Sustainable cities: interfacing informal and formal curricular opportunities with the community

1. Education Excellence Seminars 2013 Sustainable cities: interfacing informal and formal curricular opportunities with the community Hannah Tweddell, Ash Tierney, Chris Willmore Esd-team@bristol.ac.uk, Google: ESD at Bristol

2. What are the drivers for student community research partnerships? Q What would a wordle of your institution’s community engagement show? What would you Student unions engagement wordle show? What are the opportunities?

3. Building Student Community Research Partnerships • Aim:“To create a culture where students are enabled and supported to research in partnership with communities” • Predicated on bringing theory and practice together in systematic long term relationships to make a difference and be different • Underpinned by research by Max Wakefield UBU Vice President Community and Maggie Leggett Centre for Public Engagement UOB

4. What can we aim to achieve? That graduates understand and have experience of: • every action has consequences: • think long term; • responsibility to others; • collaboration ; • can envisage a future world and their role in creating it; • that different disciplines bring different things to the table; • can have interdisciplinary conversations; • the richness of integrated theory and practice: Making a difference and being different walk the walk AND talk the talk

5. Aim: “To ensure all students have an opportunity to develop an understanding of sustainability and have an integrated experience of theory and practice in   their formal, informal and subliminal curriculum.” UOB ESD Strategy Bringing theory and practice together in research rich opportunities Action+reflection= education

6. The place at the centre of the circles is the place where all aspects come together: formal and informal curriculum, research and the physical community we are in. • Action without reflection is activism. • Activism is not necessarily the role of a University • Reflection without action is theory. Action + reflection = education

7. INFORMAL CURRICULUM ESTATES COMMUNITY FORMAL CURRICULUM RESEARCH

8. What students say….. • Want more project work to make SD more concrete and embedded • Want new paradigms to be offered, e.g. reimagining how economics is studied • Informal curriculum opportunities could be incorporated into the curriculum e.g. Green Impact or Engineers Without Borders • SD is viewed as an alternative and abstract thread – tree hugging. It needs to be academically rigorous • Disconnect between theory and application e.g. much attention is given to the philosophical aspects but this is not applied to the real world • Some faculties focus on a narrow perspective of SD

9. Formal curriculum • Research project focus • Community as subject or object of research – done about or done to • Problems of action research • Research ethics approval • Timescales • Limitations of field trips/ case studies

10. Informal curriculum activism • High levels of student activity • 100,000 hours a year via 30 projects; 250 societies • Life style setting • Guide to sustainable living • Freshers and moving out of hall lifestyle • http://www.bris.ac.uk/newstudents/undergraduate/studentlife/green.html • Structured learning: • Water and energy audits • Disciplinary Societies • E.g. Engineers without Borders • Major student led initiatives • Food cycle: http://foodcycle.org.uk/location/bristol/ • Big Give 20 tonnes a year so far

11. Making the links; scaffolding to reflective practitioners SOCIAL JUSTICE SYSTEMS THINKING LIFESTYLE SOCIAL TIME ACTION THEORY

12. Area of priority social need facing cuts in youth provision • Wanting research that is independent of local providers to inform decision making • Brokered link to UOB Student wanting to do a project on young people and sexual health for her Masters dissertation • Wins • Student gets fee plus active community support to get access to study cohort • Community get independent and objective study • Community led - Community steering group Report being actioned: direct impacts on major investment c £200k a year • Compatibility; timeline & ethics • But TWO parallel activites Case Study

13. At the centre of the circle Bristol Bike Project • Bristol Bike Project is a voluntary organisation that works with underprivileged communities to help develop skills around maintaining bikes, and to provide them with the bikes once they are road-worthy. • Outcomes • Community get works done using Uni skills • Student reflective and applied learning • By adding in the formal project element • student able to go into much more detail than would have otherwise been possible, or affordable, for the Bike Project. • Project report useful forBBP particularly for funding bids

14. Farmers Market: theory to practice • Started in formal curriculum • Global environment and Human Health • Direct action research so methodology and purpose is about learning through doing something that has an impact OUTCOMES • Students have learnt how to identify and deliver opportunities for change on the ground • Linked formal curriculum, informal and estates to achieve direct community impact : there would not be a regular farmers market on the precinct without the unit.

