Dr Rafe Hallett, Director of the Keele Institute for Innovation and Teaching Excellence (KIITE) recently shared his research on student engagement through curation at the Society for Research into Higher Education (SRHE) International Conference 2019.

The theme of the SRHE Conference was Creativity, Criticality and Conformity in Higher Education, and the conference challenged higher education practitioners to be creative in their approaches, transcending traditional rules and building an innovative culture and practice of research and problem solving.

Rafe’s presentation on ‘The Curation Learning Cycle’, with Nicholas Grindle from the Arena Centre for Research-based Education, UCL, examined a cycle of student ownership, investment and inheritance as students curate and share their knowledge, learning and data.

Rafe Hallett commented:

“The paper looked at cultures of student scholarship, and argued that we need to design and deploy assessment types that nurture skills in digital curation. Too often we revert to conventions of assessment that ignore the digital milieu of expression, research and work, and it is time to give students the chance to experiment with, create and preserve digital artefacts.”

The presentation distilled research by Hallett and Grindle published in the Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal in November 2019. In their article, the authors launch a ‘Curation Learning Cycle’ which explores the suitability of ‘curation’ as an interdisciplinary pedagogy.

Rafe explained:

“Our argument suggests all disciplinary teaching can benefit from embedding curatorial processes in their curriculum, whether tangible or online. All students need to be developed as dexterous selectors, curators and presenters of knowledge, since this can only enhance their commitment to, and mastery of, their learning.”

Hallett and Grindle’s current research maps assessment patterns across disciplines, and will explore how well these are preparing students to produce innovative and lasting outputs that will benefit them, the public and the future workplace.

For more information about the SRHE International Conference on Research into Higher Education, see the conference website.