Taking a critical look at partnership as the way forward to enhancing student engagement

1. Taking a critical look at partnership as the way forward to enhancing student engagement Colin Bryson

2. 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) Napier ARISE Feb19

3. 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 Napier ARISE Feb19

4. The critique of student engagement • That is too vague and essentially meaningless • ‘Doing’ student engagement • Arguments that student engagement has been appropriated by neo-liberalism – the changing context of higher education • Zepke(2014-17) mainstreaming - elective affinity with neo-liberalism • Macfarlane and Tomlinson (2017) - marketisation of higher education, measuring institutions’ effectiveness • Performativity – students altering behaviour to conform to desired expectations • Surveillance – monitoring engagement and learning Napier ARISE Feb19

5. Origins of partnership • At least a century old idea • Roots in critical and radical pedagogy • Counters to neo-liberalism and the model of students as consumer • A Manifesto for Partnership, NUS, 2012 • McCulloch, 2009 – co-production • Neary – student as producer Napier ARISE Feb19

6. 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’ Napier ARISE Feb19

7. 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 Napier ARISE Feb19

8. 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 Napier ARISE Feb19

9. 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 Napier ARISE Feb19

10. A typology of SaProles • Consultant to staff • Co-designing • Co-researching • Change-agent (Dunne and Zandstra, 2011) • Peer leading Focussed on SoTL, curriculum, QA/QE, subject based • What about student representation and co-governance? Napier ARISE Feb19

11. 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 • You have your own examples… Napier ARISE Feb19

12. 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) Napier ARISE Feb19

13. Problematic considerations • Keeping it fresh, exciting and radical • Lack of predictability (and limits) • Power (sharing) and ethics – phronesis (Taylor and Robinson, 2014) • Inclusivity: selective vs universal (Bryson et al, 2018 inter alia) • Reward –wrong incentive (transactional) vs no incentive (exploitative) • Consent, apathy and opposition Napier ARISE Feb19

14. What we do….in Combined at NU • Holistic strategy (a kitchen sink approach) • Co-governance and doing everything together • 100 formal student roles- mentoring, reps, PASS, Peer Welfare Ambassadors, interns + co-researchers, co-disseminating • Modules run in partnership (100 students doing these) Napier ARISE Feb19

15. 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 Napier ARISE Feb19

16. 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 Napier ARISE Feb19

17. Partnership is not easy! • 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 • And critical reflection 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! Napier ARISE Feb19

18. References • 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. Napier ARISE Feb19

19. 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_partnership Accessed [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. Napier ARISE Feb19