Upcoming Events
StudentShapers Symposium 2024: 27th November (with registration link)
Location: Room 164, Skempton building, South Kensington campus
Save the date! On Wednesday 27 November from 13:00 to 16:00, we invite you to the StudentShapers Symposium – a half-day event celebrating and showcasing some of the outputs from our staff-student partnership projects. This year’s theme is Expanding Horizons: Inclusivity, Innovation, and Sustainability in Supporting Student Experience.
Featured focus areas include:
- Enhancing Inclusive Learning and Engagement with Innovation and Supportive Transitions: Projects supporting student transitions to university through innovative methods, Generative AI tools, and methods of measuring student outcomes from Higher Education.
- Empowering Learning and Sustainability: Explore initiatives that embed sustainability in learning, from a maths resource catalogue for new and prospective students, to innovative ways to transform complex concepts into engaging, accessible ideas and lab designs where students take significant ownership in designing experiments.
- Transforming Learning with VR and AI: Delve into how VR can support student confidence and how GenAI tools like GPTs can be used to enhance learning and support digital engagement.
Whether you're a student, educator, or staff member, this symposium offers insights into the future of education. Register today and expand your learning horizons with us!
Register your attendance at the Symposium here.
Project proposal writing workshops: 2nd October 2024 and 14th January 2025
StudentShapers supports students to engage in partnership with staff to work on projects which enhance the student experience, both within and outside of programme curricula. Students are supported with a bursary during projects. Do you have an idea that could have an impact on education at Imperial?
In preparation for submitting proposals for funding, this workshop is intended to help build a robust partnership proposal. There will be an introduction at the start of the session but staff and students are invited to attend at any time on a drop-in basis with either their ideas or draft proposals for feedback. The aim is that participants are better equipped to propose successful projects that adopt a robust and effective partnership approach.
In order to receive a calendar invitation please confirm the workshop you wish to attend here.
Previous events
- Project proposal writing workshops: 17th and 18th January 2024 *recording and slides included*
- Start of Summer workshops 25th and 26th June: Recording included
- StudentShapers Symposium: 11th October 2023
- StudentShapers Symposium 12 October 2022 *Panopto recording link included*
- StudentShapers project proposal writing workshops - 18th and 19th January 2023 *slides and recording link included*
- Start of Summer workshops: 27th and 28th June - *recording link and documentation included*
- StudentShapers End of Summer Symposium - 9th October 2019 *Panopto link included*
- End of Summer StudentShapers Symposium - 21st October 2020 *Microsoft Stream link included*
- CHERSnet: Working with students as partners in higher education - *slides included - 23rd January 2019
Project proposal writing workshops: 17th and 18th January 2024
StudentShapers supports students to engage in partnership with staff to work on projects which enhance the student experience, both within and outside of programme curricula. Students are supported with a bursary during projects. Do you have an idea that could have an impact on education at Imperial?
In preparation for submitting proposals for funding, this workshop is intended to help build a robust partnership proposal. There will be an introduction at the start of the session but staff and students are invited to attend at any time on a drop-in basis with either their ideas or draft proposals for feedback. The aim is that participants are better equipped to propose successful projects that adopt a robust and effective partnership approach.
- Wednesday 17th January, 1-2PM (Microsoft Teams meeting online) Please see the recording here, and a PDF of the slides here: Jan 2024 SS Proposal writing workshop.
- Thursday 18th January, 1:30-2:30, Room 3, Seminar and Learning Centre, 5th Floor, Sherfield Building, South Kensington campus.
Start of Summer workshops: 25th June (online option)
Time: 1-2PM
Location: Via Microsoft Teams
Start of Summer workshops: 26th June (in-person option)
Time: 12:30-1:30PM
Location: Room 601 Skempton building, South Kensington campus
StudentShapers Symposium with lunch - 11th October
'Supporting students beyond the curriculum'
Location: Rooms 120 and 121, Sir Alexander Fleming building, South Kensington campus
Time: 1:30-5:30PM
1.30-2:00pm
End of projects lunch, celebration of success, and reflection for student partners
2:00-3:00pm
Three project presentations (project partners listed in alphabetical order, * denotes student partner):
Promoting students' academic success: evaluation of the BSc Medical Biosciences Academic and Study Skills (ASK) module using a student-centred approach.
Rosanne Chong*, Ekaterina Kirina*, Manuela Mura, Isabella Schmidt-Cornelius*.
