sparqs Conference 2017

Yesterday I participated in the Student Partnerships in Quality Scotland (sparqs) conference, which was a great day of meeting students and staff to hear about their work in student engagement, particularly in quality assurance and enhancement processes. I had previously attended the sparqs 2015 conference, and I had loved the focus on co-creation of the curriculum and student/staff partnerships during fascinating talks and innovative workshops. Two of these workshops were particularly memorable for me to this day, one led by University of Lincoln where we used Legos to build collaborative environments for partnership work. The second was led by South Lanarkshire College, New College Lanarkshire, and Glasgow Caledonian University where we used helium balloons and weights to symbolise how to overcome challenges of student delivery of staff development sessions in practice. These were particularly fun workshops, and they helped me learn about great partnership work taking place across the UK.

This year’s sparqs conference had a really interesting international dimension. Shirley-Anne Somerville MSP kicked off the day with an interesting speech on how Scotland leads the way internationally in including students in quality processes, and it was good to hear her speak about how student/staff partnerships in Scottish universities and colleges are key to the wider success of the country. This was followed by Adam Gajek, Executive Committee Member of the European Students’ Union. It was helpful to hear him speak about how student engagement in quality enhancement processes helps democratise education within universities and colleges (which should model democracy for the wider society), and it also helps students to develop the skills and attributes to excel as active citizens in democratic societies. These are also themes that are arising in my research on the effect of co-creation of the curriculum in the Scottish higher education sector, so it was great to see these synergies. Adam also spoke about the threats to democracy in higher and further education as being the commercialisation of education and also students’ lack of participation. In my research on student engagement, it is also increasingly clear that not only students have the responsibility to engage but also university staff and university policies more widely need to take responsibility for facilitating students’ participation and engagement.

In the afternoon of the conference, it was fantastic presenting with two students who have been contributing to my research as Student Consultants. We presented the findings from our student focus groups to show Class Reps’ perceptions of the benefits and challenges of engaging in co-creation of the curriculum, as well as enablers to facilitate partnership practices more widely in universities. We also reflected on our own experience of co-producing research together (see my additional reflections in my previous post). They did a fantastic job with the presentation, and it was a great experience for us all working together on this research so presenting it was a great culmination of our project.

See a copy of our presentation of 'Co-Creation of Research on Co-Creation of the Curriculum'.

Our presentation was followed by two other great presentations from the University of Glasgow about co-creation and student/staff partnerships. The first highlighted a great project in which students co-created chemistry lab films to help future students prepare for labs and better understand how to complete laboratory procedures. These students were adding what they felt was missing from the curriculum and increasing other students’ confidence before going into the labs. It was great to see the positive impact of this project with the next year’s cohort receiving higher average marks (and especially seeing how the lowest mark jumped from 41% to 61%!). Not only did the co-creation experience help other students, but it was wonderful to see how the project helped the student co-creators to develop skills including teamwork, communication, public speaking, creativity, critical thinking, and digital skills. I was very impressed by their presentation, and it was also great to hear about the Press Start student-led journal allowing students across disciplines to be involved in writing, reviewing, editing, and publishing their work about gaming studies. I hope more students interested in gaming are able to get involved in the future so this project continues to grow.

In the last conference session, I really enjoyed going to the session on international perspectives on student engagement and quality assurance. Especially since I had studied abroad as an undergrad at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, it was interesting to learn about their different tertiary and higher education sector and the challenges they faced including the how policies had reduced the number of student representatives and their inclusion on committees, the strong consumer model of education, and how recently membership of student unions had become voluntary and weakened the ability of student unions to make an impact. I hope that student representation can overcome these challenges to improve engagement with quality processes in New Zealand in the future. It was also interesting hearing more about the EU-funded project Enhancing Student Participation in Quality Assurance (ESPAQ) in Armenia, especially since I am really looking forward to visiting Armenia in a few weeks to contribute to this project! I’m looking forward to sharing more about this experience in the coming weeks.

The 2017 sparqs conference was a really interesting and varied one, and it was great to conclude it with the sparqs awards. I was delighted that our Teaching Awards research project on student perceptions of teaching excellence was shortlisted for the award recognising the best Scottish partnership initiative between a University and a Students’ Association. Sadly, we did not win but it was fantastic that Edinburgh University’s Project Myopia was runner-up for the best student-led project to promote equality and diversity! Well done to them – it was fantastic to see these students’ co-creation of the curriculum project being recognised for its impact in liberating and diversifying the curriculum.

