and deliver all tat we might

wish…..??????

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Issues and challenges

Are there any?

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Challenges and ways forward

• Getting started!
• Feeling blocked (gatekeepers),
• Getting staff colleagues on board…
• Will the students take part?
• Avoiding ’doing partnership’
• Misunderstanding the point
• Coercion into partnership

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More challenges

• Vulnerability and risk to students and staff
• Keeping it fresh, exciting and radical
• Will students be too radical? Can I say no?
• Being too selective in choice of partner
• Trying to be inclusive, behaving ethically and fairly –

phronesis (Taylor and Robinson, 2014)

• Reward –wrong incentive (transactional) vs no incentive

(exploitative)

• Coping with unpredictability and disruptive outcomes

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Issues for the universal/curriculum model

• Students sign up for the module and not necessarily

partnership

• Some don’t like partnership–– risk and vulnerability
• More challenging for students because so different from
• ther modules
• Tension between democratic principles vs ethics; collective

v individual

• Module feedback is sometimes interesting!

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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

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A staff perspective

• Sharing power effectively
• Enabling the quieter voices to be heard
• Safe spaces….or brave spaces?
• ‘Foregrounding’ assessment
• Very demanding to students

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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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Conclusions

• Partnership works and enables strong SE and

transformative learning in a mass HE system and

• ffers 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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