Senior Lecturer, Tom Lowe, discusses how we can actively engage our students in their education.
In November it was a pleasure to represent the University of Portsmouth’s Academic Development team by presenting at the National Student Experience Conference run by Government Events.
The online conference featured a selection of speakers from both sector bodies presenting national research trends relating to the student experience surveys, and local institutional case studies of best practice. There were clear themes throughout the day, of universities moving away from a reactionary position during the pandemic, towards a proactive and experimental phase as we explore and consider post-Covid higher education in the so-called ‘new normal’.
As one of the closing speakers on the day, I was asked to lead a session on ‘Focusing on the Core of Student Engagement: Delivering a Varied and Engaging Academic Experience to Meet Student Educational Needs and Priorities’. This looked at how we ensure our academic experience meets students’ needs, as well as offering both varied and an engaging student experience. This blog summarises my talk and offers some thoughts for the decade ahead.
Focusing on the Core of Student Engagement: Delivering a Varied and Engaging Academic Experience to Meet Student Educational Needs and Priorities
The academic curriculum experience is perhaps the only unified area of student engagement activity, which all students must engage in to ‘succeed’ in their degree, as outlined by the Office for Students’ definition of ‘Student Success’ being passing and completing their degree.
I began my presentation with outlining the importance of focusing on the core of our higher education experience, that being the curriculum, the campus, and/or the virtual learning environment, which in theory engages 100% of students – as if students do not engage in these areas of the academic experience, they will quickly fail, leave or drop-out of university.
The focus on the core of the student academic experience is critical, and perhaps more fruitful in impact – as focusing on the extra-curricular and support services only will only engage a certain proportion, and often a minority, of students. This is all bound by our current English higher education context, a sector, staff and student population emerging from a global pandemic where the worries of return to mass face-to-face higher education are clear, with ongoing mixed preferences on the future balance of online versus face-to-face delivery.
No matter the scrutiny of the perceived ‘value’ of a higher education in England, students are still attending in greater numbers than ever, and they are expecting the experience of a lifetime; excellent services; world-leading teaching; welfare support; careers and opportunities; remote support; organised courses and flexibility.>
So how do we embark upon developing our academic experience for the future higher education? Well, first it is important to engage our stakeholders in dialogue throughout the process. During the pandemic, universities had to enhance and change practice at pace, often with time against us. Now as we move forward with educational development, we can take more time to consider, reflect and discuss in different forums on our options ahead.
And, the most important stakeholder to engage during this process is our students. Our students make up the majority of our university populations, often 80-90% total, and for most of us, they are the reasons we have finances for our institutions to run. Meeting our students half-way and engaging with students as partners at all levels (from course to strategic management) is critical for the success of the modern university.
The academic curriculum
When reviewing our core academic experience in institutions, the University of Portsmouth is led by the University’s Hallmarks of a Portsmouth Graduate where our institution prioritises all graduates departing with the skills required for future success. As well as this, our Academic Development Team is leading on a curriculum design workshop for 100% of our provision, where the enABLe workshop following the models of Active Blended Learning.
The curriculum offers the opportunity to attain almost 100% engagement and, for many students, their curriculum engagement is their total student experience. Ensuring that the taught content, support materials, interactions and assessments are engaging, relevant and flexible is critical for success, as well as moving to publish in advance well communicated and planned expectations of students, from open day to final year. It may be that in some instances to support student success metrics, such as metrics relating to graduate employability (profession), we embed certain elements into the curriculum to ensure maximum engagement.
For many students, their course is their university. If we wish to ensure we have excellent support, flexibility and the experiences hoped for (outlined above), we must ensure our courses, as the main element of many students’ degree, are offering those experiences and actively engaging our students in their education.
The learning environment
The second core area to consider is the learning environment, both physical and virtual. Again, likely to be equal with the curriculum as the highest engagement activity of a student body.
Each student must engage with the virtual resources of the university and, if a campus-based student, will have to visit campus often. These elements should be explored in tandem with the academic curriculum, where we need to ensure we are creating accessible, engaging and supportive learning environments as the platforms for the curriculum. These spaces, whether rooms or websites, need to have clear signposting, welcoming imagery and create an environment where students can explore, ask questions and thrive.
And when students require support or come up against barriers or questions, we should be flexible, reactive and agile in responding to students’ needs so they may continue their success story in higher education.
Author: Tom Lowe is a Senior Lecturer in Higher Education at the University of Portsmouth.