15. Embedded provison • individual student • embedded elective opportunity • whole programme • Whole institution e.g. Alberta

16. Whole programme student community research • Project to provide systematic community research project opportunities in Engineering • 3rd year research projects and 4th year design projects Kate Miler Centre for Public Engagement

17. Led by undergraduate interns • Undergraduates interns set up the placements scheme: • scoping potential community placements • Contacting and liaising with community partners • Co-designing feasible projects • Recruiting academic supervisors • Technical knowledge of engineering problems • Knowledge of civil engineering course • Potential to inspire their peers

18. Outcomes (year ) • 11 projects scoped with 8 community partners • 9 projects obtained academic supervisors • 6 projects (but 7 groups of students) taking place • Projects underway...

19. Findings • Supervisors: • Need to consider what they get out of it • Importance of matching research expertise to project • Community partners: • ‘Ownership’ of projects – meeting their needs • Long term relationship potential- project pipeline • Constraints – timelines • Interns: • Change agents • Valuable experience, • Project brokerage working with wide range of partners • Inspired them to do projects • Students: • Theory/Practice/ Research link • Enhancing skills

20. Challenges • Assessment of projects (especially as part of wider curriculum) • Linking to Intended Learning Outcomes of programme • Need to consider value to all partners involved in project • Key future questions: • Mapping the drivers for setting up a scheme • How best to scope schemes • Tackling the barriers • Scalability and sustainability

21. Building Student Community Research Partnerships report • Aim:“To create a culture where students are enabled and supported to research in partnership with communities” • Research study and institution wide recommendations • by Max Wakefield UBU Vice President Community and Maggie Leggett Centre for Public Engagement UOB • Student Green Fund and European Green Capital 2015 impetus

22. Student perceptions • Satisfaction of tangible results • Learning to interact with new groups of people in a sensitive way • Opening up life possibilities not previously considered • Developing new skills • Deeper understanding from contextualisation • Working with communities was far less solitary than research can be • The projects were really fun. • Compatibility of traditional single-disciplinary research and real-world community outcome requirements; new methodologies and logics. • More autonomy than an internship but under the University wing • Benefits of and need for reciprocity • Increased awareness of the need for reflexivity in the real world • Builds sustantial relationships with the community: reduces student transcience

23. Very often expectations were exceeded, in fact far exceeded. There is often a multiplier effect. There have been very few times when nothing has been delivered. Delivery is always at the very least interesting and useful for discussion or provocation. Instances where insights contributed which would not have materialised otherwise. • It’s dangerous to expect too much of them, best to take the opportunity to go with the flow... Having said that, any expectations I did have were superseded – my every day expectations were mundane, it has developed into something more, something much bigger. • What’s the point in being in Bristol if you’re not going to contribute to it? • It is part of what a University is to contribute to the community. • It breaks down in many ways the biggest problem of the ivory tower scenario:: students/academics can be totally isolated from societies, losing an understanding of how society works and how the rest of the world understands things. • By sensitising the University to it you are also making the University learn better what it is in society – this is the most valuable bit: research partnerships encourage reflexivity both within the university and the community partners.

24. Headline report conclusions • Scaffolding • Interdisciplinary experience • Peer to Peer • Examples of projects • Explicit links • Reflective practitioners • Resource centre • The ‘two masters’/ autonomy issue • Brokerage • Developing links between students, academics community • Articulating drivers /benefits for all parties • Templates to define expectations without bureaucracy • Building long term relationships • Timeline experience

25. Please keep in touch and share your experience of student community research • GOOGLE: ESD at Bristol for resources and contacts Link to us: https://www.facebook.com/BristolESD https://twitter.com/BristolESD http://www.youtube.com/user/BristolESD Email esd-team@bristol.ac.uk