The student experience matters

18th July 2017

eSTEeM project leader, Ann Walshe, shares her reflections from the HEA Annual Conference 2017 - Generation TEF: Teaching in the spotlight, 5 and 6 July, Manchester.

My thanks to eSTEeM for funding me to attend this conference to co-present a workshop with my colleague Chris Douce. I attended days 2 and 3 for the learning and teaching and STEM strands.

A key message I took away from the conference is that we need to engage our students in new ways. The student experience matters. The more engaged students are, the more successful they will be. 

Eric Stoller http://ericstoller.com/blog/  in his day 2 keynote speech spoke about the social media and apps that students are using and how these may be used in learning and teaching. For instance, Twitter discussions can develop critical thinking, and LinkedIn can develop employability skills prompting students to think about their career early on. See https://socialmediaforlearning.com/

Giskin Day https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/person/ms-giskin-day  in her day 3 STEM keynote speech spoke about adding value to our face-to-face interaction with students.  We need to encourage our students to tolerate and manage ambiguity in an environment of uncertainty where we don’t have all the data. Giskin uses playful learning through games to promote engagement and participation, stimulate creativity and encourage spontaneity in a safe imaginative space where failure is an option.  It is not always predictable what students will get from games. Games should be well designed and tested, and there should be a reason why they are being used.

What does teaching excellence look like?  That which we call excellent changes over time.  Our perception of excellence is influenced by our own experience as a student.  The idea of helping students to tolerate and manage ambiguity arose again in this session with the mention of “I’m a dancer and I’ve got a saucepan stuck on my head”. 

How does subject matter become taught matter? Teaching differs across different fields. Different models of learning may be applied to different subjects.

When do we ask students how best they learn? Jane Bartholomew of Nottingham Trent University asked students to think about a moment when they were fully engaged in what they were doing. This has led to a student handbook of 100 stories about what motivates students and how to make the most of being a student. Community and environment are very important. Students also like variety and like to be challenged. They also want to have time to experiment. I would love to see a similar resource for our OU students – a series of student stories, possibly videos, about studying with the OU and making the most of the benefits of tuition.

Our workshop was well attended. Participants formed into four groups. We asked the groups to design a module of their choice and consider what digital technologies and online pedagogies they would use. There was a wide range of ideas and much discussion.

Finally, the conference dinner was prohibitively expensive, but I can thoroughly recommend Happy Hour at Try Thai in Manchester’s Chinatown!