This is the second of a two-part piece by Verona Ní Drisceoil (Senior Lecturer in Law at Sussex) and Jo Wilson (Lecturer in Commercial Law at Sussex) reflecting on Sussex Law School’s inaugural Teaching and Learning Symposium held in June 2021. Both Jo and Verona focus on education and scholarship in their work, and this post (and Part 1) launches a new open-ended series on education and scholarship within the LaPSe of Reason blog, building on previous contributions related to this theme.
In this follow up blogpost we raise further questions and provocations, of, and on, some of the key themes of the SLS Symposium specifically on engagement, community and belonging, and how they intersect. As part of these provocations we draw on findings from our current research projects.
What do we really mean by ‘engagement’?
In planning the SLS symposium, we had several opportunities to discuss our own thoughts on what is meant by engagement. How do we define student engagement, we asked? What does it look like and what should it look like? Have we all been guilty, we wondered, of seeking out one dominant type of ‘engagement’ in our classroom spaces? Are law schools particularly guilty of this, given problematic assumptions and dominant narratives about ‘behaving like a lawyer’, ‘thinking like a lawyer’ or in ‘being confident’? We asked again, is higher education more generally set up for one type of performative engagement?
As has been well documented elsewhere, what is at play throughout much of the neoliberal university is performativity – student, staff, and management performativity. We are all, essentially, performing. Macfarlane (2019), in his work, notes that ‘student performativity is a mirror of teacher performativity’ and recognises that there is a ‘demand to play the game’. This then links, of course, to debates about confidence and belonging and what those terms mean. Is performativity confidence? Are extrovert displays performative and therefore ‘engagement’?
In Verona’s current research on ‘Confidence, Community and Belonging’, 83% of student participants said that confidence had/has a significant impact on academic progress and student experience. The student responses, however, also recognised the very complex nature of this relationship and impact. As one student noted on confidence:
‘For me, its foundation is in a feeling of security. It’s also informed by external influences, respect from others, interest from others, friendships, love, and support. It’s knowing whatever space you are in, whether that’s literal or figurative, is safe.’
This reference to ‘safety’ is worth highlighting and unpacking further. It brings us, we argue, back to this point on engagement. It points, we suggest, to the close correlation between engagement and feeling safe, confident, and indeed belonging in your learning environment. If you don’t feel you belong, feel safe, how can you ‘engage’, perform?
Many of these themes and issues – confidence, safety, accessibility, belonging – also emerged from the responses given by staff and students in Jo’s current research on Engagement in the Classroom. When asked to define the term ‘student engagement’ many participants simply referred to the active role of a student in the learning process: ‘participating, listening and contributing’; ‘students taking an active rather than passive role in their education’.
But both staff and students also highlighted the role of the teacher in creating a learning environment which enables students to engage. One staff member described student engagement as:
‘A process that requires positive action by both students and educators. Educators need to create an environment, including resources and a classroom environment conducive to learning.’
In similar vein, one student commented that for them, student engagement is about ‘inspiring students to participate and play an active role in their learning through guidance.’ The key message then is the crucial part that we play as educators in facilitating and encouraging our students to engage through our teaching practices. This, of course, includes the extent to which we create accessible and inclusive learning opportunities. One member of staff noted that student engagement is ‘The extent to which students participate in (class) discussion – includes the extent to which they feel “safe” and “included” to do so’. Similarly, for one student, engagement means the ‘Equal ability of any student to participate and be noticed/heard.’ These responses highlight quite profoundly the link between engagement and feeling safe, feeling confident and feeling a sense of belonging in your learning environment. We must create an environment in which all students feel able and inspired to participate.
What role for technology?
This leads us on to the potential role for technology in breaking down some of those barriers to creating an equal, safe, and inclusive space for all students to engage. Indeed, the pandemic has shown us that technology can help us to improve the student learning experience; to bring different forms of engagement into the classroom space, and beyond, as the examples of practice in Part 1 highlighted. This is not to say that technology solves all the gaps in teaching and learning. It certainly does not. On this, a useful reminder from Lydia Arnold is ‘need first, technology second’ (Keynote, HEFi Festival, 5 July 2021).
When asked about the utility of interactive learning technologies such as polls, a number of students, taking part in Jo’s research, commented positively on accessibility and inclusivity. One student noted that online learning tools ensure that ‘students participate and it allows them to do it anonymously so if they get the question wrong, they won’t feel embarrassed.’ Another commented that ‘Everybody is able to participate equally, which is not always the case during in-person lectures.’ What this highlights, importantly, is that these interactive technologies (once all students of course have access to technology to start with) help with providing multiple means of engagement. This, in turn, means that all students have an equal opportunity to benefit from that learning experience, rather than just those students whose backgrounds, social capital, personalities – and our biases, perhaps – allow them to embrace more traditional Q&A/vocal forms of engagement.
What do we mean by Community and Belonging?
In the same way that we suggest it is necessary to challenge views on ‘engagement’, it is necessary to consider what we really mean by community and belonging. It is quite easy to say ‘let’s do more to build community and belonging’ but as we noted in Part 1 it is important to ask, and reflect on, what we mean by community and belonging: What does it mean for our students? What does it look like in online learning and what will it look like next term for students returning or incoming, having experienced much disruption in the last 18 months? What does it look like against the backdrop of further requests on us to increase student intake year on year?
