“Festivalisation” as a recruitment strategy: Are knowledge-based events widening participation in HE? 

In recent decades, the democratisation of education has led to an increase in the participation of low social-economic communities, giving its members the opportunity to have access to better paid jobs and also to decision-making positions and processes in society. However, in countries where awareness of social differences in the access to Higher Education (HE) is high, different measures have been taken to ensure that equality of opportunities exist among the different communities and therefore across society.

The idea of community is characterised by a lack of precision, and may be determined by the specific circumstances in which it is being alluded to. In this article, two types of communities come to the fore: geographical community, which is defined by territorial boundaries; and community of identity, which is based on shared characteristics, such as non-participation in HE.

In the United Kingdom, widening participation has been given prime focus. Within the context of HE, it could be seen as the basis on which to measure the prevalence of social justice, cohesion and equality. Although different measures have been taken specifically to widen participation, as well as a range of top-up initiatives and regulations, much remains to be done. Low participation neighbourhoods with respect to HE in the UK have been identified within the Office for Students’ POLAR (Participation of Local Areas) classifications. Publicly available data shows the participation of young people in HE for geographical areas on a range of scales, from Regions to council wards.

Different initiatives are being developed to disseminate knowledge beyond academia and reinforce the role of research and overall knowledge development in the wider society. Some of these initiatives are considered public engagements, others are informational or simply open-public events.

Despite the criticism of an increased marketization of HE, educational institutions use certain events not only to compete on a global market scale, but also to share information, enabling public engagement in research. These events, such as the Festival of Learning or NTU’s recent Festival of Mental Health, also aim to contribute towards knowledge development in the wider society. They may attract, with more or less indirect impact, members from a wide range of communities, amongst them members from low participation neighbourhoods.

This corresponds to a current trend in the increased use of events as a catalyst for social change. Getz (2007) defines different types of events; these can take educational and scientific forms. These events, along with the ones organised by universities to communicate and disseminate knowledge within the context of academic research, could be said to belong to a newly created category of knowledge-based events, which encompasses the idea of co-creation and engagement.

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The rise in tuition fees and the resultant financial burden on university students within England has seen a growing emphasis placed on the importance of securing paid employment on graduation in the context of an increasingly globalised and multi-culture economy. Globalisation has contributed to fiercer competition: employment opportunities that enable UK students to achieve the minimum threshold to start repaying their tuition loan and meeting financial exigencies are challenging, and this competition is likely to increase with the UK aiming to recruit the best talents from the rest of the world to fuel its economy.

The world’s globalised and multi-cultured economy no longer confines to specific geographical locations. This presents consequences for how university graduates are to be positioned for jobs within an economy that has taken a much more global dimension. For instance, most higher education institutions in the past were funded by states to serve the purpose of the nation in providing a work force that will serve local economies or advance the cause of regional and national development. Today, the dynamic is different and the world is sometimes  referred to as a global village or, as Friedman said, a flat world with many people being able to access jobs in different regions and from different geographical locations. Consequently, it is imperative for different nations, universities and their graduates to be able to engage in this evolving economic context in an attempt to boost both graduate employability and national economies. The idea of graduate engagement is not limited to graduates finding jobs but also includes their ability to retain them in a rapidly evolving economy. The rest of the blog can be accessed here!

Different types of assessment abound in existing literature. The focus of this blog is on Assessment for Learning which is formative in nature and can be strategised in different ways to enhance the student learning experience.

Whilst different strategies for conducting assessment for learning exist, the one at the nexus of this blog is ‘engineering effective classroom discussions, questions… that elicit evidence of learning’ (Williams, 2009). Such an assessment strategy can engender student engagement and readiness for learning. In certain circumstances, academics have used the audience response system known as clickers (Caldwell, 2007; DeBourgh, 2007; Martyn, 2007) to conduct formative assessment and engage learners. These clickers are user friendly handheld transmitter or technology used to foster active learning (Caldwell, 2007; Martyn, 2007). They provide opportunities for the presenter to poll responses from the audience on a variety of subjects or lines of enquiry.

In a lecture setting, audience responses can be collected within the framework of assessment for learning and this can form the basis for discussion, introduction of new concepts and elicitation of collective engagement within a learning process. Recently, the use of clickers during lectures can be comfortably replaced with learners’ mobile devices, in which case, Mentimeter, an audience response system using smartphones can be used.

In an age of digital natives, the use of Mentimeter and Smartphones to enhance the learning experience of students may be considered worthwhile. Nonetheless, there is need to consider the pedagogical implications of this intervention.

The rest of this blog which resulted from a presentation can be accessed here!