Last week, I was delighted to facilitate the
event ‘Learner Engagement… In Conversation with Peter Felten and Meredith Piatt’
which I coordinated with Juliet Hancock and Cathy Bovill. This event was the
first time in my new job as Partnerships and Professional Learning Coordinator
at Moray House School of Education where I was truly able to combine my work in
the professional learning office with my PhD focusing on student engagement and
co-creation of the curriculum.
It was a fantastic synergy of ideas and
colleagues coming together across education sectors and there’s so much to
learn from those in the primary and secondary education sectors and how they
are dealing with some of the same challenges and issues that we are in higher education. Furthermore, this event was especially meaningful
since Cathy Bovill, Peter Felten, and Alison Cook-Sather’s book Engaging Students as Partners in Learning in Teaching is partly what inspired me to
pursue my PhD, and I was excited to have both Cathy and Peter at the event as well as many other inspiring individuals who have contributed to my PhD research.
Excitement, Belonging, Community, and Resilience in Learner Engagement
During the first part of the event, I led a
discussion in front of the audience with Peter Felten and his inspiring
final-year undergraduate student Meredith Piatt on learner engagement. I really
enjoyed this experience since it pulled together my experience in facilitation
and interviewing as well as my knowledge of the subject, and I had the
opportunity to delve into some fantastic topics of conversation with them both.
In particular, I was struck by what Meredith
said about learner engagement as being a feeling of excitement for her while she makes connections between her learning and everyday life, and what Peter said about how learner engagement
is about staff connecting to what students find
meaningful in their studies. They also highlighted how it was important for staff to have high
expectations of students, which often create the spaces for students to take
responsibility to take up opportunities and meet or exceed these high
expectations. This is a theme that has also emerged in my PhD research which I am looking forward to exploring more in the future.
Peter highlighted how staff are teaching not
just ‘heads’ but also ‘hearts’ and ‘bodies’, and this led to a really
interesting discussion about the different emotions we feel in learning and
teaching. Whilst many times we want these emotions to be positive and we want
students to enjoy the fun of learning, it was also important that Peter pointed
out that learning is not always fun. Learning is also about the challenging
experiences that we have, which can sometimes be
the most formative when we develop resilience through overcoming
obstacles. However, there is a strong role that relationships and belonging
play in student engagement to create spaces where these deep learning
opportunities can occur in a constructive manner.
Learner Engagement at Scale
Following the discussion with Peter and
Meredith, I enjoyed attending Mark Huxham’s discussion group on student
engagement at scale. This was particularly
interesting since working with large numbers of students is often seen as a
barrier to both student engagement and co-creation of the curriculum. We had a
very constructive discussion, ultimately focusing on how we need to find
ways of ‘belonging at scale’ to help humanise learning and teaching in both
large lectures and online distance learning. Others suggested examples of
small-group break-out discussions within lectures or meetings outside of class
with students then sitting with their group to create a sense of belonging. In the context of online
distance learning, we discussed the importance of online discussions or other
activities such as sharing photos of workspaces to build a sense of belonging
amongst students whilst helping staff to learn about their students, and also how staff could record video introductions to sessions or develop audio feedback to ‘humanise’ online learning and, particularly, the experience of receiving constructive feedback.
Creative Engagement
In the last discussion group session, I led
the group discussing creativity in student engagement. Each member of the group
introduced him/herself by describing what creativity means to them. Examples
included drawing connections across subject areas or contexts, lateral
thinking, problem-solving, collective working and achievement that brings
together individuals’ perspectives, thinking outside of the box, imagination, fun, and challenging
the status quo. (I enjoyed hearing this last aspect of creativity since I saw a great connection with my previous blog post and research article on co-creation of the curriculum challenging the status quo!)
Participants’ statements are strikingly
similar to definitions of creativity in the literature that suggest that creative
pedagogy can encompass and further promote curiosity, imagination, play,
exploration, ownership, innovation, and connection-making for both learners and
teachers (Craft, Cremin, Hay, & Clack, 2014; Grainger,
Barnes, & Scoffham, 2004; Jeffrey & Woods, 2009).
I then presented some of my initial findings
in my research that benefits of co-creation of the curriculum include various
aspects of creativity including:
- creativity through learning from diverse individuals in the learning community
- ownership and intrinsic motivation leading to creativity
- trying new things despite risk of ‘failure’
- values and empathy that promote creativity
- fun and play in learning
In particular, we discussed how teaching and
learning is a social practice, and often creativity can be seen through dialogue when we bring together diverse students and teachers in
the classroom. We explored how it can be great to give students freedom and
ownership, although this can pose risks. As one participant stated, ‘It’s okay
to be stuck, but it’s important to know why
you’re stuck and use that as a building block to become unstuck’.
This led
us into a great discussion on how many participants felt that it is important
to see learning as a process, rather than a product. We also returned to the idea
from the initial session with Peter and Meredith that challenge is important,
and by incorporating creativity into learning and teaching we help students to
take ownership and challenge themselves, whilst they also develop important
transferable skills and reflect on their work.
We concluded the discussion group by
discussing some of the challenges to creativity, including the risks for both
students and staff to experiment with new ideas and ways of teaching and
learning. However, we left hoping that there are good education managers,
policies, and processes in place that can allow us both as staff and learners
to experiment and incorporate more creative practices into our learning and teaching.
Here, I
will conclude by leaving you with some of the questions I posed to the discussion group, as well as some of our unanswered questions that may be helpful to reflect on:
- What does creativity mean to you in your educational context, and how does it make you feel when you are creative?
- In what ways do you give students ownership over their own learning, and do you have any examples of when you have been pleasantly surprised by students’ work?
- Do creative practices help learners try new things and even fail within safe learning environments?
- Do learners need to reach a certain level of understanding before they can play with ideas and concepts more creatively?
- Within the context of high workloads and demands on both teachers and learners, do you feel there is there enough room for you to be creative in your context? How can we further facilitate creativity in our work?
No comments:
Post a Comment