We ask these questions not in an attempt to avoid a commitment to doing the work but rather to emphasise that we need to reflect more deeply about what is possible and perhaps to be more honest about what is not possible, and why. This questioning also allows us, we argue, to think about where we do community and belonging work, where does it start and finish (if ever), the need to be more creative and, indeed, to ask who does the work? Whilst we note the very need for this work, we also stress that it cannot be done be a few individuals, namely female colleagues, early career academics and those with student facing and pastoral admin roles. It is something we all need to think about collectively, and individually.
In thinking about community and belonging next term then, we advocate that a community, belonging, and wellbeing focus (as highlighted by Fiona Clements in Part 1) must happen more proactively within our seminars. This focus links to ongoing work on decolonising the curriculum and building inclusive classrooms. To achieve this, it might be the case that some subject content is removed, or some seminars are pared back to simply allow time for students to connect and engage with us and each other. Our progression students have already indicated that they would very much welcome more opportunities next term ‘to connect, meet new friends and to get to know us’.
‘Get to know us’, is a recurring theme that came through in Verona’s research this term. Student participants rated having a connection with staff in SLS as more important than a connection with other students ‘to feel part of the SLS community’. On community more generally, it seems our focus has been placed too heavily on building community between students when in fact they want to be part of a community with us. We need therefore to foster spaces with our students rather than for our students. This can happen by building on examples such as the Employability Showcase and the Your Teachers are Researchers event to allow our students, particularly our undergraduate students, to be part of events and seminars with us – to have a voice and to share in a non-hierarchical space.
Taking a UDL approach
To conclude, for us, the pandemic has, in a good way, challenged, more deeply, our thoughts and assumptions about engagement and community and belonging. It has placed the attention back on us. Linking to Macfarlane’s work above, we recognise that engagement – and the general trend of discussions on ‘engagement’ – is as much about us, as our students. Vocal engagement and interaction with us in the lecture theatre or across Zoom does help us feel better about ourselves – our performance as teachers – and this is perfectly reasonable. Teaching is about relationships and relationality, but we argue, there is a need, particularly in law, to move beyond dominant views about what ‘engagement’ looks like and how we measure it anecdotally or otherwise and indeed how it changes over time, and at different stages of the student life cycle.
Similarly, with community and belonging, there is a need to be more reflexive about our approaches to community and belonging. How can we ensure that our students, all of our students, belong and feel part of a community? Is it possible? As we approach the coming term, we may wish to ask what we can do in our classrooms, and in our communications to ensure that all students feel like they belong and are valued and have a voice. This might start with some signposting on your Canvas page about your mission statement/s for your module, your commitment to an inclusive classroom and to invite students to provide feedback on how this can be achieved. It may also be a note on your Canvas page about accessibility – and again an invite to students to highlight any accessibility issues with content and resources. This is not about getting everything right, but it is about demonstrating that we are all learning and willing to learn and unlearn.
In broad terms, we suggest a move towards a universal design for learning (UDL) approach in our design and delivery. Such an approach has inclusion for all students at its core. It aims for no barriers to learning and by doing so asks difficult questions of us. It asks who is not in the room, and why not? What are the biases in our practice, and hierarchies in law schools, that prevent inclusion, engagement and community and belonging? And what changes can we make to our teaching practices to overcome those barriers?
Resources
CAST, Centre for Applied Special Technology. (2018) ‘Universal Design for Learning Guidelines version 2.2’. Available at: https://udlguidelines.cast.org/.
Caron, L and Gely, R. (2004) ‘Taking Back the Law School Classroom: Using Technology to Foster Active Student Learning’, Journal of Legal Education 54, 551-569.
Macfarlane, B. (2019) ‘The neoliberal academic: Illustrating shifting academic norms in an age of hyper-performativity’, Educational Philosophy and Theory 53(5), 459-468.
Merry, K. (2018) ‘Developing teaching practice with Universal Design for Learning’, Educational Developments 19(3), 16-19.
Research Projects
Ní Drisceoil, V. ‘Who is not in the room, and why not?’ (Spring 2021).
Wilson, J. ‘Engagement in the Classroom’ (Spring 2021).
LaPSe of Reason 
Thank you for a really insightful and thought-provoking piece, Jo and Verona. I think it is really helpful to interrogate the term ‘student engagement’ as I feel it is used so often in higher education without us necessarily knowing what we mean when we use it. As you identify, so often it is reduced down to whether or not a student contributes verbally in class. I like the idea of providing students with different ways in which to engage with their learning and it’s interesting how technology is one way which can actually enable this. The key seems to be employing a variety of different pedagogical approaches, rather than always privileging one approach.
I was interested in the discussion about community and feedback about students wanting to get to know us better. I wonder whether some staff might feel a but uncomfortable about what they might see as the breaking down of some of those barriers between staff and students. Might it bring with it an expectation to bring more of your personal life into the classroom? Or be more available to students? Or need to engage in pastoral/wellbeing issues which they don’t feel equipped for? So it’s interesting to unpack what ‘getting to know us’ means and would look like in practice.
The other tension, of course, is that although we can co-create with students and be in a community with them, the nature of the law school means there is that inherent power imbalance in that the staff write the assessments and mark them and so it is hard to move away from the ‘sage on the stage’ dynamic which I think continues to pervade higher education.