Download to read offline
More Related Content
Similar to Pg cert lthe 2011 understanding student engagement
Pg cert lthe 2011 understanding student engagement
- 1. Student engagement Phil Carey
- 2. Learning outcomes • Toinvestigate a range of activities that relate to student engagement • To critically consider the persepectives on student engagement • To explore the barriers and opportunities for student engagement in Higher Education
- 3. Why engagement? • Growth of user-movement • Widening participation • Emphasis on inclusion and diversity • Growing Consumer culture in Higher Education
- 4. student engagement? • Shiftfrom traditional concerns with performance and retention (eg Tinto, 1975) • a radical re-articulation of students as co- creators of their educational experiences (Taylor & Wilding, 2009). • Antidote to consumerism
- 5. Understanding student engagement. definition: •Student engagement is the investment of time, effort and other relevant resources by both students and their institutions intended to optimise the student experience and enhance the learning outcomes and development of students and the performance and reputation of the institution. (Trowler, 2010)
- 6. ‘location’ of engagement • Learning design • Teaching, learning and assessment activities • Institutional Governance • Extra-curricular activities
- 7. Who benefits? Be aware of the impact of power dynamics on student engagement
- 8. Theoretical perspectives • Ladderof participation – Non-participation – Tokenism – Power • Radical Collegiality ‘contemporary teacher professionalism needs to incorporate an expectation that teacher learning is both enabled and enhanced by dialogic encounters with their students in which the interdependent nature of teaching and learning and the shared responsibility for its success is made explicit’ (Fielding, 2001).
- 9. Fielding’s typology ofstudent engagement • Students as a data source – Experience expressed in information about performance – Passive • Students as active respondents – discussion between tutors and students on learning and teaching issues. – Change is an outcome of active engagement with students. – agenda is set by the institution and students have a consultative role. • Students as co-researchers – Stronger notion of partnership – Institution leads the agenda – dialogue replaces consultation. • Students as researchers – students have a leadership role. – Students identify areas of action
- 10. HEFCE/NUS perspectives on engagement •Consultation: – Provide opportunities to express views or recount experiences • Involvement: – Provide opportunities for individual students to take an active role. • Participation: – Allow students to determine where they take an active role • Partnership: – Full collaboration between students and the institution – Joint ownership and decision-making
- 11. Group exercise • Yourgroup has been asked to review nominations for the university’s Student Engagement Award. • Using the information you have, collectively decide which ONE nominee should get the award • Be prepared to defend your decision
- 12. Challenges • Co-option intoquality assurance • Preference for technical-rationalist solutions – ‘swampiness of practice’ –Schön • Impact of gatekeepers – ‘street level bureaucrats’ - Lipsky
- 13. Going forward • Manageflexibility • Promote systems that support collaboration • Staff engagement & support • Culture change
- 14.
- 15. • If youtreat students as customers it will put the relationship between students and academics on the wrong footing – it should be a partnership between the student and professional members of staff rather than a customer relationship, otherwise it will distort the relationship and create a ‘customer is always right’ mentality.’ –Wes Streeting, 2008 President NUS back
- 16.
Editor's Notes
- #4 There are a number of factors that may have prompted an emphasis on student engagement in higher education. Amongst these is the rise of a user-movement across the public sector that demands a role for users in how their services are managed (Newman et al, 2008). In addition, widening participation has changed the student demographic. Universities can no longer rely on traditional assumptions about the motivations and abilities of their students and need to adopt more proactive strategies to understand these (Lumsden et al, 2010). Moreover, increasing diversity means that institutions need to demonstrate more inclusive cultures to attract and retain their students (Zepke & Leach, 2010). Finally, the imposition of a consumer model into higher education has rearticulated how universities should connect with their students.
- #5 The discourse of student engagement has shifted from traditional concerns with performance and retention (eg Tinto, 1975) to a radical articulation of students as co-creators of their educational experiences (Taylor & Wilding, 2009). Today, enhancing engagement is a significant feature of national HE policy and university rhetoric. Despite recent political change, there is no reason to assume that this will diminish. The Browne Report, for example, does not refer explicitly to student engagement. Nevertheless, it makes much of student choice and the need to improve the student experience. Indeed, there are echoes of the notion of co-creation, with calls for students to be ‘at the heart of the system’ and the production of charters that clarify the ‘commitments made by students to the academic community they are joining’ (Browne, 2010).