Professional Values and Behaviours: Developing professional identity in phase 1 medical students
Eve O'Connell*, Rasha Mezher-Sikafi
Shaping learning analytics
Maryam Fetanat*, Megha Goel*, Camille Kandiko-Howson, Varsha Otta*, Charlotte Whittaker
3:00pm
Q&A panel with presenters
Wrap up: tea/coffee
StudentShapers Symposium: Partnership with diversity
Date: Wednesday 12th October
Time: 2-4:30PM
Location: G34 and Foyer, Sir Alexander Fleming building, South Kensington campus
This year we will be focussing on showcasing projects that enhance aspects of Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in the student experience. Efforts to develop this important aspect of our educational mission inevitably benefit all students and the projects will demonstrate the value in engaging in authentic partnership with a full range and diversity of students and student expertise that our student community can offer. Together, these partnerships can provide a powerful vehicle for longer term change and impact that both staff and students can benefit from.
Please find the Panopto link here, with timestamps for specific presentations below.
Programme
1400-1415 (Timestamp 00:04:10 to 00:14:10)
Welcome: Mike Streule, Director Imperial StudentShapers
Introduction: Stephen Curry, Assistant Provost for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: The EDI landscape across College and our Education
Note: Project partners presented in alphabetical order. Highlighted partners will present the project, * denotes student partner.
1420-1440 (Timestamp 00:14:35 to 00:37:45)
Making Mechanical Engineering more inclusive
Linda Stringer, Julie Varley, Abdigani Nur*, Simrit Sekhon*
There are many dimensions of diversity found in the MEng in Mechanical Engineering student body; our student partners focused on increasing inclusivity for two particular groups of students. We produced posters, written experiences and accessible thermodynamics notes to help neurodiverse students, and a new lecture on matrix transformations plus additional practise problem sheets was written which will help the students who have not studied Further Maths A Level. Increasing inclusivity should improve the learning experience for all learners.
1440-1500 (Timestamp 00:38:16 to 00:56:23)
Reviewing and enhancing the careers provision for students from Widening Participation backgrounds
Richard Carruthers, Hana Ismail*, Benedict Moss*, Jessica Popplewell
During the project we developed a thorough understanding of the challenges facing WP students in terms of graduate outcomes by conducting a focus group, survey as well as secondary research. We reviewed the current Careers Service resources and collaborated with the Careers team to make recommendations for improvements.
1500-1515: break
1515-1535 (Timestamp 01:15:33 to 01:45:54)
[Educational research] Exploring women physics lecturers’ teaching choices and decisions
Bilgesu Aydin*, Jessie Durk, Adele Julia*, Isabel Rabey, Amy Smith,
With no women lecturers for any of the core undergraduate courses in the Department of Physics for 2021/22, it is important to understand the choices and decisions women academics make when choosing whether to lecture. Qualitative interviews with 7 academic women, analysed through the lens of expectancy-value theory, revealed that they highly valued lecturing, including the interactions with students and developing students’ skills. Confidence and workload were seen as key factors when choosing whether to lecture – being familiar with the course material increased confidence and decreased the perceived workload cost of having to learn something new.
1535-1545 (Timestamp 01:46:03 to 01:59:59)
- [Work in progress: in conversation] Enhancing EDI in the chemical engineering curriculum : developing sustainable practices
Deesha Chadha, Jerry Heng, Yuxin (Emerald) Sun*
This project follows on from a preliminary data gathering exercise and is aimed at developing some sustainable practices in the department of chemical engineering which further enhance current EDI provisions. The project is not yet complete, but we have been working in partnership with one of our students in an effort to develop suitable content, and modes of delivery that better engage students with EDI in terms of integrating it into the curriculum. We discuss some of the ongoing opportunities and challenges associated with this work.
StudentShapers project proposal writing workshops - 18th and 19th January 2023
StudentShapers supports students to engage in partnership with staff to work on projects which enhance the student experience, both within and outside of programme curricula. Students are supported with a bursary during projects. Do you have an idea that could have an impact on education at Imperial?
In preparation for submitting proposals for funding, this workshop is intended to help build a robust partnership proposal. There will be an introduction at the start of the session but staff and students are invited to attend at any time on a drop-in basis with either their ideas or draft proposals for feedback. The aim is that participants are better equipped to propose successful projects that adopt a robust and effective partnership approach.
- Wednesday 18th January, 12:30-1:30 (Microsoft Teams meeting online)
- Thursday 19th January, 12:30-1:30, Meeting Room 1, 5th Floor, Sherfield Building, South Kensington campus.
