Apologies, I meant:
RAISE is starting a bit of a debate about partnership with students across the sector currently
all best
Colin Bryson
Director of the Combined Honours Centre
Level G Daysh Building
Newcastle University
http://raise-network.ning.com/
0191 222 6389
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From: learning development in higher education network [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Colin Bryson
Sent: 15 January 2013 10:37
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Student consultation on LD
I thought I might share a few thoughts here.
I am a great fan of working in partnership with students. This grew out of work on student engagement and putting that into practice. A confusion and tension is two distinct notions of partnership - one about a representative model of collective partnership. That is the QAA one, of students reps being involved in governance - the obvious and correct way to do that is through working with the Student Union. We have seen a lot of movement in this direction across the sector with Bath being a great example of this.
The second form is more at the individual level and much more locally located. For example, students involved in co-design of modules, or co-production (e.g. student as researcher and the work at Lincoln) - empowerment at the individual level, and a letting go by the staff.
Rachel Wenstone at the NUS has making a case for both these objectives and arguing that they should be joined up and go much further. But she is very disparaging of anything that does not go directly through the student union and democratic structures.
That makes me pose the question of the right way forward. I do appreciate that it particularly difficult for learning developers to access student representative structures - these are designed in the main at moment around course reps and university level sabbatical officers with a bit of gap in between and not much infrastructure so that 'central services' can interact with student representatives. But even so does not setting up a student forum, with respect, that bypasses the student union, present some issues?
I suppose it depends on purpose. Is it about consulting meaningfully and working together on solutions (that should go through the representative and democratic structures) or about student undetaking tasks and work on useful initiatives (more legitimate to invite inviduals to apply, especially if it is paid work, interns etc)
Hmmm, food for thought.
PS RAISE Which I am involved in) is starting a bit about this at the moment...
all best
Colin
Colin Bryson
Director of the Combined Honours Centre
Level G Daysh Building
Newcastle University
http://raise-network.ning.com/
0191 222 6389
________________________________________
From: learning development in higher education network [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Sally Alsford [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 15 January 2013 09:29
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Student consultation on LD
Happy New Year!
yes, this is a good topic.
(my first posting since joining - I've been lurking for a while...)
At Greenwich, we set up an Educational Development Unit Student Forum 2++ years ago. Its quite small and, so far, there has been a fair bit of variation year by year. We pay some Student Forum Leaders who help us run the Student Forum, and to plan and run activities such as focus groups, evaluation processes and workshops, and we have a Student Forum membership who are invited to participate on a voluntary basis. Many who sign up never respond or participate, but some do, with significant value for them as well as for us.
The main focus of our work this year is on the Greenwich Graduate - student-led workshops, and a student-produced guide to the Greenwich Graduate.
It also gives us a pool of students to invite to participate in all sorts of things as they come up - for example, I helped facilitate a training day for library staff last week and issued a Student Forum invite. Only one student responded, but he had a great experience (is just writing a blog post about it) and staff valued student input in discussion groups very highly indeed.
Its pretty small scale and relatively low cost (though cost in staff time is hard to measure).
Theres a bit more about it at: (2012) "An educational development student forum: working partnerships with students", Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, Vol. 4 Iss: 2, pp.186 - 202.
very happy to discuss further and looking forward to responses from others.
best
Sally
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