Education Day 2015: 'students as partners'

Over 150 Imperial staff, students and external guest speakers came together to discuss the possibilities and practicalities of engaging 'students as partners'.

Wednesday 11 March 2015
Sir Alexander Fleming Building
South Kensington campus

Innovative developments at Imperial and beyond inspired the theme for Imperial’s Education Day 2015: ‘students as partners’. The event addressed the following questions:

  • What do we mean by students as partners?
  • Why engage students as partners at Imperial?
  • What benefits and challenges of these partnerships arise for staff and students?

In the spirit of this theme the event was planned and delivered by staff and students in partnership. The afternoon event commenced at 13:00 with a joint welcome from the President of Imperial College, Professor Alice Gast, and Imperial College Union President, Tom Wheeler. Imperial staff and students shared examples of partnerships on programme design, assessment and feedback, and research. Our external presenters were leading expert Professor Mick Healey, author of the recent HEA publication Engagement through partnership: students as partners in learning and teaching in higher education (at Higher Education Academy) and Dr Tansy Jessop (at University of Winchester), a leader on the TESTA project (Transforming the Experience of Students Through Assessment). A panel session involving audience Q&A concluded the formal event and informal discussions continued during a reception.

Education Day March 2015

Event recordings

Welcome address

Keynote speaker

Examples from Imperial: student - staff partnerships

  • GTAs and UTAs... Students on the UG teaching team - Dr Lorraine Craig, Academic Tutor, Department of Earth Science and Engineering and Associate Dean for Learning and Teaching, Engineering; Sarah Dodd, Super GTA, Department of Earth Science and Engineering and Isobel Mackay, Undergraduate Teaching Assistant (UTA), Department of Earth Science and Engineering
  • Building communities for both curriculum design and student participation - Dr Bridgette Duncombe, Director of Undergraduate Studies, Department of Chemistry and Chemistry student partners Ollie Benton, Oli Robotham and Athanasius (Nas) Andriopoulos
  • Team-Based Learning: an experiment in AMB teaching - Professor Pietro Spanu, Senior Tutor, Department of Life Sciences; Moira Sarsfield, Senior Learning Technologist, Department of Life Sciences and Biology student partners, Kirelle McManus and Sinziana Giju
  • Peer instruction methods - Dr David Dye, Reader in Metallurgy, Department of Materials and Materials student partner, Iacopo Russo

Transforming the Experience of Students Through Assessment (TESTA)

Panel discussion and Q&A

  • Panel discussion - Chair: Dr Martyn Kingsbury, Head, Educational Development Unit; Professor Mick Healey; Dr Tansy Jessop; Pascal Loose, ICU Deputy President (Education); Dr Anita Hall, Co-ordinator, Teaching Fellow Network and Rachel Vaux, GSU Rep and AWO for Life Sciences
Teaching strategy exchange

A form has been set up to share information about teaching strategies used at Imperial. If you would like to share information about a teaching strategy that you have used, that would enable another Imperial staff member to develop it for their context, please complete the online form.

‘Break-in’ workshops - unpacking the idea of students as partners

Preceding the afternoon programme, morning 'break-in’ workshops took place in the Imperial College Union, and provided opportunity for more direct student-staff discussion on ways and means for working in partnership around programme design, assessment and feedback, and research.