Transcript Slide 1

Making use of the
concepts of student
engagement to enhance
learning and teaching
Colin Bryson, Lucy Boden
and Holly Maxey
Newcastle University
[email protected]
Goals
A
shared understanding of the nature and
meaning of student engagement
 Look at the research and evidence
 Consider how this should guide practice
and policy and consider some current
good practice
 Putting into your practice
student engagement
A big question
1. What is student engagement – a
starting definition?
 2. What it does it look like?
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student engagement
Conceptions of engagement – the
dominant paradigm - NSSE
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Roots (Becker, 1961: Pace, 1979: Astin, 1977: Chickering and
Gamson, 1987: Pascarella and Terenzini, 1991, 2005)
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A focus in USA on active classroom behaviours - (National Student
Survey on Engagement) – George Kuh
Survey used very widely - Over 100 publications, millions of
respondents in 1000+ HEIs
Now revising survey into NSSE2.0
Australia – the FYE…convergence with US thinking
Coates developed NSSE into the AUSSE (and now we have SASSE
etc)
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student engagement
student engagement
A different form of student
evidence….my own work
 Drawn
from five studies since 2003,
mainly qualitative
 Includes two longitudinal studies
 And one of these was the staff perspective
on SE
student engagement
SE is holistic and socially
constructed
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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)
More than about doing/behaving and quantity
Method, validity and reliability issues
SE is dynamic and fluid
SE is multidimensional, includes student’s whole lives and it is the
interaction and pattern that matters not any specific variable – avoid
reductionism
SE needs to sensitive to the local context
Closed question surveys do not allow student voice
student engagement
Key influences on engagement
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Student expectations and perceptions – match to the
‘personal project’ and interest in subject
Balances between challenge and appropriate
workload
Degrees of choice, autonomy, risk, and opportunities
for growth and enjoyment
Trust relationships
Communication and discourse
A sense of belonging and community
The salience of social networks
student engagement
A wider exploration of the lit
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Strong evidence base and critical perspective
from schools SE research - patterns
(Fredricks et al; Zyngier; Gibbs & Posskitt; Harris)
 Willingness ….and readiness…to
(McCune; Handley et al; Barnett)
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Inclusivity (Hockings)
 Ways of being
(Dubet; Brennan et al)
a student
student engagement
engage
The flipside of SE
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Alienation, inertia/anomie and
disengagement (Mann: Krause)
 Performativity
 Being
‘other’
 Disciplinary power
 Inertia
 Battle
between cultures and values
student engagement
Engagement to what?
And to what end?
student engagement
Engagement to what?
 Engagement
(Bryson and Hand)
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to and with different levels
Collective SE – but also participation and
partnership
(Little et al: Bovill: Healey et al)
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Integration, belonging and community (Tinto:
Kember: Wenger and several others)
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Perspectives on education (Trowler)
Intellectual development
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(Perry: Baxter Magolda: Belenky)
student engagement
The value of engagement after HE
(my most recent research)
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Integrated development of the whole person
(and ‘disposition’)
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Graduateness and graduate attributes (Barrie, 2007)
Graduate identity (Holmes, 2001) and USEM (Yorke and Knight,
2006)
The whole HE experience – thus the
extracurricular is vital – authentic experiences
The engaged students tends to take up more
opportunities AND is better able to join them up
in their thinking
student engagement
A revised definition of SE
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Student engagement is about what a student brings to
Higher Education in terms of goals, aspirations, value
and beliefs and how these are shaped and mediated by
their experience whilst a student. SE is constructed and
reconstructed through the lenses of the perceptions and
identities held by students and the meaning and sense a
student makes of their experiences and interactions. As
players and shapers of the educational context,
educators need to foster educational, purposeful SE to
support and enable students to learn in constructive and
powerful ways and realise their potential in education
and society.
student engagement
To aid clarity -separate the dual
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Engaging students
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Students engaging
student engagement
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To meet regularly to discuss SE.
To involve and work with students in partnership
An early goal was to develop a concept map and set of principles that underpin the
promotion of SE
To establish an annual conference drawing together leading edge work on SE - and
to feed into publication through journals and books. (Next conference– Sept 2013,
Nottingham)
To gain funding to support these events and activities.
