Learning from students

Learning from students - evaluating the impact of extracurricular learning development workshops on curricular engagement and self-efficacy. Kizzy Beaumont & student co-presenters Iona Clayton, Matt Clendon & Michael Brown

Abstract

The Student Learning team at Keele University is in the second year of our revamped university-wide extracurricular workshops, focusing on developing students academic practice. Each set of workshops follows the student’s journey throughout the semester, from preparing to study through to planning, research, writing and editing. The overarching aim of these workshops is to promote and develop self-efficacy through the creation of a personalised student learning experience by engaging students with their own programme concepts and materials in an extracurricular interdisciplinary learning environment.

This paper will be delivered by students who have participated in our ‘Developing Academic Practice at Level 5’ (DAPL5) programme, which was developed to support the ‘second-year slump’, as discussed in Milsom et al. (2014). Along with addressing the increase in level 5 students booking onto our one-to-one coaching service (Write Direction). The students’ will present how the workshops have provided spaces for them to explore academic practices within their disciplinary identities, materials and assignments. They will address both the challenges and opportunities of working outside of their formal curriculum and how this can be used to influence engagement and change within their own programmes. This is a unique opportunity to inform teaching practices by gaining insight into how students engage with academic practice manifested within their programmes and extracurricular activities.