Developing a social justice framework for monitoring student learning engagement

1. Developing a social justice framework for monitoring student learning engagement My Inclusive University Seminar 4 October 2011 Professor Karen Nelson (Project Leader) Tracy Creagh (Project Manager) Australian Learning and Teaching Council Project CG10-1730 2011-2012

3. Presentation Overview • Background to the project • Project overview • Developing the principles • Small group activity • Feedback and discussion

4. “Higher education can transform the lives of individuals and through them their communities and the nation by engendering a love of learning for its own sake and a passion for intellectual discovery”. Bradley, Noonan, Nugent & Scales (2008) Review of Australian Higher Education: Final Report

5. ? Why is a social justice framework needed......

6. Disengagement • Failure • Attrition ? • Engagement • Success • Retention

7. Model of Student Engagement Input / Presage Factors Student Factors Individual Contextual Transformation Process Output / Product Factors Institutional Experiences Curriculum- mediated & Co-curricular Students & Staff Knowledge Skills Attitudes Actions Institutional Context Curriculum Institution Teacher Factors Individual Contextual • The Individual and Institutional Characteristics Influencing Student Retention and Engagement (IICISRE) Model (Nelson, Kift and Clarke (2011)

9. ? • Preparedness • Finances • Alignment of expectations & experiences • Course choice certainty • Contact with staff • Course design & assessment • Feedback, early, timely and constructive (E.g. Krause et al, 2005; Scott, 2006; Yorke & Longden, 2008; Kift, 2009)

11. Some words of advice • “stop tinkering at the margins of institutional academic life and make enhancing student success the linchpin about which they organize their activities ... • and [to] establish those educational conditions on campus that promote the retention of students, in particular those of low-income backgrounds”. Tinto, V (2009) Taking Student Retention Seriously: Rethinking the First Year of University. Keynote address delivered at the ALTC FYE Curriculum Design Symposium, QUT, Brisbane, Australia, February 5, 2009.

12. Recognise the changing patterns of student engagement (e.g. work, travel & on-campus time) Yorke, M. & Thomas, L., 2003

13. Create an institutional climate, supportive in various ways of students’ development, that is perceived as ‘friendly’; Yorke, M. & Thomas, L., 2003

14. A willingness to change! Yorke, M. & Thomas, L., 2003

16. Monitoring Engagement • At QUT – progressive development of a system to monitor and intervene with students at risk of disengaging – the Student Success Program • Nelson, Karen J., Quinn, Carole, Marrington, Andrew, & Clarke, John A. (2011) Good practice for enhancing the engagement and success of commencing students.Higher Education. Online First 30 March, available at http://www.springerlink.com/content/atn87g2q3l2522x4/ • Nelson, Karen J., Duncan, Margot E., & Clarke, John A. (2009) Student success : the identification and support of first year university students at risk of attrition.Studies in Learning, Evaluation, Innovation and Development, 6(1), pp. 1-15. • High levels of interest from the sector, e.g., Deakin, Monash, University of Auckland, Griffith University, UniSA, RMIT, Charles Sturt, Griffith, University of Queensland, Curtin, Edith Cowan...

17. Existing student support (e.g.) Student Success Program (SSP) Specialist Support SSP Advisors “Warm Hand-On” FYE Consultant Academic Skills Advisers Careers and Employment International Students Services Referral to Existing Services Counselling Course Coordinators Equity Services Faculty student services Faculty programs Learning support gateway Oodgeroo Unit Peer Advisers (Library) Student Guild Student Services Workshops & seminars Descriptive Information Student Activities ManagerSSP FYE & Retention Coord “Outreach” Contact Mgt System “students at-risk” reports Contact Information Limited information

18. SSP Activity 2008-2011

19. Impact on Persistence (within semester) Learning Engagement Campaign 2008-2010

21. Project objectives and outcomes The key objective of this project is to: • lead the establishment of good practice for the Australasian HE sector in monitoring student engagement What we aim to do: • design and develop a set of guiding principles for MSLE illustrated by annotated examples of good practice • making available a set of resources to support learning and teaching policy and practice for monitoring student engagement. • design and develop a good practice guide for MSLE that reflects the expertise of personnel in existing good practice programs;

22. Project Universities • Auckland University of Technology • Queensland University of Technology • University of New England • Curtin University of Technology • Charles Sturt University • University of South Australia • Edith Cowan University • RMIT University

23. Project Approach Good Practice for Monitoring Student Engagement • Establish Project Repository

24. Literature analysis SJ Principles • Requires examination of the concept of Justice • E.g. Kant, Rawls, Miller, Rizvi, Young, Wollstonecraft, Mill & Marx... • Two ‘traditions‘– liberal individualist & social democratic • No single view of social justice but consistent reference to human rights, fairness and equality. • Consensus that key elements include: equity of access to social & material goods, equal participation in society, measured by equal performance and outcomes, equal liberty and rights. • Critique by AmartyaSen (2009) further considered transcendent institutionalism & reasoned difference.

25. Social Justice & Education • Distributive & retributive perspectives (liberal-individualists) have some shared characteristics (Gale, 2000) • Tendency to be concerned with people’s assets (including social goods, e.g. Opportunity, power) rather than social processes which (re)produce those assets • Limits just distribution of goods to some sort of statistical modelling • Regards all people as the same – a utopian hegemony  ‘tend to be interested in economics and ignore social institutions’ • Marginson (2011) - tensions in equity policy & measures of success of equity policy and programs framed in terms of the type of strategy • Fairness – strategies to change the composition of participation  HE representative of society • Inclusion – strategies to broaden the access and completion of under represented social groups.

26. Developing a Philosophical Stance • . • Self- determination does not mean separate determination • Socially just processes – are necessarily democratic • ‘Groups’ need to be represented and their views to be engaged with as part of the decision making processes • Therefore we have taken a social democratic stance that emphasises process and action over state and form

27. Recognitive Social Justice • Positive regard for social difference • Centrality of socially democratic processes in working towards achievement • Focus on procedural issues of participation in deliberation and decision making • Recognised when • the ways in which groups of students are identified and the extent to which all those involved in the social process are involvement in their own development and the purpose of the process • Does not abandon but informs interests central to distributive and retributive perspectives

28. Social justice in HEUsing perspectives of social justice to frame the MSLE principles (Gale, 2000 p.268)

30. Small group discussion Consider how the draft principles relate to the HE context? • How will these principles benefit : • Students? • QUT / Institutions?

31. Developing a social justice framework for monitoring student learning engagement My Inclusive University Seminar 4 October 2011 Professor Karen Nelson (Project Leader) Tracy Creagh (Project Manager) Australian Learning and Teaching Council Project CG10-1730 2011-2012