Students as Partners: An International Perspective

Workshop Details:

In recent years there has been considerable interest in exploring how staff and students can work in partnership. Engaging students and staff as partners in learning and teaching has been described as ‘one of the most important issues facing higher education in the 21st century’ and as offering ‘the possibility for genuinely transformative learning experiences for all involved’ (Healey, Flint and Harrington, 2014, 7). At Surrey we are involved in a number of research projects exploring the role of student-staff partnerships in higher education pedagogy, practice and research. In this presentation we will share some of this work and examine some of the benefits and challenges of student-staff partnership approaches within higher education.

In particular we will discuss an institution-wide student-staff partnership scheme. This scheme involves supporting a diversity of student-staff pedagogic research projects from across the disciplines. It has resulted in a student and staff co-authored book focusing on research partnerships, as well as a second scheme focusing on disciplinary understandings of teaching excellence. Most importantly the impact of both initiatives has led to a significant step forward towards the aim of transforming institutional cultures through incorporating a more participative and student-centred agenda, and a pedagogic research culture that underpins teaching excellence across the institution.

About the Presenters:

KAREN GRAVET:

Karen is a Lecturer in the Department of Higher Education at the University of Surrey and has worked in Higher Education for over fifteen years in Librarian, Learning Developer and Teaching Fellow roles prior to commencing her present position as Lecturer. Karen’s research focuses on student and academic identities, educational transitions, academic literacies and student-staff partnerships, and she has presented at numerous conferences and published in a breadth of journals. Karen teaches on the Graduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching, and the MA in Higher Education at the University of Surrey. She is currently working towards a PhD in Higher Education. Karen is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Visiting Fellow at the University of Suffolk, and a member of the Surrey Assessment and Learning Lab.

DR MARION HERON:

Marion Heron is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Higher Education at the University of Surrey. She has worked in higher education for over 30 years in Turkey, Dubai and the UK. Her background is in applied linguistics and she has carried out research in the areas of classroom discourse, classroom interaction, oracy skills, academic literacies and academic writing. She has published in a number of journals focusing on educational linguistics and presented her work at conferences. She teaches on the Graduate Certificate in Learning and Teaching, the MA in Higher Education, the MA TESOL and supervises PhD students in language teacher education and applied linguistics.