Student engagement with learning; using student reflections to inform practice

Description

The project focus was student engagement with learning. We recruited students studying Bioscience-related courses from four different institutions, with a ‘brief’ that over the duration of semester 2 (2011) they would use social media tools to document and share their thoughts about the different types of teaching they experienced and their resulting engagement with learning. We thereby also hoped to explore the extent of their reflective practice.

Outcomes

This original aim was over-ambitious. Students did not readily take part in an activity which was seen as additional to their main studies. Focus groups and a questionnaire at the end of the project revealed information regarding activities which engaged them in learning, most importantly the enthusiasm of the member of staff. The interviews also revealed that there was little awareness or understanding of reflective practice.

All students were making use of social media. The data so far indicate that this supports learning both in terms of the cognitive domain, through the sharing of information, and the affective domain, through the sharing of experience.

Staff are generally less frequent users of social media than students. However, the discussions engendered by this project led to a number of creative and innovative ideas for the use of social media, and the success of these will be followed.

Links

Download a summary and reflections on the project