Tag: work

The Art of Collaboration: Designing Assignments That Work – Faculty Focus
Inclusivity and feelings of psychological safety in the classroom should not be reserved solely for K-12 learning environments. Students in higher education also deserve nurturing spaces that focus on utilizing their personalized strengths and needs to foster increased academic and social development. A costly misconception is that pedagogical approaches in higher education must be lecture-based and teacher-led. Instead, it is an educator’s responsibility to design cooperative learning structures that facilitate comfort and collaboration regardless of grade level. These practical techniques will develop critical thinking and problem-solving abilities by creating intentional opportunities to enhance social and communication skills. The fundamental question becomes: How can educators plan for and deliver instructional content that is relatable and meaningful?

According to a recent survey by Salesforce (2022), just 12% of college students felt a strong sense of belonging in their institutions. Feelings of disconnection from their peers and institutions persisted after students returned to campus from remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. To address this dismal response to education, we must promote inclusive and respectful learning environments that foster engagement, motivation, and active discourse.

Purposeful Application to Teamwork

A practical and successful strategy is to design performance tasks using cooperative learning structures deliberately. Aside from promoting positive interdependence and individual accountability, students participate equally through simultaneous interactions. These actionable, collaborative strategies help educators navigate their role as facilitators, guiding and responding rather than lecturing and directing.

In an undergraduate education course, I establish a positive tone by holding morning meetings at the start of every class. The intention is to incorporate short, structured routines that foster community, address social-emotional needs, and transition students to the day’s lesson. Purposefully, I provide opportunities for students to connect and practice the social skills necessary to participate in rigorous critical thinking and problem-solving tasks. The goal is to elicit positive peer interactions and foster a sense of belonging and trust where students consider multiple perspectives and actively engage in an inclusive and receptive learning environment.

To enrich their classroom experience, I align cooperative learning structures with the lesson outcomes, ensuring that 21st-century, real-world content tasks are purposeful and authentic. Motivated by intentional opportunities for collaboration, students actively process information in favorable conditions that are both supportive and stimulating.

Unlike group work, cooperative learning activities are highly structured, with defined roles, steps, and time limits. With transparent directions, every student knows exactly what to do. Another key difference is that these structures promote built-in accountability and equal participation, requiring everyone to contribute through regular interaction and processing.

When considering a teacher’s pedagogical content knowledge, eliciting student feedback is paramount. Responding to end of course surveys, student reflections highlight the importance of the affective domain through several emerging pivotal themes. Students emphasized the significance of engaging, inclusive, and supportive learning environments. This aligns with findings from the literature, which posits that allowing students to apply course content in innovative and engaging ways fosters a deeper understanding and a heightened sense of ownership in learning (Singha & Singha, 2024). Given these findings, creating a classroom community through collaboration increases motivation and encourages students to develop their critical thinking skills and analyze problems more effectively.

Some students conveyed appreciation for interactive, relational, and consistently structured learning experiences. One student communicated, “I felt heard, valued, and important in this class… everyone truly has the opportunity to openly share without judgment.” These emotional and interpersonal experiences support long-term learning and boost goal-directed behaviors.

Another key theme was the acknowledgment of active, collaborative, and applied learning activities. One student articulated the need for relatable, real-world, authentic tasks, stating, “My favorite activity was creating videos to connect with the assignments in class.” This reflection highlights the notion that students in higher education value opportunities that enable them to transition from passive consumers of information to active participants in the learning process (Ribeiro-Silva et al., 2022). Moreover, recent research supports the implementation of faculty professional development programs focused on active learning instruction and engaging students in college classrooms (Park & Xu, 2024).

