What does care and connection at St George’s university mean to you?
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With the COVID-19 pandemic and the transition to blended learning, the concept of care and connection gains even more importance. Adapting to a new learning landscape can be challenging, I particularly struggled with the movement from A-levels to university, with the change in work content, environment and expectations. I found that a sense of belonging at St George’s was embedded in the little interactions I would have with peers, seminar tutors and lecturers. This was especially difficult during my first year with limited interactions and online lectures. I was unable to build a connection through a screen but as I progressed into my second year with the university adopting the blended learning format, it became a lot easier. Collaborating with peers on projects and having various interactive onsite sessions helped establish a shared identity. In my experience, care and connection at St George’s is fostered through active engagement with the surrounding space and people.
Education Day:
Education Day is an annual event that takes place at St George’s, University of London (SGUL) which focuses on educational experience within higher education. It is an opportunity for SGUL staff and students to come together to discuss and hear about the latest pedagogical trends within higher education e.g., Artificial Intelligence and more.
Last summer’s Education Day was focused on care and connection in university. Dr Karen Gravett gave a keynote addressing and exploring care, belonging and kindness and how it is interpreted in higher education.
Belonging and connection were key aspects of the talk, and both fall into the discussion of care within Higher Education. The idea of belonging is normally closely linked to academic achievement and success within higher education (Ahn and Davis, 2020, pp. 622). Karen’s study was an attempt to migrate from this normative and cultural definition of belonging to focus more on care and connection.
The questions by the study were what a students’ day-to-day interactions would ideally look like and how students themselves create belonging? This involved a series of interviews with the students and short vlogs of their day-to-day life. From the research, belonging was perceived as having a personalised and purposeful meaning to the student, where it was curated and created for themselves. Thus, reinforcing the notion that belonging can be thought as ever-changing and in constant motion. For instance, this could be the case for courses which involve placements, moving from one place to another, adapting to fit in this new environment, similarly seen in the progression from year 2 to 3 for many programmes.
Connection:
Dr Karen Gravett and her colleagues explored how multimodal communities of practice and various approaches could be used in assessments to value student voice. Dialogic feedback was introduced to create a space for student and staff connections. Reinforcing how assessments can be used as tool in manufacturing care and a sense of mutual respect. The mutual feeling of belonging is further shaped with student and staff partnerships and co-creation fostering a productive and engaging environment concerning curricula, assessment, and feedback practices.
Sense of belonging at St George’s, University of London
The Paramedic Science Team and MBBS team shared their approach to care and connection:
Paramedic Science – striving to be a village in a city
Katie Pavoni and Caroline Neveu – explained how they seek to foster a compassionate community in paramedic science. The Paramedic Simulation Centre, at the heart of the programme, is a space built on acknowledging the importance of learner experience and individuality whilst reinforcing the key values of compassion, care, and empathy. Within this space students are able to make mistakes and express their vulnerability when faced with real life scenarios in simulation, ensuring they can build up the resilience when working in a clinical environment. The humanised relationship between staff and students in paramedic science developed through visibility, where student support events, and gatherings at the beginning of academic year are organised with the aim of perpetuating a culture revolving around community.
Katie Pavoni also runs a Blue Light Champions initiative – a peer support scheme that encourages students to prioritise their welfare.
Blue Light Champions meet Prince of Wales (sgul.ac.uk)
MBBS – encompassing care and connection
Claire Spiller, Nicola Buxton, and Nicoletta Fossati – talked about supporting the transition to clinical learning: tacit knowledge, simulation, and reflection.
Patient care is used as a focal point to bring together students and staff. The MBBS team introduced a preparation week and practice groups for early year clinical studies with the dual aim of helping students understand the complexities of clinical environments, and to nurture a caring environment for students on their journey to becoming a doctor. The MBBS team facilitate simulation and reflective practices to encourage confidence building and a relationship encompassing care and connection with a small community of fellow MBBS students and staff members. The shift from student to patient focus is important as students develop an understanding of their role and professional behaviour through interactive small group sessions. A particular section of this talk that stood out to me was Nicoletta Fossati’s talk on students being ‘proto-professionals’. Proto coming from the word prototype can be interpreted as students professional identity as developing and not fixed as they experience and overcome barriers to find their position and place within the medical field.
Insight gained from care and connection focused Education Day:
- Relational pedagogy: concept of taking care of yourself so you can take care of others. Meaning the burden on teacher to care should not be confined, it should be a mutual experience whereby both student and staff build a connection that promotes some form of caring for each other.
- Belonging is a personalised experience
- To connect you must be willing to communicate with your peers and teaching staff
Reference:
Ahn, M.Y. and Davis, H.H. (2020) ‘Four domains of students' sense of belonging to university’, Studies in higher education (Dorchester-on-Thames), 45(3), pp. 622–634. doi: 10.1080/03075079.2018.1564902.
To find more information about Education Day Education Day (sgul.ac.uk)
Diib Abdi
Inclusive Education Assistant | Placement Year Student