The key aspect to the success of all teaching and learning is how well our students engage with it. For example, the move to include more blended delivery requires a deliberate effort focused on keeping students in touch with their learning, with one another and with you.  How are you going to welcome your students to the university and make sure they feel they belong?   And how are you going to know if your efforts are working?

The following provides some guidance for supporting our students to make the most of their learning.  There is also guidance for evaluating their engagement with and the impact of the teaching they have experienced.  The guidance covers different moments in the student journey, and in the design and delivery process.  It is mostly in the form of brief suggestions and reflective questions.  Additional resources to develop these ideas will be added as they are developed.

What do we mean by Student Engagement?

In this short video Jill LeBihan explores a number of different meanings of the term ‘student engagement’ and introduces a paradigm model for student engagement proposed by Bols and Lowe (2020).

  • Key outcomes: You should come away with an understanding of the way in which student voice, student partnership, and student engagement might function in Higher Education, and understand some of the tensions between different dimensions of student engagement.
  • Who should watch: Any staff or students who are interested in understanding student representation, co-design, co-operation and student academic engagement.
  • Accompanying resources: Bols and Lowe essay

Questions to ask yourself to make sure there has been student engagement

  • Have students and staff worked together to co-design any learning or assessment activities (have you done any of thing things listed above)? Have you shown current students how previous student feedback has been used as part of your rationale?
  • Have students worked with staff to assess the success of the module design?
  • Can students apply what they have learned to things that matter to them?
  • Have students been encouraged to take risks and to see failure as a route to learning? Have there been failures in the module design that offer an opportunity for improvement?