To create a bank of useful resources for us to share.
To facilitate communication between us (web, email network etc)
http://raise-network.ning.com/
student engagement
Engaging students - principles
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We should:
Foster student’s willingness and readiness to engage by enhancing their
self-belief
Embrace the point that students have diverse backgrounds, expectations,
orientations and aspirations – thus different ‘ways of being a student’, and
to welcome, respect and accommodate all of these in an inclusive way
Enable and facilitate trust relationships (between staff:students and
students:students) in order to develop a discourse with each and all
students and to show solidarity with them
Create opportunities for learning (in its broadest sense) communities so
that students can develop a sense of competence and belonging within
these communities
student engagement
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Teach in ways to make learning participatory, dialogic,
collaborative, authentic, active and critical
Foster autonomy and creativity, and offer choice and opportunities
for growth and enriching experiences in a low risk and safe setting
Recognise the impact on learning of non-institutional influences
and accommodate these
Design and implement assessment for learning with the aim to
enable students to develop their ability to evaluate critically the
quality and impact of their own work
Seek to negotiate and reach a mutual consensus with students on
managing workload, challenge, curriculum and assessment for
their educational enrichment – through a partnership model –
without diluting high expectations and educational attainment
Enable students to become active citizens and develop their social
and cultural capital
student engagement
So what works? Kuh (2008)
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First year seminars (e.g. SI and PAL)
Learning communities – cross module
Service learning – experiential
Common intellectual experiences
Writing intensive courses
Collaborative projects
Undergraduate research
Diversity learning
Internships
Capstone coursesstudent engagement
A whole institutional approach
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Sally Kift
http://eprints.qut.edu.au/33635/1/c33635.pdf
Transition Pedagogies in FYE at QUT
 A holistic curriculum design approach
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Transition
Design
Assessment
Diversity
Engagement
Evaluation and Monitoring
student engagement
At the module level
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Sarah Cant and Peter Watts
First year sociology module at Canterbury Christchurch
Drew on application of sociological theory
Year long induction
Tiered learning
PAL
PDP
Portfolio assessment
student engagement
The student partnership approach
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HEA and NUS based on HEFCE funded CHERI
Report http://www.open.ac.uk/cheri/documents/student-engagement-report.pdf
Student representation and feedback
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“students as partners in a learning community”
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Liz Dunne at Exeter – Students as Change Agents
Birmingham City University - Academic partners scheme
Bath – embedding SE in all processes
Co-design of curriculum (Bovill et al, 2011)
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But need to ensure real partnership not ‘pseudoparticipation’.(Wenstone, 2012)
student engagement
A holistic approach to a degree
programme
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Combined Honours at Newcastle
 Diverse
and complex
 Individuals doing unique degree
 Missing sense of identity/ belonging
 But few resources and so difficult to influence
the curriculum
So how to address?
Find a talented group with innovative ideas,
great energy and boundless enthusiasm
Engagement and partnership
Enhancing engagement in
Combined Honours
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Student representation:
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Empowerment- Student led, working groups
Partnership
Active agenda – providing solutions
Success stories
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Defending the degree
Combined Honours Week
Curriculum co-design
Redesign of transition
Engagement and partnership
Enhancing engagement in
Combined Honours
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Peer mentoring – social integration
PASS scheme – academic integration
Engagement and partnership
Enhancing engagement in
Combined Honours
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Building community:
 Facilities
and spaces
 Social agenda – the CHS
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Joining it all up – events and
activities are shared and promoted
by all parties
Evolving and growing
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But there are thorny issues
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Engagement and partnership
Applying these ideas
Your challenge is to enhance the engagement of students (existing or
prospective role in which you are involved). Your task is to come up
with ONE good (and feasible) idea that could be built into the module or
programme design or the student experience more broadly
Start by thinking of a prospective idea – pitch ideas to group and agree
to adopt one (do try something radical but not completely impossible)
then scope it out…
What is it trying to achieve?
How will it work
Operational design
Summarise your plans on an A2 sized poster
student engagement
The impact on staff
It can be hard to let go!
 Uncomfortable at the beginning
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Highly positive outcomes
 Transformative!
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student engagement