Implications for Faculty

To design assignments that work and adopt a reflective framework in your own instruction, consider implementing the following practices:
1. Set Clear Learning Objectives: Ensure students understand what they are expected to accomplish during collaboration. Cooperative learning is most effective when aligned with specific outcomes, especially those that require higher-order thinking (analysis, synthesis, and application). Identify what students should know, do, or be able to explain by the end of the activity.
1. Design Purposeful and Flexible Groups: Keep it interesting and diversify student groups. Avoid simple tasks that can be done individually—design work that fosters interdependence and leverages diverse perspectives. Create tasks that are complex enough to require collaboration (e.g., solving a case study, evaluating evidence, or designing a project).
1. Structure Group Roles and Expectations: Assign roles based on instructional content to ensure equal participation and engagement among group members. Structured roles promote engagement and accountability. Rotate roles to ensure individual accountability and contribution.
1. Monitor and Support Groups in Real Time: Circulate during group work, check for understanding, and intervene as needed to guide discussion or clarify misconceptions. Guide communication, active listening, respectful disagreement, and group decision-making. Active monitoring shows students their work matters and allows faculty to model and scaffold skills often.
1. Encourage Metacognition: Provide opportunities for students to reflect on their group work experiences and the processes involved. Reflection reinforces academic content and collaboration skills.
By implementing collaborative techniques, faculty can motivate students to apply content knowledge that will prepare their future success in relatable, real-world contexts and encourage the development and maintenance of the interpersonal skills necessary for lifelong learning. Furthermore, by refining our pedagogical practices, we can foster a more robust society with confident, culturally competent, and self-aware leaders of tomorrow.

Final Reflections

Former U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona quoted the African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” University settings often overlook effective pedagogical approaches that incorporate collaboration, limiting opportunities for meaningful learning experiences that enhance understanding, sustain motivation, and spark intellectual curiosity. By designing, facilitating, monitoring, and evaluating inclusive learning spaces, we can contribute to a sense of belonging and bring joy back into the classroom.

Dr. Ana Figueroa is an assistant professor of education at the University of Tampa and the Lead Instructor of the Education Foundations and Human Exceptionalities courses in the undergraduate program. Her research interests include differentiated instruction, progress monitoring, teacher mindset, and highly effective instructional strategies. She champions equitable instruction for all learners.

References

Kagan, Spencer, and Miguel Kagan. Kagan Cooperative Learning. San Clemente, CA: Kagan Publishing, 2021.

Namahoe, K. (2022, April 15). Secretary Cardona’s 6 Pathways Forward in Education. ascd.org. December 29, 2024, https://ascd.org/blogs/secretary-cardonas-6-pathways-forward-in-education

Park, Elizabeth S., and Di Xu. “The Effect of Active Learning Professional Development Training on College Students’ Academic Outcomes.” Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness 17, no. 1 (December 20, 2024): 43–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/19345747.2022.2151954.

Ribeiro-Silva, Elsa, Catarina Amorim, José Luis Aparicio-Herguedas, and Paula Batista. “Trends of Active Learning in Higher Education and Students’ Well-Being: A Literature Review.” Frontiers in Psychology 13 (April 18, 2022). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.844236.

“Salesforce,” October 6, 2022. https://www.salesforce.com/news/stories/higher-education-statistics-trends-2022/.

Singha, Ranjit, and Surjit Singha. “Educational Innovation Transforming Higher Education for Workforce Readiness.” Advances in Higher Education and Professional Development, January 29, 2024, 37–55. https://doi.org/10.4018/979-8-3693-0517-1.ch003.
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July 16, 2025
Avoiding Work Has Always Been Part of College. This Is New.

In a recent piece in The New Yorker, “What Happens After AI Destroys College Writing?,” Hua Hsu tells a story that will be familiar to anyone working in higher education: students wrestling—to varying degrees—about when and how to use generative AI tools like ChatGPT in the completion of their schoolwork.

There is a range of approaches and opinions among students—as there must be, as students are not a monolith—but Hsu centers the piece around “Alex,” an NYU student with a future goal to become a CPA who makes extensive and, to his mind, strategic use of these tools in various aspects of his life, including in writing the emails he exchanged with Hsu to arrange the interview for the piece.

Alex walks Hsu through his use of Claude to first crunch an article on Robert Wedderburn (a 19th-century Jamaican abolitionist) into a summary, and then, when the summary was longer than he had time to absorb before class, to reduce it to bullet points that he then transcribed into a notebook since his professor didn’t allow computers in class.

