1. COLIN BRYSON AND FAE RINALDO NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY, UK EFYE Conference 2015 Pushing boundaries: developing student engagement and ‘students as partners’ in first year

2. Why strong engagement matters EFYE Conference 2015  What is engagement? (Bryson and Hand, 2007)  Underpins learning: being and becoming (Fromm, 1977)  Required for transformative learning (Johansson and Felten, 2014); self authorship (Baxter-Magolda. 2006)...the true purpose of Higher Education

3. What are the catalysts for strong engagement? EFYE Conference 2015  The super-engaged on Combined at Newcastle (Bryson, 2014: Understanding and Developing Student Engagement)  Characteristics – active, multi- involvement inside and outside the curriculum, inside and outside the degree  Evolved into partnership So what’s partnership about?

4. The virtues of partnership EFYE Conference 2015  A counter-movement to transactional and consumer models  Principles of respect, reciprocity and responsibility  (Cook-Sather et al 2014)  Epitomises positive values in society  Ethical  Demoncratic  Exemplary

5. Partnership Practices – Model A EFYE Conference 2015 Healey, Flint and Harrington (2014) A typology of Student as Partner roles e.g. Consultant to staff Co-designing Co-researching Change-agent Individual relationships Where does representation sit?

6. Benefits of partnership EFYE Conference 2015 For both students AND staff Engagement Metacognitive awareness and identity Enhancement (Cook-Sather, Bovill and Felten, 2014)

7. But currently under-researched – thus our study: Problematising the issues EFYE Conference 2015 What’s actually happening inside and through the process of partnership? What is the nature of being a partner for the student? Understanding why/how/if the benefits are realised Are all students ready and willing to be partners - what influences that?

8. For all to feel like a partner….a proposal EFYE Conference 2015 (All) the individual students must perceive that: Valued and valuable; Co-ownership, inclusion, and equalising of power relations Participative democracy; Membership of a learning community This needs to be realised in practice – a virtuous circle

9. The first year - potential EFYE Conference 2015 Little opportunity to take on partnership roles Can the early stage of the student life-cycle accommodate such radical approaches? How can we extend partnership approaches to the first year?

10. What we did EFYE Conference 2015 A gentle introduction to partnership, involvement, sharing responsibility and some co-deciding Partnership in the curriculum Module also feature ‘pedagogies of partnership’ to at least some extent Support mechanisms Healey, Flint and Harrington (2014)

11. Evidence gathering EFYE Conference 2015 Can the early stage of the student life-cycle accommodate such radical approaches? Feedback and evaluation data Observation and reflection of partnership activities and initiatives Interviews – at start and end of the academic year

12. EFYE Conference 2015 Student views…Mixed! EFYE Conference 2015 Opportunity to open up my imagination and think, right what do I write about? Like no guidelines which is what I find hard, like I find it a lot easier when someone tells me what I have to do”. “On one hand, I didn’t like it because we all had different ideas on that… I feel like some people didn’t have it their way because of that, but then on the other hand, the majority of us got what we wanted…but then we had a talk about it and everyone participated so I think that was nice.”

13. EFYE Conference 2015 “I think University’s about independent learning, the way you learn yourself as more of an individual, not just the way everyone else...so I think its nice that if you’re interested in a certain topic of something you can choose your own assessment weighting around it to suit your needs” “I think it was [a fair process] in terms of majority...but in terms of individuals I don’t think it was, I think the flexibility of choice is good but it does have it set backs in terms of that respect...maybe could you have an assessment based on the individual?” “I think your confidence grows because you have to take the lead a bit more for your own learning...Its confidence that has really helped everything...Has helped me to reach my aspiration to be a teacher.” “I think it’s about patience, and learning about other people’s views” “I liked the freedom of it...It felt quite strange, but I think it was nice...I suppose it’s more challenging, I don’t think it really daunted me, I think I put more effort into it if anything because I picked something that I liked, and just really researched it, so I think if anything it made it more enjoyable, and challenging as well though.”

14. Conclusions EFYE Conference 2015 It is more challenging for students at earlier degree stage Full of tensions Easier to reach the predisposed but we need to persuade the others Problematic to practice partnership! Are we focussing on the right issues to work in partnership on? The right/choice ‘not to be partner’ Significant benefits – for engagement and for transformative learning

15. EFYE Conference 2015 To meet regularly to discuss Student Engagement (SE). To involve and work with students in partnership An early goal was to develop a concept map and set of principles that underpin the promotion of SE To establish an annual conference drawing together leading edge work on SE - and to feed into publication through journals and books. (Next conference– Sept 2015, Nottingham) To gain funding to support these events and activities. To create a bank of useful resources for us to share. To facilitate communication between us (web, email network etc) http://raise-network.ning.com/

16. Any questions? EFYE Conference 2015