Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education

Mick HealeyHE Consultant and Researcher

www.mickhealey.co.uk mhealey@glos.ac.uk

• HE Consultant and Researcher and Emeritus Professor University of Gloucestershire, (UoG) UK; Adjunct Professor Macquarie University;

• Previously Director Centre for Active Learning, University of Gloucestershire• Ex-VP for Europe Society for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning• National Teaching Fellow and Principal Fellow HE Academy• Co-Editor of International Journal for Academic Development (IJAD) (2010-13)• Visiting expert to Higher Education Authority for Ireland evaluating teaching and learning

components of Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (2003)• Advisor to Canadian Federal Government ‘Roundtable on Research, Teaching and

Learning in post-Secondary Education’ (2006)• Advisor to National Academy for Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning

(Ireland) (2007-12); Visiting Teaching Fellow UCC (2012)• Advisor to Australian Learning and Teaching Council / Office of Learning and Teaching

Projects on the ‘Teaching-research nexus’ (2006-08), ‘Undergraduate research’ (2009-10); ‘Teaching research’ (2011-13 ); and ‘Capstone curriculum across disciplines’ (2013-14)

• Advisor to EU Bologna and HE Reform Experts on research-based education (2012)• Research interests: linking research and teaching; scholarship of teaching; active

learning; developing an inclusive curriculum; students as change agents; students as partners

Brief biography

Students as partners: Structure1. The nature of students as partners

2. Conceptual frameworks

3. Case studies

4. Issues in implementing

5. Action planning

Students as partners

What does ‘students as partners’ mean to you?

In pairs you each have one minute to tell the other person your thoughts or experiences in this area.

Recent reports and publications

Students as partners: A simple model

Engaging students as partners in higher education

Students as partners: Line-up

I want you to position yourself on a line according to the extent to which you agree or disagree with the following statements

Talk to the person next to you about why you have positioned yourself where you have and as a consequence you may need to ‘move’

Students as partners: Line-up

“It should be the norm that students are engaged as co-partners and co-designers in university and department learning and teaching initiatives.”

Strongly ------------------------------ Strongly agree disagree

The Centre for Active Learning approach to active learning

High Impact ActivitiesHigh Impact Activities First-Year Seminars and Experiences First-Year Seminars and Experiences  Common Intellectual ExperiencesCommon Intellectual Experiences Learning CommunitiesLearning Communities Writing-Intensive CoursesWriting-Intensive Courses Collaborative Assignments and ProjectsCollaborative Assignments and Projects ““Science as Science Is Done”; Undergraduate Science as Science Is Done”; Undergraduate

ResearchResearch Diversity/Global LearningDiversity/Global Learning Service Learning, Community-Based LearningService Learning, Community-Based Learning InternshipsInternships Capstone Courses and ProjectsCapstone Courses and Projects

Source: Kuh, 2008Source: Kuh, 2008

STUDENTS ARE PARTICIPANTS

EMPHASIS ON RESEARCH CONTENT

EMPHASIS ON RESEARCH PROCESSES AND PROBLEMS

STUDENTS FREQUENTLY ARE AN AUDIENCE

Research-tutored Research-based

Research-led Research-oriented

Curriculum design and the research-teaching nexus (based on Healey, 2005, 70)

Engaging in research discussions

Undertaking research and inquiry

Learning about current research in the discipline

Developing research and inquiry skills and techniques

Students as change agents

“There is a subtle, but extremely important, difference between an institution that ‘listens’ to students and responds accordingly, and an institution that gives students the opportunity to explore areas that they believe to be significant, to recommend solutions and to bring about the required changes. The concept of ‘listening to the student voice’ – implicitly if not deliberately – supports the perspective of student as ‘consumer’, whereas ‘students as change agents’ explicitly supports a view of the student as ‘active collaborator’ and ‘co-producer’, with the potential for transformation.” (Dunne in Dunne and Zandstra, 2011).

A theoretical model for students as change agents (Dunne & Zandstra, 2011)

EMPHASIS ON THE STUDENT VOICE

STUDENTS AS EVALUATORS OF

THEIR HE EXPERIENCE (THE STUDENT VOICE)

STUDENTS AS PARTICIPANTS IN DECISION-MAKING

PROCESS

STUDENTS AS AGENTS FOR

CHANGE

STUDENTS AS PARTNERS CO-CREATORS AND

EXPERTS

EMPHASIS ON THE

UNIVERSITY AS DRIVER

Integrating students

into educational

change

EMPHASIS ON THE

STUDENT AS DRIVER

EMPHASIS ON THE STUDENT ENGAGEMENT

Ladder of student participation in curriculum design

Partnership - a negotiated curriculum

Students

increasingl

y active in

participation

Students in control

Student control of some areas of choice

Students control of prescribed areas

Wide choice from prescribed choices

Limited choice from prescribed choices

Dictated curriculum – no interaction

Participation claimed, tutor in control

Students control decision-making and

have substantial influence

Students have some choice and influence

Tutors control decision-making

informed by student feedback

Tutors control decision-making

Source: Bovill and Bulley (2011), adapted from Arnstein (1969)

See: Fig 3 p.3

Students as partners: Case studies

In groups of 3s and 4s each skim read a different case study (pp.1-6).

Discuss whether any of the ideas may be amended for application in your context.

10 minutes

Students as change agents: students as partners and leaders

‘… students are neither disciplinary nor pedagogical experts. Rather, their experience and expertise typically is in being a student - something that many faculty [staff] have not been for many years. They understand where they and their peers are coming from and, often, where they think they are going’ (Cook-Sather et al. 2014, 27).

Anticipated challenge areas

On the post-its identify one challenge per sticker that you anticipate encountering implementing students as change agents initiatives.

5 minutes

Break out activity

Establish small groups for each theme

Identify 3-5 ‘solutions’ to the potential challenges

Record your solutions on flip chart paper

8 minutes

Students as patners: conclusions

“It should be the norm, not the exception, that students are engaged as co-partners and co-designers in all university and department learning and teaching initiatives, strategies and practices.”

Students as partners: conclusions

If students as change agents are to be truly integrated into HE then the nature of higher education will need to be reconceptualised.

“universities need to move towards creating inclusive scholarly knowledge-building communities. … The notion of inclusive scholarly knowledge-building communities invites us to consider new ideas about who the scholars are in universities and how they might work in partnership.” (Brew, 2007, 4)

There is a need to do more thinking ‘outside the box’.

THE END

For more pictures and a 1.5 min movie of Tess

see:

www.mickhealey.co.uk