Beyond buzzwords: embedding student engagement across an institution

A keynote address to the Spring conference of the Staff and Educational Development Association on the University of Lincoln's journey towards a culture of partnership working with students in quality assurance and enhancement

Empowering students as co-producers of quality teaching

This presentation focused on the University of Lincoln's approach to developing a culture of students as co-producers of their learning, through our Student as Producer agenda, and of a quality student experience, through our Student Engagement agenda. This was an OECD conference in Paris held as part of their Higher Education Programme: Institutional Management in Higher Education

The ‘Full Monty’: a collaborative institutional approach to student engagement

Student engagement has become a prominent focus within the higher education sector, the recent emphasis for promoting student engagement has clear links to a personalisation agenda and a culture where benchmarking across a number of measures in higher education has seen a strive to achieve an exceptional student learning experience (Little and Williams, 2010). Coates describes student engagement as “a broad construct intended to encompass salient academic as well as certain non-academic aspects of the student experience” (Coates 2007: 122). Therefore it is becoming increasingly clear that student engagement is the responsibility of all institutional staff and not just those who are ‘student facing’. Sabri (2011), identifies that academic and administrative staff are instrumental in ensuring students are engaged and motivated in order to achieve good practice within institutional practices. The University of Lincoln has taken a comprehensive approach to developing a partnership ethos between students and staff by concurrently delivering our Student as Producer initiative which embeds research-engaged-teaching and our Student Engagement Strategy which drives student engagement in quality assurance & enhancement and governance. Both strands promote a mixture of institutional change and bottom-up departmental activity to develop engagement. In essence this means that staff and students are working together in new and interesting ways right across the institution. First, we will present reflections on the development of the University’s approach to student engagement and experiences from academic and professional service departments. These experiences will be illuminated by the institutional lead for student engagement, an academic member of staff from the School of Sport & Exercise Science and a professional services colleague from the Library. Specifically, we will offer an insight into the Universities collaborative approach to student engagement, illustrated with examples of good practice and reflections on the challenges, barriers, tensions and cultural change required. Second, we will present our student-led study into the experiences of their peers who engage explores the reasons for first engaging, the highs and lows of engaging, the impact on learning, the impact on their approach to wider student life and the impact on their career ambitions. Two current undergraduate students who have worked on this study will present the findings together with their personal reflections on engaging in a variety of opportunities. They will help delegates see the experience of engaging through students’ eyes and identify the kinds of opportunities that have the greatest impact on students’ learning experience and wider outlook

Student as producer: research-engaged teaching, an institutional strategy

Student as Producer is a curriculum development project that has been ongoing at the University of Lincoln since 2007. The aim of the project has been to promote research-engaged teaching as the organising principle for teaching and learning across all subjects and all levels of taught provision at Lincoln. While there are many examples of research-engaged teaching in higher education what makes the curriculum distinctive at Lincoln is that research-engaged teaching is the default position for all teaching and learning at the University. While Student as Producer has been under development at Lincoln since 2007 this report focuses on the period 2010-2013, when the University of Lincoln received funding, £200,000, from the Higher Education Academy to develop the programme. The main focus of this report is the embedding and implementation of Student as Producer at Lincoln, but as Student as Producer extends beyond Lincoln to involve other higher education providers the report will also pay attention to the external national and international impact of Student as Producer across the higher education sector. Student as Producer was conceived during momentous times in the history of higher education in this country, including a massive increase in student fees and the withdrawal of public funding for teaching the Arts, Humanities and Social Science. For a brief moment in time English students were at the forefront of protests across Europe against the financialisation of higher education and the politics of austerity (Bailey and Freedman 2011). Throughout this period academics involved with Student as Producer have written publications that have provided a consistent and clear position against the notion of student as consumer (Boden and Epstein2006) and the pedagogy of debt (Williams 2006)

Pedagogies of partnership: what works

Pedagogies of partnership: What works? seeks to identify whether the student learning experience is enhanced or in any way made different through the implementation of teaching and learning that is explicitly intended to foster partnership. The value of student-staff partnerships and student engagement is recognised nationally and in literature. The report suggests that the process of partnership working in undergraduate learning and teaching is as important as the end product. It also highlights that while partnership working is often defined as the relationship between staff and student, the importance of peer-to-peer partnership and student partnership with the external environment is key. - See more at: https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resource/pedagogies-partnership-what-works#sthash.l02l5C3W.dpu

Audit of the University of Turku 2015

The Finnish Education Evaluation Centre has conducted an audit of the University of Turku. Based on the audit report, the Higher Education Evaluation Committee has decided to require the institution to undergo a re-audit. The audit took place throughout 2014 with the final decision being made in early 2015

Pedagogies of partnership: what works?

The past academic year, the University of Lincoln has been undertaking HEA funded research into the pedagogies involved partnership based teaching. The work, builds upon the NFTS funded Student as Producer initiative at the University of Lincoln, which has established research engaged teaching and learning as the organising principle of the university. Where Student as Producer focussed primarily on driving institutional change, this research explores in further detail the pedagogical approaches that foster meaningful partnership across four areas within the university: Biomedical Science, History, Media Production and Psychology. The project itself has utilised the principles of partnership, being carried out between staff and four students. It aims to understand partnership, both within the context of teaching and learning as well as in the broader context of university development. In addition to this the project looks to understand which practices have the most favourable impact on a students’ approach to their learning, and how we can use that to inform the development of teaching practices, teachers and student representatives. This session will present the findings of the report, providing key themes discovered in the project as well as introducing case studies of best practice going on within the university. The second part of the session will turn from looking at what has done, to what still can be done, through the use of resources that highlight what works in partnership based approaches to teaching and learning and the impact it can have on the student experience. This session will be widely applicable to those that are still grappling with internal struggles to institutionalise the concept of partnership, rather than it existing only in pockets of good practice

Achieving institutional change for a connected future: engaging all staff in student engagement

This paper presents work at the University of Lincoln to strategically enhance student engagement within colleges and across the wider institution, building on the HEA funded Student as Producer initiative. The initiative stimulates thinking about how institutions can go beyond single projects to achieve organisational and cultural change

Innovation in student engagement in health and social care

Conference powerpoint presentation to Higher Education Academy February 201

Achieving institutional change for a connected future: engaging all staff in student engagement

This paper presents work at the University of Lincoln to strategically enhance student engagement within colleges and across the wider institution, building on the HEA funded Student as Producer initiative. The initiative stimulates thinking about how institutions can go beyond single projects to achieve organisational and cultural change.</p