The Power of Co-Production: Transforming Ourselves and Our Society

Today was a thought-provoking day attending and presenting at the conference 'Co-Production, Research and Youth and Community Work'. Dave Beck’s conference introduction started the day rightly linking co-production to social justice and community development that decrease inequalities and effect positive change in civically engaged democracies. Co-production helps to develop shared ownership as opposed to chasing extrinsic motivations and targets for their own sake. It was good to start the day with these themes which would re-emerge in numerous presentations and workshops. In particular, this fit well with the opening presentation from Young Edinburgh Action’s young people and staff. I was particularly struck by how they said they created ‘safe spaces, and brave spaces’ for young people to participate in co-production and have a positive impact on their community. 

As I have found in my emerging research, community development, trust and respect are key to developing and working effectively within safe spaces; at the same time, co-production challenges traditional power hierarchies and stereotypes about what young people are capable of, so co-production also needs to be ‘brave spaces’ that challenge the status quo and think creatively to tackle challenges in the classroom or community, and beyond in the wider society. Preparations for my workshop helped me articulate my initial analysis of some of my data from staff and students who have participated in co-creation of the curriculum, and I was glad that it led to fruitful discussions of the democratisation of knowledge, sharing power amongst a collective, and developing power within individuals.

Other presentations brought this out for me by discussing how co-production is fundamentally a developmental process of empowerment. Within safe spaces, people can bravely experiment and learn creatively from challenge whilst developing personally and professionally as individuals and whilst developing society’s capacity to confront some of the most difficult challenges of today’s uncertain world, such as inequality. By developing personal agency and empowerment, we can learn to understand ourselves better by demonstrating reflexivity and transparency. By working in partnership with others in co-production projects, it can be an emancipatory, transformative and holistic process that is rooted in individuals’ personal stories and in real life. Although co-production is ‘messy’, challenging, and involves risk, it was helpful to see that others agreed that its transformative power often outweighs these challenges since it has the ability to change ourselves and our society for the better.

Dewey: Education, Social Justice, and Democracy

Today I participated in the conference 'Education, Social Justice, and Democracy: Critical Issues in 21st Century Education'. This was a Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain event celebrating the centenary of John Dewey's influential text Democracy and Education, focusing on social justice and inclusion in 21st century education. I was delighted to have the opportunity to present preliminary findings from my own research in a talk called Co-Creation of the Curriculum: Living Democratic Values in Learning and Teaching, drawing on Dewey's democratic ideals and showing how many academic staff participants in my study were motivated to co-create the curriculum with their students by wanting to facilitate democratic engagement in the classroom. Furthermore, co-creation of the curriculum helps students draw on past experiences inside and outside of the classroom to engage them with current learning that is more accessible, inclusive, and rewarding since it is relevant to their own goals and interests.

Several of the talks focusing on primary and secondary education helped me reflect in new ways on my own research. In particular, I saw parallels between Diana Murdoch's research on inclusive education and themes in my work including the feelings of isolation and invisibility when a learning environment doesn't foster care and the inclusion of all voices in the classroom at any level of study. I see co-creation of the curriculum as an opportunity for developing community, care, and inclusion in education. Furthermore, co-creation of the curriculum is often referred to as a fun and creative process that engages both students and staff to learn from each other. The presentation by Adrian Skilbeck highlighted Dewey's notion that play should occur across the curriculum by engaging students imaginatively and creatively to combine work and play in learning. I was particularly struck when he noted Dewey's idea that the role of teachers is to foster engagement, inquiry, and playfulness; I would like to explore these concepts in my own research. Furthermore, Holly Linklater showed her work in which pupils have 'co-agency' in primary school classrooms alongside staff so that pupils' exploration, choices, and reflections create dynamic learning environments when teachers build community in the classroom and attend to the imagination, individuality, and co-agency of children. It is great to see co-creation of the primary school curriculum and to think about why co-creation of the higher education curriculum is considered more controversial.

A keynote address by Prof Leonard Waks who summarised Dewey's ideas that education should emphasise engaging experiences that help students to practice democratic means that help them develop as stronger actors in a democratic society. Like I do in my work, Waks highlighted the necessity of engaging students in learning and continuous readjustment within the context of an ever-changing world. Waks then tried to relate Dewey's ideas of democracy in education to the idea that the Internet has produced Education2.0 which is liberating students from a reliance on single sources of information and single conceptions of knowledge. However, Waks' superficial and idealised view of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) stimulated good critique from the audience of why we need to look more closely at some undemocratic aspects of MOOCs.

Another theme that I took away from a different set of sessions was how Dewey's work on democracy and education highlights the importance of informed participation of citizens in multicultural democracies. Presentations highlighted the importance of multiculturalism and informed learning about Islam in American schools to recognise cultural diversity and accept differences (Liz Jackson), using education to understand the causes of injustices against women in Iran and look at how to include them more widely in the workforce (Hoda Mobasseri), and using citizenship education in Pakistan to promote social justice (Khurshid Sana Kahn).