- #6 Engagement is writ large in the rhetoric of HE. Yet, there has been very little theoretical analysis, research or development of an evidence base with respect to this issue. This was acknowledged by Vicki Trowler in a forthcoming lit review that she has undertaken for the HEA. In this, she has proposed this working definition for engagement. The value of this as a starting point is that it:Highlights engagement as an investmentDepicts activities as a 2-way street with shared activity and responsibility.Reflects the perspective that there are joint beneficiaries in the process
- #7 Trowler identified 4 key arenas for student engagement:Learning design can happen at the micro level in terms of student participation in setting assessment criteria, for example, or at a more macro level in relation to work in curriculum design.Another area is students participation and compliance with the teaching and learning regimes utilised by individual staff and teamsAt a programme or institutional, engagement might involve students having a role in institutional governanceFinally, students may engage in ‘enriching educational experiences’ outside the curriculum (or even institution)
- #8 There is a crucial difference between an empty ritual of participation and having the real power needed to affect the outcome of the process. This illustrated in this poster produced y the French students in 1968 to explain the student-worker rebellion.The poster highlights the fundamental point that participation without redistribution of power is an tokenistic. It allows the powerful to claim the moral authority that sits with participative action, whilst maintaining the status quo.
- #9 In the absence of any specific theory for engagement in HE, we can draw upon theoreticians from other areas. In this case, I have chosen to consider the work of scholars from the compulsory education sector and community action arenaLadder of participation is a classic model of participation that encourages practitioners to reflect upon the role of power in practice. It seems particularly germane to discussion of student engagement as the power-differential between the student and the institution is like a bad smell at a dinner party. Everyone know it’s there, but it seems rude to acknowledge it! Arnstein suggests that increasing power, authority and responsibility for citizens lead to more authentic notions of participation.Micheal Fielding’s concept of ‘radical collegiality’ takes that notion of power into an educational environment by presenting us with the idea that students and teachers learn through dialogue and in an interdependent way.
- #10 Despite the issues of paternalism and care that should not relate to adult education, schools appear to have embraced engagement in a more holistic and wholesale manner than universities,.Fielding's typology of student engagement reflects the Ladder of Participation and his notion of radical collegiality by presenting different mechanisms for engagement that require an increasingly active and empowered student body.
- #11 This is all coherent with the HEFCE/NUS perspective that offers greater levels of collaboration between students and the institution, and challenges consumerism in HE.
- #13 the shortcomings of one set of rules will be overcome by the imposition of a new or revised set intricate exchanges between organisational culture, structural processes and the people who work within the system. First, they are paying guests and not salaried staff. As a consequence, stronger surveillance and control is harder to conceive of and justify. Secondly, the student life cycle typically 3 years. This means that the student body is in a state of constant flux. Finally, while it is undoubtedly the responsibility of institution to improve its services, this responsibility is not shared by students. In light of this, any system that tries to over-regulate their input is in danger of undermining the goodwill that sustains the system in the first place (McCulloch, 2009). So, is a representative’s inactivity the upshot of a system typified by a high additional workload and a sense of vulnerability? Likewise, is apparent staff indifference the end result of a culture that has traditionally placed them above students in an unambiguous hierarchy?
- #17 1 and 2 are non participative. The aim is to cure or educate the participants. The proposed plan is best and the job of participation is to achieve public support by public relations. 3 Iis a step towards legitimate participation, but emphases a one way flow of information.4 is a further step and involves more interaction, but Arnstein suggests it’s window dressing. 5 Involves co-option of hand-picked 'worthies' onto committees. It allows citizens to advise or plan ad infinitum but retains for power holders the right to judge the legitimacy or feasibility of the advice.6 Power is in fact redistributed through negotiation between citizens and power holders. Planning and decision-making responsibilities are shared e.g. through joint committees.7 Citizens holding a clear majority of seats on committees with delegated powers to make decisions. Public assures accountability of the programme to them.8 Citizen Control. Citizens handle the entire job of planning, policy making and managing a programme with no intermediaries between it and the source of funds.