Presentation slides can be found here: StudentShapers Proposal Writing workshop Jan 2023.
A recording of the online workshop can be found here.
Start of Summer workshops: 27th June (online option)
Time: 1-2PM
Location: Via Microsoft Teams
Start of Summer workshops: 28th June (in-person option)
Time: 12:30-1:30PM
Location: Room 060A Skempton building, South Kensington campus, directions here.
Recording of the online workshop can be found here.
Slides can be found here: Start of Project Meeting presentation 27th June 2023
A copy of the Quick Start guide can be found here: StudentShapers project quick start guide.
Summer Project symposium: 9th October 2019
Date: Wednesday 9th October, 2-6PM
Location: Pippard Lecture theatre, 5th Floor, Sherfield building, South Kensington campus.
This will be an opportunity for participants of projects running over the Summer to summarise their experience in the form of presentations and discussion, as well as an occasion for thanks from the StudentShapers team.
| Time | Presentation |
|---|---|
| 13.45 | Arrival opens |
| 14.00 | Introduction by Mike Streule, Director Imperial StudentShapers and Simone Buitendijk, Vice Provost (Education) |
| 14.20 - 15.10 | StudentShapers Project presentations |
|
Curriculum development: 5 x 10 minutes |
|
| 15.10 - 15.20 | Break |
| 15.25 - 15.45 | Keynote talk: Camille Kandiko Howson, Associate Professor of Education |
| 15.45 - 16.25 | StudentShapers Project presentations |
|
Educational research and evaluation 4 x 10 minutes |
|
| 16.30 | Wine and drinks Reception |
Link here: End of Summer StudentShapers symposium
Summer Project symposium: 21st October 2020
Date: 21st October
Time: 2-3:30PM
Location: online via Microsoft Teams
Following the summer vacation, and the peak of StudentShapers projects taking place the symposium will showcase a proportion of these projects to demonstrate the impactful outcomes across the College that can be achieved by adopting an authentic partnership approach across staff-student communities. The event will demonstrate some of the exciting developments across the college and provide attendees with ideas and insights for anyone considering working more closely with student partners in the next year, or developing a StudentShapers project.
We will have three themed sessions:
(Contributors for each presentation listed in alphabetical order, *denotes students)
- The impact of partnership
Department of Aeronautics (Lien Chong*, Maha Khamlichi*, Errikos Levis, Amy Picton, Silvestre Pinho, Maria Ribera Vicent, Hayley Wong*,)
The Aeronautics department has largely transitioned to paperless teaching, with all students being issued tablets since 2018. This has opened up new options for the delivery of interactive and audio-visual content, alongside traditional written content. StudentShapers projects have created a range of resources which form part of a comprehensive e-learning approach and that are already being used for teaching and virtual labs. In addition, the processes for creating this original material have been recorded and constitute a solid foundation for further development across the MEng programme. Alongside this, StudentShapers have been engaged to improve wellbeing and community support while working remotely. Student led workshops and resources were developed from a student perspective and a survey gathered feedback and engaged the broader student community on remote working and settling in to ICL. Enhanced resources that all students can access on a Wellbeing and Community are hosted on a MS Teams page.
- Planning for the future: digital students and online learning
The presentation will explore our experiences of conducting educational research project about being a student in the Digital Age. We will explain the project, unpack lessons learnt in the process of partnership as well as present some data we collected and analysed about the role of technology in students' lives.
Timothy Heightman* & Thomas Hurkxens: Augmented simulations: Physics Lab
With a team of talented student developers, our group are creating a platform on which virtual and mixed reality learning experiences can be developed, allowing learners to visualise and interact in 3D in innovative ways and paving a new path for digital solutions in higher education. As a proof of concept, the group created a virtual optics lab capable of modelling high resolution diffraction phenomena. With more content on the way in the Imperial ecosystem and beyond, this medium is one to watch out for!
- The nth dimension of partnership
Please book to attend using the available EventBrite link. Please note you will receive a link to the Microsoft Teams meeting the day prior to the Symposium if you are on our attendance list.
Find the Microsoft stream link here.
CHERSnet: Working with students as partners in higher education: Rationale for the approach and opportunities for learning and dissemination
Location: Room 7, Seminar and Learning Centre, 5th Floor, Sherfield building
Time: 11:00-13:00
** Slides from the event** - CHERSnet.