I am Serengul Smith from Middlesex University and will be this week’s “Guest Blogger”.
Like many academics, I have been trialling a range of methods to make our students passionate and enthusiastic about their own learning and continuing progress. Also, I have always had a keen interest in building a collaborative way of designing and delivering modules to enhance the student learning experience and increase team members’ motivation and involvement by sharing responsibilities and ownership.
Getting regular feedback from students has also helped me to understand which teaching and learning strategies work best and are more beneficial to my students.
Embedding new initiatives into our curriculum design, such as the following, I have been trying to achieve:
So far, my work has mostly focused on these two points. However, I found a case study on student engagement, “Students and staff co-creating the curriculum: research into three case studies from Scotland, Ireland and the USA” by Dr Catherine Bovill, very inspirational, challenging and worth reading.
This case study focuses on the rationale for student engagement; the processes involved; the issues and challenges of collaborative curriculum design; and offers useful advice to others who are considering involving students in curriculum design and delivery.
Another useful resource is ‘Framework for action: enhancing student engagement at the institutional level (HEA, November 2012).
Student engagement in learning and teaching is an important part in curriculum design and delivery. A collection of survey reports and case studies based on HEA funded research on student engagement can be found at http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/student-engagement