COLIN BRYSON AND FAE RINALDO NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY, UK EFYE Conference 2015 Pushing boundaries: developing student engagement and ‘students as partners’

COLIN BRYSON AND FAE RINALDONEWCASTLE 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? (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

What are the catalysts for strong engagement?

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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 degree

Evolved into partnership

So what’s partnership about?

The virtues of partnership

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A counter-movement to transactional and consumer models

Principles of respect, reciprocity and responsibility

(Cook-Sather et al 2014)

Epitomises positive values in society Ethical Demoncratic Exemplary

Partnership Practices – Model A

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Healey, Flint and Harrington (2014)A typology of Student as Partner roles e.g.

Consultant to staffCo-designingCo-researchingChange-agent

Individual relationships

Where does representation sit?

Benefits of partnership

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• For both students AND staff

• Engagement • Metacognitive awareness and

identity• Enhancement

(Cook-Sather, Bovill and Felten, 2014)

But currently under-researched – thus our study:

Problematising the issues

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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 realised

Are all students ready and willing to be partners -

what influences that?

For all to feel like a partner….a proposal

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(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 circle

The first year - potential

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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?

What we did

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A gentle introduction to partnership, involvement,

sharing responsibility and some co-deciding

Partnership in the curriculum

Module also feature ‘pedagogies

of partnership’ to at least some

extent

Support mechanisms

Healey, Flint and Harrington (2014)

Evidence gathering

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Can the early stage of the student life-cycle

accommodate such radical approaches?

Feedback and evaluation data

Observation and reflection of partnership activities and

initiatives

Interviews – at start and end of the academic year

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Student views…Mixed!

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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.”

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“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.”

Conclusions

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It is more challenging for students at earlier degree stage

Full 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 learning

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To meet regularly to discuss Student Engagement (SE).   To involve and work with students in partnership An 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/

Any questions?

EFYE Conference 2015