Past Event details

Problematizing Student Support: The affective and academic dimensions

Tuesday, 07 February 2012

Helping and Supporting Students: A case for the development of collegiality, dialogue and ‘practice’
Dr Jan Huyton, Senior Lecturer and PDP/Personal Tutoring Co-ordinator, Cardiff Metropolitan University

In the higher education context, support work with students often occurs in private space, behind the closed doors of a tutor’s office. Using Goffmanesque dramaturgical imagery I have described such interactions as frequently taking place ‘off-stage’. It is essential that the manner in which tutors approach this challenge is theorised as a form of academic or pedagogical practice. This paper will draw on research which demonstrates that many tutors are working in a supportive capacity with students, without a clear sense of the boundaries of their role, and without discussing their work with colleagues. I will argue that the promotion of dialogue facilitated by more collegial forms of working offers the most constructive way forward. This would address the need to develop a notion of ‘practice’ (MacIntyre, 2007) for supporting students based on academic, pedagogical and ethical principles, and would also offer the opportunity to explore practice via peer supervision.

Helping and supporting students: analysing the concept of need
Dr Janette Myers, Senior Lecturer in Student Learning and Support, St George’s, University of London

This paper will argue for a critical examination of the concept of student need. To this end a model of need and its relationship to another key concept in higher education, the development of autonomy, will be explained and discussed. A comparison of the cases of two similar institutions with very different approaches will be used to show how the idea of the student contains constructions of need that have implications for academic practice. The Medical Schools of King’s College London and St George’s, University of London both have schemes which are designed to extend entry to medical degrees to students who are currently under-represented. Both Medical Schools are part of the University of London, located in South London, nine stops apart on the London Underground and have the aim of attracting similar students. The schemes have similar objectives but in other respects are very different. These striking differences serve as a way of considering the question of the construction of student need and its implications that is applicable to other forms of student support and academic practice.

Affective dimensions of supporting doctoral students and implications for academic development for doctoral supervisors
Jannie Roed, Principal Lecturer at the University of West London

Doctoral education is not only about the production of new knowledge. It is also about the development of individuals and the shaping of new identities. Green (2005:154) has described doctoral supervision as a ‘field of identification’, arguing that the transformational processes taking place in the supervisory space is about negotiating and re-positioning identities between students and supervisors, and Crossouard (2010) has shown how the doctoral learning experience has a powerful impact on how individuals view themselves both during their studies and after completion. However, in the process, supervisors, too, develop their professional identities (Halse 2011).Using a conceptual framework based on Margaret Archer’s work on agency and structure (Archer 2000; Archer 2003) and Judith Butler’s theories around accounting for oneself (Butler 2005), the paper draws on findings from 14 in-depth interviews with doctoral supervisors to explore how affective dimensions of the doctoral supervisory process shape professional identities.

Network Convenors: Prof. Paul Blackmore (KCL) and Prof. Joëlle Fanghanel (University of West London)

Event booking details
To reserve a place at this seminar please register at http://www.eventdotorg.co.uk/events.aspor telephone +44 (0) 207 427 2350. SRHE events are open to all and free to SRHE members as part of their membership package. The delegate fee for non-members is £25 [full time students £20]. Non-members wishing to join the Society may do so at the time of registration and the delegate fee will be waived. Please note that places must be booked in advance and that a £25 for non-attendance will be charged if a place has been reserved but no notice of cancellation/non-attendance has been given in advance.

Network: Academic Practice

Date(s): Tuesday, 07 February 2012

Times: 13:00 - 16:30

Location: SRHE, 73 Collier St, London N1 9BE

This event has expired