Fostering Student Engagement – A self assessment tool
All the research about which students stay in an HE and complete their degrees and which ones leave shows that engagement with the experience (in a variety of ways) is a key determinant. The higher the level and breadth of engagement, the more likely a student is to remain. It follows therefore that staff teams should do everything they can to encourage students to engage with their peers, their staff, their subject / discipline and with the wider university community. You can use this proforma to assess what you do as a team to maximise student engagement.
Image: Pixabay.com
CHECKLIST EXCERPT FROM
A self-assessment checklist
What do you do to build students’ self-confidence and self-efficacy?
What learning opportunities do you provide for students to work autonomously as well as in teams / collaboratively?
What staff development is in place to ensure staff appreciate their roles in fostering higher levels of student engagement?
How do you seek to inject suitable challenge into your course?
What do you do to be as inclusive and welcoming of diversity as possible, enabling students to enhance their social and cultural capital in the process?
How well do you work with central support services to ensure students are well supported?
The self-assessment checklist allows you to monitor your skills in terms of the following categories
1. Student’s self confidence and self-efficacy
2. Learning opportunities to work autonomously
3. Staff development
4. Suitable challenges in course
5. Be inclusive and welcoming
6. Central support services
Source: Zepke, N. & Leach, L. (2010). Improving student engagement. Active Learning in Higher Education, 11 (3), 167-177.