A model for analysing the challenges and opportunities in co-production

This interactive workshop will analyse the challenges and opportunities of working collaboratively with ‘students as co-producers’. The presenters’ draw on their experience of extensive collaboration with students on different projects in the School of Health and Social Care, to introduce a theoretical model that explores co-production. In particular, the model seeks to facilitate reflection, discussion and understanding about who ‘drives’, or controls, the co-production of knowledge in such partnerships, given the apparent differences in power and status between students and academics. Inherent within this analysis is an examination of the nature of key relationships within co-production including reference to ‘apprenticeship’ and ‘partnership’ models of knowledge production. A fifteen minute presentation will introduce key concepts relating to co-production and will present a theoretical model for analysis. Participants will be given approximately thirty minutes to discuss and test the model and to relate it their own experiences and plans for working with students as producers. It is envisaged that this collaborative, interactive approach will produce further knowledge and insights leading to refinement of the model. A fifteen minute plenary and conclusion will assist participants to reflect further on the challenges and opportunities of co-production. From this workshop participants will gain an enhanced understanding of working with students’ as co-producers of knowledge and will analyse some of the core issues that impact on co-production. Additionally, they will be introduced to an evolving theoretical model which explores some of the contradictions inherent within co-production and invited to contribute to the debate

Higher Education as a public good: pushing forward, pushing boundaries

This paper reports on a project which has embedded Open Educational Resources (OER) into the teaching and learning of students who are undertaking professional degrees in social work and nursing. It raises profound questions regarding the role and purpose of Higher Education by asking to whom does knowledge belong and who is permitted and able to produce knowledge in Higher Education? Historically professional training has been configured, led and taught by the professions themselves with little input from those outside. This paper will argue that a more democratic production and dissemination of knowledge is imperative in the changing context of Higher Education. The presentation will incorporate examples of OER developed by a range of non-traditional educators, such as students, practice assessors and service users/patients, and will explain how these are being used in learning and teaching to provide an inclusive, rich, diverse and varied learning environment

Managed care models are hurting the UK’s mental health system

They create middle managerial jobs at the expense of clinical ones and encourage the pursuit of ‘targets’, argues Ian Simpso

The complexities of failing (Social Work) students - a workshop for practice educators of Social Work students held at the University of Lincoln on Thursday 27th November 2014

This workshop for practice educators teaching social work students whilst on placement explored issues relating to failing students. Reasons why students might experience difficulties whilst on placement, early identification of problems, barriers to making a fail decision and resolution of concerns were discussed. The session considered how to evidence and articulate concerns in relation to HCPC Guidance on Conduct and Ethics for Students and the appropriate PCF levels and how to develop appropriate intervention plans, using the University's concerns process or Fitness to Practise procedures where necessary

Linking Colleges of Education and Colleges of Art

Colleges of Education and Colleges of Art, are they friends or relations? The only answer to the question must be that they are relations, but relations who seldom see each other and hardly ever write. To further underline the seeming lack of interest by art colleges in education I can quote from personal experience. In my last post I was on the staff of a college of art with its own large department of education. This teacher training department was isolated several miles from the other departments of the college. There was virtually no contact between this department and the Dip AD departments of the parent college and I doubt if most Dip AD students or staff even knew of its existence. On the face of it Art Colleges and Art Departments of Colleges of Education seem to have a number of things in common. Why is it then that there is so little contact between them? Looking at it purely from the art college point of view there are two basic reasons. First, most art colleges do not regard themselves as having anything to do with training teachers and they often regard students who are interested in teaching as failures. Second, art colleges have been so preoccupied with their own problems in the last ten years that they have become cut off from developments in related educational establishments. In fact art colleges themselves have become divided into Diploma and non Diploma Colleges and more recently Polytechnic and non Polytechnic Diploma Colleges. Any contacts between these various divisions is generally slight

After two decades of PR being used for elections to devolved bodies, it is clear that FPTP for UK general elections produces wildly unrepresentative results

How do Westminster election results compare to those of devolved institutions? Ian Simpson looks at how the 2021 election results for the Scottish Parliament, Senedd Cymru, and the London Assembly compare with the results of the previous five sets of Westminster elections. He shows how the Additional Member System, a version of proportional representation that is used across the three devolved institutions, produces much fairer outcomes for voters than the First Past the Post system that is still used for UK general elections

Local elections 2019: uncontested seats mean thousands of voters will be denied their democratic rights

Uncontested and under-contested council seats in English local elections mean that in areas where one party dominates, many voters face little or no choice about who their councillors are. Ian Simpson from the Electoral Reform Society argues that the solution to this democratic deficit is to reform the electoral system

How Labour is polling in Conservative seats and what the numbers say about political equality in the UK

Ian Simpson explores how public opinion is changing in ‘Conservative gain’ and ‘Conservative hold’ seats in England and Wales. He writes that such an analysis reinforces the point that under our electoral system, not all voters are equal