Manchester Metropolitan University

We particularly welcome students to the conference and note that registration for them is free. Early Bird discount is also currently available.

THE THEMES FOR THIS YEAR

Partnerships:  partnerships with students as co-producers of knowledge, co-developers or co-evaluators of the curriculum or institutional policies focusing on inclusivity and evaluation.

Practices: practices designed to deepen and strengthen student learning and/or to improve academic and social integration at an institutional, course or session level and their impact on student engagement.

Policies: the development of policies to encourage SE throughout the student journey with a focus on institutional or departmental policies, their implementation and success.

Philosophies: the analysis, deconstruction and reconstruction of SE contributing to the contested meanings, interpretations and applications of SE

Further conference details and registration:

http://raise-network.ning.com/page/conference-2013

The HEA has just published a summary, literature review and case studies on the topic of student engagement, by Paul Trowler and Vicki Trowler from Lancaster University.

Here’s the link to the report.

QAA podcast: ‘Studying at university is not a simple financial transaction…it is a process of education’

In which, Wes and Graeme attempt to stem the tide of consumerism…

To accompany their recent paper (“Rethinking the values of higher education – consumption, partnership, community?), Wes Streeting, President, and Graeme Wise, Political Officer of the NUS have produced a podcast. They explain the ways in which they think that student partnership will be vital to the future of HE – mentioning communities of practice as a model – and defending diversity and experimentation in student experience.

Nice moment where the host imagines VCs listening the the podcast and asking Wes and Graeme where the VCs should start with implementing their ideas…..(answer: read the paper)

The QAA has just published a report from the NUS entitled “Rethinking the values of higher education – consumption, partnership, community?”.

“The character of higher education in Britain is rapidly changing. There are worries over the ‘value for money’ that students get for the fees they now pay, about possible ‘mis-selling’ of university courses. Underlying it all, we believe, is the trend towards market approaches in the way higher education is organised. One of the most important symptoms of this is the increasingly prevalent notion of the student ‘as consumer’.

This notion is situated within a much wider process of change in public services. The aim of a ‘students as consumers’ model is to bring these principles to the higher education environment. It invites students to navigate higher education as a market. QAA has invited the National Union of Students to pursue an exploration of this issue and we want to do so explicitly from the student perspective.”

The report proposes some extreme caricatures of student consumers and uses these to argue for a system of  ‘co-production’ and the sharing of power between students and universities.

The Escalate subject centre of the Higher Education Academy has just published a resource “to help students to help themselves to work better in groups in higher education or professional development through provision and application of some basic principles of academic assertiveness.” The 38 page resource, available from the Escalate website, contains groupwork theory together with some exercises and scenarios for use with students.

Also see the CeLT groupwork resource for links and suggestions on other aspects of groupwork.

As part of the University’s drive to take action in response to the recent results of the National Student Survey, how about trying to improve the way in which students are notified of rearranged or postponed classes?

The University has Web-based technology which enables staff to text large numbers of students relatively easily, and this is already used regularly by many staff, both administrative and academic.

There will be two demonstration/training sessions 10am – 12noon and 2pm – 4pm on the 16th October in Computer Lab 1.20 in the Geoffrey Manton Building. E-mail k.bradshaw@mmu.ac.uk with your staff ID to register for one of the sessions.

The Learning Support team has published new guidance on issues relating to the disclosure of disability by students. This is essential reading for all members of staff, as “MMU welcomes and seeks to anticipate (where possible) the needs of disabled students. Our aim is to encourage people to disclose relevant information about their disabilities so that we can make reasonable adjustments to support them.”

The short document, which can be downloaded as a pdf, gives an overview of the legal issues, provides examples of situations where students may choose to disclose their disability, and explains what to do when this happens.  For other information about the support offered by the university to disabled students, see the main Learning Support website.

JISC has just published a report which aims to:

• Understand first year students’ experiences of ICT use and provision in HEIs, particularly in light of the expectations which emerged from the first study in June 2007
• Examine whether there is a mismatch between expectations and reality

“The research re-visits a cohort of the school and college students who participated in phase one of the research in June 2007 to explore how their current experiences of ICT in their first year of higher education match up with their expectations. A representative sample of first year students from across the UK was also surveyed to identify whether findings emerging from the cohort were reflected across the wider student population. Over 1,000 students were researched using quantitative and qualitative techniques.” Click here for an executive summary and a link to the full report.