1.3.3 Maintaining and sustaining the partnership

Partnerships are based on respect, reciprocity and shared responsibility between students and educators (Cook-Sather et al., 2014). Bonney (2018) describes several challenges and possible solutions in maintaining the partnership:

• Obtaining funding: you may require funding to support students’ contributions (although there are ethical considerations related to incentives which are discussed later in this session).
• Providing timely feedback: students contribute valuable perspectives to the dissemination of outcomes of the SoTL inquiry via blogs, papers, podcasts, exhibitions, reports, etc. Provide timely and adequate feedback to students to promote creative processes.
• Engaging students in data collection and analysis: students may not be allowed to work on certain SoTL inquiries or students may not be allowed access to some data. Hence, it is useful to consult with the ethics committee and student participation research panels early on.
• Maintaining commitment and motivation: it is useful to set up clear objectives of the inquiry and expectations from the partnership for that inquiry through a project plan. Also, provide frequent formative feedback and remind students often of the benefits of the inquiry’s outcomes to the learning and teaching experience.
• Making research findings public: involve students as authors, co-presenters and collaborators in the dissemination process and give them public recognition for their efforts. A greater diversity of formats for going public with SoTL will enable students to access, share and develop this work, including websites, blogs and podcasts (Felten et al., 2013).

SoTL projects may benefit from establishing shared and individual values at the start, building in reflection on the process of partnership and understanding the cultural perspectives each partner brings (McConnell and Wisker, 2016). Further, it is important to be transparent with information, processes and outcomes for a successful partnership.

Activity 3 Students as co-designers of formative assessment

Timing: Allow approximately 10 minutes

This video features Paul Piwek and Simon Savage of the School of Computing and Communications in the Faculty of STEM at The Open University.

As you are watching the video (duration 3 minutes and 24 seconds), reflect on the way students have been involved in this SoTL inquiry, and the advantages for both students and educators.

For a better viewing experience, you may like to view the video in full-screen mode.

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Transcript: Video 3 Student co-design of confidence-building formative assessment for Level 1 Computing and Information Technology (IT) students

PAUL PIWEK

Hello, I’m Paul Piwek, and I’m leading an eSTEeM project on evolving computing and information technology students with the design of formative assessment materials. This project came out of some of the insights my colleague, Simon Savage, and I gained from a previous project we carried out for the Institute of Coding.

SIMON SAVAGE

In that project, we looked at student discussions around quizzes they completed as part of their study. One of the results was that some of the questions could be expressed better with students needing clarification on what was being asked of them. Of course, we could have embedded these questions as a module team to address the issues, but Paul and I felt this would be a good opportunity to make use of the firsthand experience of the students. We also thought this could help us gain insights into the benefits and pitfalls of co-design activities with students. So what did we do in our eSTEeM project?

PAUL PIWEK

Central to a project was a co-design workshop with students to redesign questions. We identified half a dozen questions where we had feedback that they could be improved. We shared these with a small group of students who had previously completed the course, and asked them to identify what the strengths and weaknesses of the questions were. We then had a workshop on campus in Milton Keynes with the students. We divided into three teams of students and a staff member.

Each team looked at the questions and made suggestions for improvements, and then shared their findings with the other teams. We also had a more general discussion about studying with the OU, learning about a wide variety of approaches adopted by our students. After the workshop, we implemented the suggested changes to the quizzes. And the most recent cohort of students worked for this new set of questions. Our project is still in progress and we are currently analyzing data from the new questions, but Simon can already share some of the things we learned from the process so far.

SIMON SAVAGE

One challenge was finding students who were available, especially within the time frame for the project. However, once we had a small group of students joining us, several benefits became apparent. Firstly, the students contributed some great ideas for the assessment. Secondly, from the discussion, we got a better understanding of how students engage with the materials. Even with such a small sample, it was interesting to see the diverse approaches to studying.

Thirdly, the student appreciated having their voice heard. Finally, our students enjoyed the opportunity to meet us on campus in Milton Keynes. Though at the same time, that may have made it more difficult for others to attend. We are now looking forward to a final online meeting with our student co-designers to discuss the results and the experience of working together.

End transcript: Video 3 Student co-design of confidence-building formative assessment for Level 1 Computing and Information Technology (IT) students

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Video 3 Student co-design of confidence-building formative assessment for Level 1 Computing and Information Technology (IT) students

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Discussion

This video showcases an example of involving students as partners in from the Computing and Information Technology (IT) discipline in the Faculty of STEM at The Open University. In the module TM112 Introduction to computing and information technology 2 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] , there are formative quizzes to help students build confidence with programming and problem-solving tasks.

A SoTL inquiry was established as an eSTEeM-funded project, with the aim of improving the design and use of online quizzes. Central to this project was a co-design workshop with a small group of previous TM112 students. At this workshop, educators and students worked together to design new quiz questions and to redesign existing quiz questions.

After the workshop, the quizzes were redesigned, and the most recent cohort of students is working with the new set of questions. The project team is analysing the data to determine the efficacy of the changes.

In addition, the team is reflecting on the benefits and challenges of integrating student voice. Involving students has led to not only re-designing the quizzes using a student’s perspective, but also that the educators have a better understanding of how students engage with a module’s resources and diverse approaches to studying.

If you are interested in knowing more about this project, see: Student co-design of confidence-building formative assessment for Level 1 Computing & IT students

The next activity will give you an opportunity to reflect on what you have learned about students as partners in SoTL in this session thus far.

In the remainder of this session, you will learn about ethical considerations in SoTL practice.