Advance HE Collaborative Development Fund – Beyond the Classroom
We are delighted to announce that a project entitled Beyond The Classroom – Supporting Student Success, led by Staffordshire University Centre of Learning and Pedagogic Practice (SCoLPP), in partnership with the Directorate of Student Success at the University of the West of Scotland (UWS), has been funded by Advance HE as part of their collaborative development fund (CDF). This project emerges at a time to turn up the volume on truly integrative practice where expertise is assembled to meet need. The projects outputs will share learning for individuals, teams and institutions in the sector about the possibilities of third space leadership of initiatives to transform student learning.
Higher education institutions (HEIs) are facing increased scrutiny over the value of the degree, not only as a transformational experience but as a societal good. This in turn has seen increased use of metrics to measure factors such as progression, retention and graduate outcomes. This external pressure has seen HEIs concentrate significant resources around the pedagogical experience and the direct academic-student relationship. However, there is considerable work being undertaken by ‘third space’ professionals (e.g. careers staff, enterprise advisors, learning technologists, writing centre staff) that may have a strong influence on outcomes and reinforce or support the work of academics.
We also know that, in the post-covid period, HEIs are more willing to experiment around the use of professional services colleagues to undertake activities (such as tutoring) that may have previously been the sole purview of an academic. Recent scholarly work by McIntosh and Nutt (2022) provides a range of examples of how third space/integrated practitioners work and are perceived within their universities. The work isn’t complete as often literature detailing success in initiatives to progress student outcomes can fail to provide an account of the structure and composition of the team. As such the ways in which expertise coalesces and indeed the lived experiences of individuals working in this space is hidden.
The project team is comprised of self-confessed third spacers! We have expertise from educational transformation, strategic projects, and enhancement activities. The project will curate institutional case studies that identify and disseminate new ways of working to show how third space professionals can be used to make a positive contribution to influence student outcomes. The final publication will provide practical examples of how this type of reconfiguration can be undertaken for the benefit of all.
We will shortly be inviting colleagues from across the sector to submit expressions of interest for in-depth and short case studies for consideration by the project team. These case studies will be published as part of a project report and placed on Advance HE’s knowledge hub. We will also be featuring the project work, as it progresses, on this blog. We are looking to showcase a breadth and depth of expertise and insight, and to capture ideas that can be applied in different contexts.
Further details of the project can be found on our project page. In our next post we will provide details of how you can contribute case studies.
