Enhancing Education Through Engagement and Partnership with The RAISE Network

Enhancing education through engagement and partnership COLIN BRYSON COLIN COLIN. .BRYSON@NCL BRYSON@NCL.AC.UK .AC.UK

The RAISE network Founded in 2009 From 4 to 1200 members (in 20 countries) A values driven collaboration Make progress when we meet up face to face Annual conference key but SIGs important too Good communications so important so hard to reach everyone especially the students Continuity and change NSTEP

Next annual conference in September 2020 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 currently Partnership; Inclusive Practice; Engaging Assessment; Postgraduate Experience; Join the Jiscmail (https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi- bin/webadmin?SUBED1=RAISE&A=1) and Twitter (@RAISEnetwork) http://www.raise-network.com NSTEP

Realising that student engagement Realising that student engagement mattered mattered Early work with colleagues -Major longitudinal study over 4 years and subsequent studies at Newcastle Informed by a much wider perspective on the literature e.g. school sector, Mann, Dubet, Kraus, Zepke, Tinto Understanding and Developing Student Engagement, Routledge, 2014 Not so sure at all by US paradigm of NSSE! Parallel development of collective student engagement/voice .. NSTEP

The nature of student engagement students engaging 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) NSTEP

Key influences on engagement Key influences on engagement engaging students students (process) (process) engaging 1. Student expectations and perceptions match to the personal project and interest in subject 2. Sufficient challenge and appropriate workload 3. Degrees of choice, autonomy, risk, and opportunities for growth and enjoyment 4. Trust relationships 5. Communication and discourse 6. A sense of belonging and community 7. Supportive social networks 8. Opportunities for, and participation in meaningful activities and roles to enable ownership, self-assurance and self-efficacy NSTEP

The critique of student engagement The literature is huge, messy and describing such a diversity of meaning and practices Dangers: Compliance and coercion student agency is key One size fits all - the fallacy of the ideal student Doing student engagement SE activities as performativity (Macfarlane and Tomlinson, 2017) NSTEP

Engaging education So how do we do offer authentic engagement? How do we ensure we are inclusive? Appreciating the nature of engagement Recognising that our environment is not always conducive Taking a strategic and active approach NSTEP

A different approach and re- positioning of students and staff Student as (co) producer of knowledge Co-creation Co-learning Working together as partners Co-governance of an educational learning community NSTEP

Origins of partnership At least a century old idea Roots in critical and radical pedagogy Countering neo-liberalism and the model of students as consumer A Manifesto for Partnership, NUS, 2012 McCulloch, 2009 co-production Neary student as producer NSTEP

The virtues of partnership 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 NSTEP

Cook Cook- -Sather, Sather, Bovill Bovill and and Felten Felten (2014:6) (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 Lubicz-Nawrocka (2017:37) Where you don t know who is the staff and who is the student NSTEP

The ethos of partnership Principles of respect, repricocity and responsibility (Cook Sather et al, 2014) The NStEP principles develop these 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 NSTEP

Benefits and challenges Enacting the principles of NStEP - How might staff and students benefit? Challenges and downsides? NSTEP

Challenges and barriers Getting started! (time, gatekeepers, confidence etc) - both practical and psycho/socio-cultural How radical does it need to be? Challenging the status quo. Sharing responsibility Vulnerability and risk to students and staff NSTEP

Risks.. Key that we recognise these differ depending who we are and we are working together on Power gaps reflect on assumptions and how we behave Scholarly credibility teacher vs student, expertise, norms Coping with feedback in a performative world Inclusivity full access of opportunity and participation Changing the role of student representation the tensions of mutuality! NSTEP

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 NSTEP

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 NSTEP

Culture change- collective benefits Going beyond the individual focus Remembering the ideals of partnership creating a better society, citizenship and community The relational dimension is so important! Making education more enjoyable and fulfilling But this requires brave rather than safe spaces (Arao and Clemens, 2013) NSTEP

A strategic approach Modes of partnership (Bryson at al, 2018) Selective vs Collective vs Universal Scaling up partnership Project based/Role based vs Whole class Participative vs representative democracy vs individual choice weaving in the collective The whole cohort approach (Bryson and Callaghan, forthcoming) NSTEP

Partnership is not easy! So many factors (seen and unseen) Diversity of people and contexts very unpredictable outcomes 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 stillso worthwhile NSTEP

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/ 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 Bovill, C. (2019a) Student staff partnerships in learning and teaching: an overview of current practice and discourse, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 43:4, 385-398, DOI: 10.1080/03098265.2019.1660628 Bovill, C. (2019b). A co-creation of learning and teaching typology: What kind of co-creation are you planning or doing?. International Journal for Students As Partners, 3(2), 91-98. https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v3i2.3953 Bovill, C. (2020) Co-creation in learning and teaching: the case for a whole class approach in higher education. Higher Education. In press 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 NSTEP

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. Freire, P. (1970 Pedagogy of the oppressed. Penguin, London 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] Macfarlane, B. and Tomlinson, M. (2017) Critiques of Student Engagement, Higher Education Policy, 30(1), 5-21. Lubicz-Nawrocka, T. (2017) Co-creation of the curriculum: challenging the status quo to embed partnership. The Journal of Educational Innovation, Partnership and Change. 3(1) Marquis, E., Jayaratnam, A., Lei T. and Mishra, A. (2019) Motivations, barriers, & understandings: how students at four universities perceive student faculty partnership programs. Higher Education Research and Development DOI:10.1080/07294360.2019.1638349 Mercer-Mapstone, L., Dvorakova, S. , Matthews, K., Abbot, S., Cheng, B., Felten, P., Knorr, K., Marquis, E., Shammas, R. & Swaim, K. (2017) A systematic literature review of students as partners in higher education. International Journal for Students as Partners, 1,1 Mercer-Mapstone, L & Bovill, C. (2019) Equity and diversity in institutional approaches to student-staff partnership schemes in higher education. Studies in Higher Education https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03075079.2019.1620721 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. Peters, J., & Mathias, L. (2018). Enacting student partnership as though we really mean it: Some Freirean principles for a pedagogy of partnership. International Journal for Students As Partners, 2(2), 53-70. https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v2i2.3509 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. Wijaya Mulya, T. (2018): Contesting the neoliberalisation of higher education through student faculty partnership, International Journal for Academic Development, DOI: 10.1080/1360144X.2018.1520110 NSTEP