This document outlines an approach to transforming student learning through increasing engagement and reducing alienation. It discusses three types of alienation (vice, virtue) and how intellectual development involves stages of dualism, multiplicity, and relativism. It proposes that engagement can be increased through three "R"s: research, relationships, and risks/writing. Research stimulates curiosity through ill-defined problems. Strong relationships with teachers and peers predict positive experiences. Exploratory writing and taking risks can counteract feelings of alienation. The goal is to move students from alienation to ownership and partnership in their education.

1. Increasing engagement to transform
student learning
@solentlearning
@tansyjtweets
Tansy Jessop
Bath EduFest
7 June 2018

2. Session outline
1. First principles: why study at university
2. Alienation: always a bad thing?
3. Turning alienation into engagement
• Research
• Relationships
• (W)riting and/or Risks

3. Why study at university?
Go to www.menti.com and use the code 27 90 20
Write down three words or phrases which capture
your thoughts about why anyone would spend
three years of their life studying at university.

4. So why come to university?

5. University or…
• 108,000 Freddos @25p each
• 98 Freddos per day
• 6,293 Big Mac Meals @£4.29
• 5.7 burgers a day

6. Mini-cooper clubman?

7. Why would you come to university?
72 responses about knowledge and ideas
37 about salary and graduate jobs

9. Alienation
Image, "Alienation Nightmare" © 1996 by Sabu

10. Alienation Type A: Vice

11. Motorways to Type A alienation
• M1: Modules
• M2: Markets
• M3: Metrics
• M4: Mass higher education

12. Alienation Type B: Virtue

13. Intellectual development in a nutshell
Model Stage 1 Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4
Perry
(n=464
interviews)
Dualism Multiplicity Relativism Commitment
Baxter
Magolda
(n=101
students
plus 10 year
Absolute
Knowledge
Transitional Independent Contextual
self-
authorship

14. From Morning Glory to Petersburg
(The World Book, 1928)
Poem by Adrienne Rich

16. Take two: turn to your neighbour
• Which words or phrases in the poem resonated
for you and why?
• How do theories of intellectual development
relate to your own university experience?

17. Alienation: Type B
• Confused, angry, doubting the firmament,
questioning everything you ever knew?
• Welcome to university! If you are not feeling
any of these thing then you are not in higher
education.

18. From alienation to engagement:
the three R’s

19. Research builds engagement…
• Stimulates intellectual curiosity
• Ill-defined problems make you think
• Students take decisions and make choices
• Student ownership & partnership
• Students generate knowledge through doing research

20. Facts first: knowledge wastage

21. Or research first?
https://vimeo.com/214664656

22. Solent’sRealWorldCurriculumFramework

23. Relationships build engagement…

24. Best predictor of positive
university experience is
strong relationships. At least
one strong relationship with
a tutor and two with
peers….
Chambliss and Takacs 2014

25. It was like ‘Who’s
Holly?’ It’s that
relationship where
you’re just a student.
Because they have to mark so
many that our essay becomes
lost in the sea that they have
to mark.
Here they say ‘Oh yes, I don’t
know who you are. Got too
many to remember, don’t
really care, I’ll mark you on
your assignment’.
YET…

26. The feedback relationship

27. Irretrievable breakdown…
Your essay lacked structure and
your referencing is problematic
Your classes are boring and I
don’t really like you 

28. Looking for a strong relationship?

29. Try the Critical Incident Questionnaire
Stephen Brookfield’s Critical Incident Questionnaire http://bit.ly/1loUzq0

30. Risks and writing build engagement…
Exploratory
writing: an
antidote?

31. Read more, write more

32. Ending with a poem
Line 1: Your Name
Line 2: Four character traits
Line 3: Lover of… (list three things)
Line 4: Who feels… (three items)
Line 5: Who needs…. (three items)
Line 6: Who fears…. (one item)
Line 7: Who hopes for… (three items)
Line 8: And who finds … (three items)
(Adapted from John Bean, 1996, 110)

33. From alienation…

34. …to the adult equivalent of this

35. References
Arum, R. and Roska, J. 2011. Academically Adrift. Limited Learning on College
Campuses. Chicago. University of Chicago Press.
Baxter Magolda, M. 2001. Making Their Own Way: Narratives for Transforming
Higher Education to Promote Self-Development. Virgina. Stylus.
Bean, J. 1996. Engaging Ideas. San Francisco. Jossey Bass.
Brookfield, S. 1995. Becoming a critically reflective teacher. Chapter 6. Understanding
Classroom dynamics: The Critical Incident Questionnaire. San Francisco. Jossey Bass.
Carr, N. 2010. The Shallows: How the internet is changing the way we read, think and
remember. New York. Newton and Company.
Chambliss, D. and Takacs, C. 2014. How College Works. Harvard University Press.
Collini, S. 2012. What are universities for? London. Penguin Books.
DiPietro, M. 2017. ‘How Learning Works: 7 Research-Based Principles for Smart
Teaching’. Workshop at ISSOTL Conference, Calgary.
Mann, S. 2001. Alternative Perspectives on the Student Experience: alienation and
engagement. Studies in Higher Education. 26(1) 7-19.
Perry, William 1981. ‘Cognitive and Ethical Growth: The Making of Meaning’. In
Chickering, A. (1981) The Modern American College. San Francisco. Jossey Bass.