Enhancing Student Support Through Co-Creation: A Journey of Partnership and Innovation

Student feedback has become invaluable for shaping effective learning environments in today’s educational landscape. In this blog, Marianna and Punsisi from our Digital Education Team reflect on partnerships between students and the Learning and Teaching Academy.

Recent insights from our students have pinpointed a significant opportunity: enhancing the relevance and engagement of digital education support guides and resources. This feedback is not just a call to action; it’s a reminder of the importance of collaboration in our academic community. Recognising the need for improvement, we’re excited to announce an initiative that puts students at the heart of the solution. This blog post explores the powerful concept of student co-creation, highlighting the dynamic partnership between students and the LTA. Together, we are committed to developing innovative resources, refreshing our digital tool support guides, and providing practical study skills tips tailored to real student experiences. This collaboration aligns seamlessly with our university’s strategic aims, emphasising the critical role of collaborative working relationships, actively seeking student feedback, and fostering co-creation opportunities. Student Champion scheme plays a significant role in this process.

Where it Began and How far we have come

The LTA developed the Student Champion Scheme to support learning and teaching excellence and enhance the student experience. Student Champions work in partnership with staff to develop and shape the learning and teaching environment, and overall student experience. They come from different schools and therefore they bring lots of different insights and experiences with them.  The Digital Education team of LTA have worked with them since 2018 on four projects. As the digital education team, we aim to improve the student experience through the support University provides for digital tools and platforms. By joining forces with our Student Champions, we’re enhancing the learning resources available and empowering our academic community, cultivating an environment where students and staff can thrive. Figure 1 shows the total number of digital education projects completed to date to achieve this aim.

The number of students champions joining the scheme increases every year (Figure 2)

This year, however, we turned our attention to what students want—the support they seek and request for the year ahead. Student Champions indicated the need to enhance and improve student support resources. This made it obvious that the priority on students’ agenda wasn’t a priority on ours. We wanted to identify the gaps in student support resources where focus groups worked in our favour. We came across with many “I don’t know,” “I’m not sure,” “I usually ask others,” or “I just wing it.” One thing, however, kept jumping out from this feedback: the lack of support resources written by the students themselves.

Specific changes and improvements made for the digital tool support are:

• Rewriting the digital tool support guides
• Providing top tips on Learning Central (Bookmarks and screens illustrating top tips for the week)
• Induction slide template for the schools

The Power of Student Involvement

Maggie, one of the Student Champions, reflects on the work and her experiences:

The tasks students engaged in, and the benefits they gained are highlighted in Figure 3:

Reflection and the future

Empowering students with a voice has been a cornerstone of our approach. We have fostered a sense of belonging and validation by allowing students to share their thoughts and ideas. This has enriched their educational experience and strengthened our community.

We have operated a ‘closed feedback loop’—actively seeking student feedback, making necessary adjustments, and sharing the improvements with the student community. This ensures that students feel heard and valued. We have fine-tuned our content to echo the rhythm and style of our students, ensuring it is informative while resonating with the students’ way of learning. This alignment has made our resources more effective and engaging.

However, we also learned that simply developing numerous guides wasn’t always helpful. It became clear that students needed to be well-informed about accessing and locating these resources. To address this, we streamlined our induction package to offer schools a comprehensive yet adaptable resource.

Our future focus will be on enhancing equality, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). We aim to create a Cynefin with an educational environment where every student feels valued and supported, regardless of background.  Cynefin is a Welsh term which means ‘habitat’. To achieve this, we will further involve students in brainstorming sessions to identify and address issues. Their insights and experiences are invaluable in shaping a more inclusive and equitable educational framework.

Conclusion

Our journey of co-creation with students has been transformative. By involving students champions we developed the Learning Central good practice guide and other engaging, and relevant materials. This partnership has fostered a sense of community and mutual respect, ultimately enhancing the educational experience for all. We look forward to continuing this collaborative approach, ensuring that our resources evolve to meet the ever-changing needs of our students.