Students as Partners - Durham Blackboard User Group Conference

Yesterday I was at the 15th annual Durham Blackboard User Group Conference. This year's theme of 'students as partners' was fantastic because it brought together educators and learning technologists from higher education institutions around the UK. One of the highlights for me yesterday was hearing Dr Abbi Flint from the Higher Education Academy (HEA) giving her keynote presentation 'Engagement through partnership: students as partners in learning and teaching in higher education'.

Abbi introduced 'students as partners' as buzzwords that are a bit fuzzy around the edges, since they are used in different ways and the sector has not attached a single definition to the phrase. As she pointed out, as long as researchers are clear about how they're using the phrase, the openness of the term can be used to our advantage.

I agree with Abbi that engaging students in their learning is one of the most prevalent issues in higher education today, and that student/staff partnerships can be a solution. It was helpful reflecting on the various rationales behind partnership, including pedagogic, political, and philosophical rationales.

Abbi showed how partnership brings together behavioural, psychological and socio-cultural perspectives of engagement. I agree, since in my PhD research I want to look at both students' and staff members' attitudes of engagement (seeing each other as partners) and their behavioural engagement as partners to see how they affect their sense of identity and belonging within the university community, and how this fits into broader discourses of power and culture in the context of the wider society.

Abbi presented the HEA's model of partnership learning communities (Healey, Flint, and Harrington, 2014) showing the four spheres of partnership in 1) learning, teaching, and assessment; 2) subject-based research and enquiry; 3) scholarship of teaching and learning; and 4) curriculum design and pedagogic consultancy. It is always nice to hear again that, like Abbi said, this last area of partnership in curriculum design and pedagogic consultancy is the least researched -- I look forward to contributing a lot to this particular area. In addition, areas of further research about partnerships include their impact, which I also look forward to exploring.

Abbi's keynote was an excellent start to the conference, setting the scene of the central debates and also critiques of student/staff partnership. Abbi gave a flavour of existing case studies that are inspiring. She highlighted that the pedagogic ideas of student engagement not new, but this area of research into student/staff partnerships is bringing together perspectives of engagement in new ways. I agree with Abbi that this is a really interesting area of research, and since it is little-researched it was brilliant to hear her speak since she is one of the specialists in research of student engagement and partnership.