Students as Partners

Both at the institutional and local level, the University and the Students’ Union work in close partnership in all aspects of evaluating and responding to student opinion, recognising that such active collaboration is fundamental to our joint commitment to improve the quality of learning opportunities for students.
An overview of surveys is captured through the  Student Engagement Strategy.

A Man Met ‘Student Engagement Working Group’ determined that any guidance should allow programme teams the flexibility to choose the method most appropriate for their subject/course.

Engagement through partnership: students as partners in learning and teaching in higher education. The Higher Education Academy, 2014 

Drawing together extensive UK and international scholarship and research to propose a new conceptual model for exploring the variety of understandings of students as partners in learning and teaching, this publication:

• Examines the motivations and rationales for staff and students engaging in partnership.
• Offers a pedagogical case for partnership.
• Identifies examples of strategic and sustainable practices of engaging students as partners in learning and teaching.
• Outlines how the development of partnership learning communities may guide and sustain practice in this area.
• Identifies tensions and challenges to partnership.
• Offers suggestions to individuals and institutions for addressing challenges and future work.

Through the Student Engagement Toolkit and the Student Engagement Partnership project, the NUS have developed resources designed for students’ unions and institutions to work together enhancing students’ academic engagement:

• Enhancing Engagement Practices: This section contains information supporting the processes of enhancing student engagement. There is also additional information on feedback from students.
• Resources: This section contains tools and resources to support institutions and students’ unions in debating, analysing and enhancing student engagement practices.

The HEA report Assessment: A Marked Improvement refers to the need within an institution to:

• Promote the engagement of students in the assessment process to ensure their understanding of the role of assessment in learning.
• Foster collaboration and the development of a common understanding of professional and academic standards.

Programme teams should ensure that this can be designed into the learning experience for all students.

There is a lot of discussion about the ‘teaching-research nexus’ but to extend the argument further, there is a need to ensure students are active participants in research which is embedded in their studies at UG or PG level, and not just recipients of their course team’s research interests (research-led). A curriculum which encourages students to engage in research processes, and to work alongside our university’s world-class researchers, will engage them more actively in their learning and equip them more effectively for their futures (research-based and/or research-orientated).

Healey (2005)has modelled the role students might have in relation to research and this is summarised in his Model of interactions between research and learning in the classroom. 

A focus on genuinely active learning, where students are seen as future colleagues, as partners and as co-creators of the curriculum, plays an important role in developing a range of important graduate attributes, both professional and personal, helping to build student confidence, ability to communicate effectively, and sense of an academic and specialist self.

Genuine student-teacher partnerships lead to integrated academic communities and break down the divisions between teaching and learning, between teaching and research, and between universities and future employers.

We want our graduates to be experienced communicators of complex information: between disciplines, age groups and between experts and the wider community – skills that are crucial in today’s workplace and in the wider world.

Here are four ways to encourage your students to engage in real research:

British Conference of Undergraduate Research (BCUR)

Each year in the spring a two-day undergraduate research conference is hosted at a British University. All undergraduate students are able to apply and attend. For more information visit the BCUR website.

Dissertations for Good (DfG)

DfG is an NUS initiative, to which MMU belongs, that brokers live, real, research projects and students seeking to undertake them.

It is described in the DfG brief as:

DfG seeks to harness student coursework and dissertations for the benefit of society. We connect students with off-campus organisations to develop student research that helps progress goals and causes. For this programme, a dissertation for good is any piece of student work that contributes to the field of economic, social or environmental sustainability in a tangible way, producing a report that is useful for their partnered organisation.

Further details can be found on the Dissertations for Good website.

Student-led research event in your department

This may grow out of the curriculum and assessments if they are designed to focus on live projects, problem-based learning and activities related to employability or global impact.

If your department does not yet have a student research conference consider encouraging a student to work with you in partnership. Another option could be to organise a poster exhibition in a communal area.

Submit research to an academic journal

A number of academic journals are specifically designed for undergraduate research dissemination. A good place to start is the British Council of Undergraduate Research website.