“Climbing hills alone”?

I often turn to this poem when I think about the work we do in higher education. It keeps me focused on how to ensure students gain a sense of belonging and community in their journey – their transition to higher education. It also reminds me that we don’t do things alone in learning and teaching, we climb that hill together. So, when we set out to enhance the student experience, we necessarily do it in partnership.

How we set out to enhance the student experience

First of all, we get the right people in the room: the students, the academics, the relevant professional services. In a partnership it is important that all voices are heard, that all voices are equal. Then we get the data to help us make decisions, quantitative and qualitative, that tells us about the student experience and the areas that we need to focus upon. For me, it is important that everyone gets a chance to interrogate the data and highlight what they see within it: the key aspects. This means that no-one has ownership, a monopoly, or a LOUDER voice. Everyone has the right to question everyone else’s views. However, if goals are to be achieved, we do have to reach consensus and agree actions to take.

Co-creation workshops

I’ve found that co-creation workshop approaches are a very effective means of enhancing the student experience – in partnership. They can be run in a short period of time to develop a single objective. For example, at Portsmouth, in partnership with the Students’ Union (SU), we ran two short workshops to co-create our Student Charter. We designed the co-creation workshop process to bring together a range of students (international; research; postgraduate taught; part-time; distance learners; mature; at a variety of levels) and deliberately drew upon those who do not engage with the SU, academic staff (personal tutors; those who teach undergraduate; postgraduate; distance learning; collaborative courses) and professional services staff. This way of working achieved parity of voices. 
The elected officers led table-discussions; during which the mixed groups discussed and agreed the elements of a new Student Charter that staff and students felt they could ‘sign up to’. I facilitated bringing this together as a set of five core principles which summarise what students and staff should expect from each other during their time at Portsmouth, and to help students achieve our Hallmarks of A Portsmouth Graduate. The Charter, and the Hallmarks which it embodies, help students create a sense of belonging in our university community.

The co-creation workshop approach can also be used in a more longitudinal project, and be implemented at different levels within an institution. For example, the University Alliance Teaching Excellence Alliance developed a Sandpit model for use in innovative course design.

The ‘Charrette’ approach

I have renamed it the ‘Charrette’ approach at Portsmouth, as Charrettes have long been used as collaborative workshop sessions which bring people together to rapidly design solutions to issues. Charrettes are most often used in design and planning, but are frequently used in educational settings (Carlson et al. 2021). Charrettes, as a co-creation mechanism, enable students and staff to work together, at University, Faculty, School and even at course level, to develop projects and initiatives to address issues. 

For instance, with the awarding gap between students of different ethnicities (Dunbar-Morris, forthcoming), student and staff teams – where the staff are both from professional services and academics – are brought together to design a solution to a real issue (participants having undertaken some pre-reading and having understood the data in relation to the issue). 

Using this example, in the Charrette, the facilitators make it clear to student and staff attendees that we have an awarding gap (at the level at which the participants are focusing, University, course, etc) and that, whilst this exists, it is not acceptable. It exists, but what is the causation? That is what needs to be understood. They also make it plain that this is not about a deficit on the part of students, and that we must examine what we do in our curricula and classrooms and make change there. 

A shared understanding

Secondly, everyone participating has to have a shared understanding of the issue being addressed. This comes about during the pre-reading around the subject, and interrogation of data – before the Charrette takes place. Then the mixed teams work together to develop short-term and long-term solutions. Action plans are developed complete with evaluation plans for the proposed activities, enhancements or changes. Both the approach and some of the solutions help develop a sense of belonging.

Partnership working ensures belonging. At Portsmouth we don’t undertake solo hill climbs.

Author: Dr Harriet Dunbar-Morris is Dean of Learning and Teaching and a Reader in Higher Education at the University of Portsmouth. This article is based on a blog published by, SEDA, the professional association for staff and educational developers in the UK, in January 2023.