Learning & Engagement Sessions

What was the challenge and the context? 

Transitioning into Higher Education is widely recognised as a crucial period of the student journey and can influence and provide the foundation for student success. At the same time this stage represents a highly complex and demanding experience for many learners which can lead to challenges and difficulties experienced as a student having the power to shape the student experience moving forward. Particularly at foundation and first-year level, students will start their journey at university with a broad range of pre-existing knowledge(s), skills, beliefs, and attitudes which will impact on the way information is interpreted, used and applied to make sense of the curricular content delivered.

To facilitate and support students throughout this stage, each School at London Met has a number of Academic Mentors. As full-time staff members, Academic Mentors provide course and subject specific assistance and guidance to students via workshops and 1-2-1 sessions embedded and attached to regular teaching. To frame the transition experience as positive and supportive, "Learning & Engagement" sessions have been developed and offered to learners across courses within the Economics, Maths and Statistics subject area.

What did we do?

This example of inclusive classroom practice takes cognisance of and intentionally builds off the diversity of our students to counteract disengagement with their studies, enhance learner’s confidence and adopt fun and interactive ways to digest subject related concepts.

With the above in mind, the “Learning & Engagement” sessions are voluntarily, opt-in, learning workshop delivered at the beginning of the academic year and throughout. These sessions are welcoming, centring student experiences, identities, and concerns by focusing on the interpersonal relationship between lecturer and students while connecting curriculum content with life, academic and personal goals. Below features are essential to this approach and considered important to foster inclusive classroom/learning experiences:

• Establishment of non-threating classroom environment to allow for and pro-actively create low-stake opportunities to build trust, connections and confidence among participants. The development of instructor-student relationships within these learning environments also contributes to flattening the power difference between staff and students.
• Engaging students in discussions/debates in classroom to encourage sharing, appreciating and validating students’ “lived experiences” and connect these to subject content. This also poses an opportunity to identify and draw on personal preferences, choices and behaviours of students. The instructor's approachability plays an equally important role to create spaces where students feel comfortable discussing how their identity influences their participation and engagement with curricula and wider university.
• Demystification of theoretical concepts & academic knowledge by adopting a learning approach characterised through fun, exciting, tailored learning opportunities in which students compete in a friendly way and are pro-actively encouraged to draw on their “lived experiences”. Examples include:
  • Use of broad themes (music, film, events, holidays, shopping) linked to theoretical concepts to promote relationality, opportunities to reflect on identities and recognising compassion
  • Exploration of existing knowledge, language and connection to subject-specific terminology
  • Encourage student voice to articulate their diverse experiences and share personal stories, viz. ‘ethnically’ based goods and services such as hair styling and hair products. This can help to give validity to diverse experiences
• Facilitators/instructional immediacy (positive) learning & classroom engagement is enhanced through verbal and non-verbal behaviours and cues which enable students to develop a strong sense of proximity and closeness in the classroom. Research and links on more effective techniques and approaches are available in the “key links” section below.

What happened? or what was the impact?

The student centredness of this learning design values each student equally and builds on/relates to the “lived experiences” of students providing a voice to students, transforming power differences and encouraging reflection with better awareness of and understanding of individual barriers to engagement.

For now, student engagement with all sessions is captured and monitored through a School-wide engagement system. In addition to that, the plan is to collate feedback from students alongside delivery to capture their perceptions about the intervention, ensuring the impact it has had on their student experience and academic achievement can also inform future delivery.

The use of internal learning analytics (via PowerBI - Module Performance Dashboard) will provide a more detailed picture on how this example of inclusive practice correlates with student module performance when looking at submission and pass rates (at first attempt).

Could the practice change be rolled out more widely? 

Principles taken from this approach can be replicated and included in other teaching and learning contexts given that all students by their very nature have “lived experiences” that can be harnessed to enhance the student experience. This is particularly relevant in the beginning of the academic year and can be modelled around and play a part of ice-breaker activities.