Keeping it together
‘they’re cutting the course before the first apples have fallen’ (Sarah, Unit 6: 2024)
In the UAL podcast ‘Belonging in Higher Education’ (2020) Neil Current argues that the key to achieving a sense of belonging – a state directly linked to student outcomes – is a feeling of connection. In January 2024, MA Performance: Society suspended recruitment, pending closure. This decision has negatively impacted both students’ and staff’s sense of belonging at UAL. There are now only 6 students in the group, as some chose to transfer to other courses, and several have life factors which means their attendance is necessarily sporadic. The remaining students have voiced a need for greater connection with each other. The challenge is to find ways of maintaining a sense of connectivity and belonging within this small online group in Teach Out.
Current and future ways forwards
The following interventions are designed to signal to the student that their presence is important, and that they belong and have a place. The first involves setting up peer-to-peer interviews, where students meet outside of class to ask questions about each other’s work. This has worked well to create a connection with the students who regularly miss class and students said they found it useful to do. To encourage a sense of visibility and accountability, students are asked to document/share their discussions via their Unit 6 Padlet (see below), which I will respond to. We will repeat this as part of a peer-to-peer feedback process later in the year.
In the tutor review of my teaching practice, I was encouraged to give students more agency by inviting them to lead parts of the session. Drawing on this advice, I am planning a series of sessions after easter where students deliver mini workshops that supports the class in an aspect of the assignment. If they are unable to attend, they will be asked to send a workshop plan we can follow. This will a) offer students a useful opportunity to practice running workshops b) make them consider in depth what the assignment asks for and what they, and their peers, might need and c) promote a sense of agency and responsibility within the group.
In their article on teaching in online spaces, Lewis & Leigh (2022) promote the use of online virtual spaces to generate a sense of community. Platforms such as Padlet and Miro are used extensively in online teaching as modelled in the online PG course group. In Unit 1 of MAPS each student was given a Padlet to put their work in progress on. These Padlets were public enabling us to ‘drop in’ and see what each other were up to. Dulfer et al. (2024) argue that peer-to-peer learning is an essential part of community building and so it was great to hear the students suggest bringing this device back into Unit 6 to help maintain peer-to-peer connectivity on the course. Students have now been given Unit 6 Padlets and asked to populate them with their thinking so far by March 17th.
Finally, I have sought funding to bring two alumni back in as GTAs within the class after easter. The hope is that this will act as a tangible reminder of the wider community of which these last students are a part.
References
Currant, N., Jethnani, H. et al. (2020) Interrogating Spaces: Belonging in Higher Education. [Podcast] July 22, 2020.
Dulfer, N., Gowing, A., & Mitchell, J. (2024). Building belonging in online classrooms: relationships at the core. Teaching in Higher Education, pp 1–17.
Lewis, L. & Leigh Ross, S. (2022) Home sweet home: achieving belonging and engagement in online learning spaces. Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal. Vol 5:1, pp 71-81.