Opinion piece.
One of the great advantages of working at a university is the collective passion for learning and teaching. This comes through a community of practice centred on students’ educational experience and the long term impact of higher education. Institutional conferences that bring together students, academics and professional services focus attention in the university community on this passion, with experience and scholarship.
The annual University of Leeds Student Education Conference kicked off today and the opening welcome by DVC Prof. Jeff Grabill really set the tone for what brings us all together by setting the assumption that university education is about enabling students to “find meaning in their human relationships and their work, and to contribute to the common good.” The underlying pedagogy is about meaningful experience and engagement, and with students cared about as individuals.
From the student panel, their justification for attending lectures and engaging in learning activities is not to meet their attendance quota, but to be with people who are passionate and share an interest in the subject. The opportunity to be in the same space with others is highly valued.That concept of human connection extends to adminstration and professional services. The students cited challenges of navigating assignment extension rules whilst dealing with a personal trauma or trying to reset IT accounts when your phone has been stolen. Both are manifestations of education at scale that are grounded in objective process, but where human contact, not multiple email queues, is needed the most.
One of Grabill’s comments resonated with my view of online course development the most: “No graduate who’s had a spectacular life looks back on their university years and says, ‘boy, did they deliver content to me in a beautiful way.’” This is the reason why learning design is critical, leading with models that scaffold learning activity rather than transmission of knowledge through glorified virtual textbooks. As learning designers, our role is to create opportunities for interaction, for human contact and shared understanding, for meaningful and authentic application of discipline practice. This is all situated within an institutional, discipline and personal context, and the relationships across them.
It’s this holistic experience, incorporating a community of the academic and beyond, that makes university education so transformative.
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