ELC Meeting March 2023
At the last meeting the Engaged Learning Community were joined by Marie Xypaki from SOAS. Marie is an educational developer at SOAS University London and a researcher at the Institute of Education, UCL. She was instrumental in developing UCL’s approach to Community Engaged Learning, including the development of toolkits and guides.
In the session Marie shared the learnings from a staff-student partnership project at SOAS University exploring decolonising the curriculum based on student self-reflections and lived experiences. She reflected on strengthening the links between decolonisation and community engaged learning practice and posed the following thought-provoking questions:
- How can the knowledge of (diverse) community groups (local/global level) stop stereotypes and contribute to the decolonisation of curriculum content?
- What can the role of diverse community groups in the classroom be? How can these groups change the power dynamics? How can these groups enable students to see themselves reflected more in the curriculum?
- How about assessing students for their engagement with/understanding of the knowledge systems of diverse community groups (local/global level)? About their ability to co-design solutions and new knowledge with these groups?
- If decolonisation in the curriculum is (also) about introducing subaltern knowledge, then isn’t community engaged learning practice well-placed to do that?
Watch a recording of the session.
Join us for our next session.
Engaged Learning Best Practice Showcase
12:30pm – 2:30pm. June 14th 2023.
Part of the Engaged Learning Community event series.
- A showcase of engaged learning practice from the Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.
- Practical methods, tools, and advice for delivering community engaged learning at scale.
- An interactive and practical session that develops solutions for implementing community engaged learning in your own School or Department.
The multi-award-winning Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CfIE) has been running engaged learning units with UG and PGT students since 2017. In this event the CfIE team, their students, and their external ‘clients’ will explore Why, How, and What they do to generate impacts for students, clients, and academics alike.
We’re encouraging participants to develop their own ‘client brief’ at the event – which we’ll then try and solve together in the session. Have a think beforehand about these questions:
- What would ‘success’ look like for an engaged learning element in your own curriculum?
- Where have you already got to and what are the challenges to further progress?
- What options are you considering as a way forward?
- What resources and support can you draw on within or beyond your immediate context?