Newcastle University UK EFYE Conference 2015 Pushing boundaries developing student engagement and students as partners in first year Why strong engagement matters EFYE Conference 2015 What is engagement ID: 275921
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Slide1
Colin Bryson and Fae RinaldoNewcastle University, UK
EFYE Conference 2015
Pushing boundaries: developing student engagement and ‘students as partners’ in first yearSlide2
Why strong engagement matters
EFYE Conference 2015
What is engagement?
(Bryson and Hand, 2007)
Underpins learning:
being and becoming (Fromm, 1977)Required for transformative learning (Johansson and Felten, 2014); self authorship (Baxter-Magolda. 2006)...the true purpose of Higher Education Slide3
What are the catalysts for strong engagement?
EFYE Conference 2015
The super-engaged on Combined at Newcastle (Bryson, 2014:
Understanding and Developing Student Engagement
)
Characteristics – active, multi-involvement inside and outside the curriculum, inside and outside the degreeEvolved into partnership
So what’s partnership about?Slide4
The virtues of partnership
EFYE Conference 2015
A
counter-movement to transactional and consumer models
Principles of respect, reciprocity and responsibility
(Cook-Sather et al 2014)Epitomises positive values in societyEthicalDemoncraticExemplarySlide5
Partnership Practices – Model A
EFYE Conference 2015
Healey, Flint and Harrington (2014)
A typology of Student as Partner roles e.g.
Consultant to staff
Co-designingCo-researchingChange-agentIndividual relationshipsWhere does representation sit?Slide6
Benefits of partnership
EFYE Conference 2015
For both students AND staff
Engagement
Metacognitive
awareness and identityEnhancement (Cook-Sather, Bovill and Felten, 2014)Slide7
But currently under-researched – thus our study:
Problematising the issues
EFYE Conference 2015
What’s actually happening inside and through the process of partnership?
What is the nature of being a partner for the student?
Understanding why/how/if the benefits are realisedAre all students ready and willing to be partners - what influences that? Slide8
For all to feel
like a partner….a proposal
EFYE Conference 2015
(All) the
individual
studentsmust perceive that:Valued and valuable;Co-ownership, inclusion, and equalising of power relations Participative democracy; Membership of a learning community This needs to be realised in practice – a virtuous circleSlide9
The first year - potential
EFYE Conference 2015
Little opportunity to take on partnership roles
Can
the early stage of the student life-cycle accommodate such radical approaches
?How can we extend partnership approaches to the first year?Slide10
What we did
EFYE Conference 2015
A
gentle introduction to partnership, involvement, sharing responsibility and some
co-deciding
Partnership in the curriculumModule also feature ‘pedagogies of partnership’ to at least some extentSupport mechanisms
Healey, Flint and Harrington (2014
)Slide11
Evidence gathering
EFYE Conference 2015
Can the early stage of the student life-cycle accommodate such radical
approaches?
Feedback and evaluation data
Observation and reflection of partnership activities and initiativesInterviews – at start and end of the academic yearSlide12
EFYE Conference 2015
Student views…Mixed!
EFYE Conference 2015
Opportunity
to open up my imagination and think, right what do I write about? Like no guidelines which is what I find hard, like I find it a lot easier when someone tells me what I have to do”.
“
On one hand, I didn’t like it because we all had different ideas on that… I feel like some people didn’t have it their way because of that, but then on the other hand, the majority of us got what we wanted…but then we had a talk about it and everyone participated so I think that was nice.”Slide13
EFYE Conference 2015
“I think University’s about independent learning, the way you learn yourself as more of an individual, not just the way everyone else...so I think its nice that if you’re interested in a certain topic of something you can choose your own assessment weighting around it to suit your needs”
“I think it was [a fair process] in terms of majority...but in terms of individuals I don’t think it was, I think the flexibility of choice is good but it does have it set backs in terms of that respect...maybe could you have an assessment based on the individual?”
“I think your confidence grows because you have to take the lead a bit more for your own learning...Its confidence that has really helped everything...Has helped me to reach my aspiration to be a teacher.”
“I think it’s about patience, and learning about other people’s views”
“I liked the freedom of it...It felt quite strange, but I think it was nice...I suppose it’s more challenging, I don’t think it really daunted me, I think I put more effort into it if anything because I picked something that I liked, and just really researched it, so I think if anything it made it more enjoyable, and challenging as well though.”Slide14
Conclusions
EFYE Conference 2015
It is more
challenging for students at earlier degree
stageFull of tensionsEasier to reach the predisposed but we need to persuade the othersProblematic to practice partnership! Are we focussing on the right issues to work in partnership on?The right/choice ‘not to be partner’Significant benefits – for engagement and for transformative learningSlide15
EFYE Conference 2015
To meet regularly to discuss Student Engagement (SE). To involve and work with students in partnershipAn early goal was to develop a concept map and set of principles that underpin the promotion of SE
To establish an annual conference drawing together leading edge work on SE - and to feed into publication through journals and books.
(Next conference– Sept 2015, Nottingham)
To gain funding to support these events and activities.
To create a bank of useful resources for us to share.To facilitate communication between us (web, email network etc)http://raise-network.ning.com/Slide16
Any
questions?
EFYE Conference 2015