The trip to this year’s RAISE Conference did not start as planned.
After some debating, we booked last minute train tickets, made a hasty (rush hour) drive to Bristol Parkway and got on the train to find no seats available, five hours later we finally arrived at the conference in Newcastleat 2pm, just in time to catch the last sessions of the day, ‘Student Co-Design in Action: Partnering with Students to Reimagine Personal Academic Tutoring’.
Although the presentation didn’t focus solely on this, colleagues from the University of Southampton shared an initiative they currently run called the ‘Student Co-Design Panel’, which engages (and pays) a group of 150 students across the University to take part in a number of projects throughout the year, in an attempt to co-create solutions to current issues the University faces. Examples they provided that the panel tackled included approaches to embedded AI, designing a university app and the implementation of Blackboard Ultra.
It really struck me as an idea that we could implement here at Bristol – we have many distinct methods for engaging students in co-design, but I love how this brought together a large group of students that could choose the issues they wanted to engage with. Feedback they’ve had showed how it helped students feel a part of the university and helped them feel a sense of belonging.
After checking into our hotel, we headed back out to the ‘Biscuit Factory’, a contemporary art gallery located in the Ouseburn part of the city for a networking event. It was lovely to meet other delegates in this setting – with the art pieces providing an easy talking point to start the conversation.
The next morning, Fiona and I got up early to go for a run around the Quay (definitely recommended if you’re a runner visiting the city!) and then headed back to campus to catch the first presentation of the day, a keynote from Prof. Roisin Curran, Professor of Curriculum Design and Pedagogy of Ulster University. She shared more about her work on student engagement and it was striking how many of her findings from research with students were similar to our longitudinal transitions study findings. Students wanted more opportunities to meet with higher-level students, more peer mentoring, more pre-arrival and transition support. It also showed us that although we are all working in different universities, with different student body profiles – our students are all facing similar issues, have similar worries and want similar solutions.
She highlighted ‘engagement’ as being a ‘slippery term’ to define, but to understand it better she discussed the three ‘columns’ of engagement, which was also discussed later in a workshop I attended:
- Behavioural (e.g. attendance, reading emails, etc)
- Emotional (e.g. feeling a sense of belonging, community, peer relationships)
- Cognitive (deep learning, ‘going beyond’ expected learning.)
Fiona, Elliot and I presented our longitudinal study on student transitions after the keynote, we chose a story telling format, which was quite novel, and fielded some good follow up questions from the audience. I won’t go into the details of the study here, but if you want to read more about it, get in touch or visit the website.
I attended a workshop later in the afternoon that started by physically splitting us up into two groups – those who were students (or knew more about students views on their experience) or lecturers.
Each group had to answer questions around what engagement meant to them, what disengagement meant, and what strategies could be employed to create better engagement – the latter of which we wrote onto soft play balls with Sharpies. The session ended with us throwing the balls at each other, which was a very memorable and novel way to give feedback to the people you want to listen to.
Later in the afternoon, I attended a couple of sessions on playful learning, which had both employed Lego Serious Play in their units, which left me wishing we had some sets at the University, as I’d love to have a try (if we do, get in touch!).
The final plenary panel discussed the rise of AI and how to tackle it, how to engage the students who don’t engage and how to develop a sense of belonging with students. One of the panellists shared that a great way to help students feel a sense of belonging is to start your unit by asking each of them:
‘Why are you here?’
By bringing their minds back to their personal motivation for being in the room, it sets them off with a sense of why they should engage and invigorates their intrinsic motivation to succeed.
We left the conference with the key message that we cannot underestimate the value of making space for connections and for fronting the human side of higher education which we urge you to keep in mind as you welcome your students to the start of the 26/27 academic year.
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