In a more elaborate example, Alex also used it to complete an art history assignment rooted in a visit to a museum exhibition, where he took pictures of the works and wall text and then fed it all into Claude.

His rationale, as told to Hsu, was “I’m trying to do the least work possible, because this is a class I’m not hella fucking with.”

At the end of the article, we check in with Alex on his finals. Alex “estimated he’d spent between thirty minutes and an hour composing two papers for his humanities classes,” something that would’ve taken “eight or nine hours” without Claude. Alex told Hsu, “I didn’t retain anything. I couldn’t tell you the thesis for either paper hahhahaha.”

Hsu then delivers the kicker: “He received an A-minus and a B-plus.”

I mean this without offense to Hsu, an accomplished writer (New Yorker staff writer and author of the best-selling memoir Stay True) and professor at Bard College, but the piece, for all its specifics and color, felt like very old news—to me, at least.

The transactional mindset toward education, something I’ve been writing about for years, is on perfect display in Alex’s actions. Generative AI has merely made this more plain, more common and more troubling, since there aren’t even any hoops to jump through in order to fake engagement. Alex is doing nothing (or nearly so) and earning credits from New York University.

On reflection, though, the story of Alex is even older than I thought, since it was also my story, particularly the line “I’m trying to do the least work possible,” which was very much my experience for significant chunks of my own college experience from 1988 to 1992.

I earned quite a few credits in my time for, if not doing nothing, certainly learning nothing. Or not learning the subject for which I’d earned the credits, anyway.

How could I blame a student of today for adopting the attitude that I lived by? With my own students, when I was teaching college, I often made hay from my lackluster undergraduate performance, talking about how I skipped more than 70 percent of my class meetings second semester of freshman year but still received no grade lower than a B.

In the article, Hsu remarks that “None of the students I spoke with seemed lazy or passive.” The students “worked hard—but part of their effort went to editing out anything in their college experiences that felt extraneous. They were radically resourceful.”

I, on the other hand, at least when it came to the school part of college, was resolutely lazy and largely passive, except when it came to making sure to avoid courses I was not interested in—essentially anything outside of reading and writing—or that had a mode of assessment not suited to my skills.

My preferred structure was a lecture or lecture/discussion with in-class essay exams and/or short response papers geared to specific texts. Exams and research papers were to be avoided, because exams required studying and research papers required … research.

If you let me loose on a reading or a few chapters from a textbook, I had no trouble giving something that resembled a student doing college, even though the end result was very much akin to Alex’s. I didn’t retain anything.

But hindsight says I learned a lot—or learned enough, anyway, through the classes I was interested in and, perhaps more importantly, the noncurricular experiences of college.

While there are some similarities between my and Alex’s mindset vis-à-vis college, there is a significant difference. Alex appears to be acting out of an “optimization” mindset, where he focuses his efforts on what is most “relevant,” presumably to his future interests, like employment and monetary earnings.

I, on the other hand, majored in the “extraneous experiences.” I was pretty dedicated to the lacrosse club, showing up for practice five days a week with games on the weekend, but I also recall a game day following my 21st birthday when I was so hungover (and perhaps still drunk) that you could smell the alcohol oozing from my pores. My shifts in the midfield were half the length of my line mates’.

(That was the last time I got that drunk.)

I recall a contest at my fraternity where the challenge was to gain the most weight within an 18-hour period, during which we stuffed ourselves with spaghetti, Italian bread, chocolate pudding and gallons of water until we were sick and bloated. Another time we ground through an entire season of Nintendo Super Tecmo Bowl football over the span of a few days, skipping class if you had a matchup that needed playing. We had a group of regulars who gathered in my room to watch All My Children and General Hospital most weekdays. I am the least successful of that crew by a fair stretch.

I know that I took courses in economics, geography, Asian studies and Russian history where, like Alex, I retained virtually nothing about the course material even days after the courses, when I crammed for a test or bs’ed my way through a paper to get my B and move on to what I wanted to spend my time on.

From my perspective as a middle-aged person whose life has been significantly enhanced by all the ways I dodged schoolwork while I was in college, including spending inordinate amounts of time with the woman to whom I have been married for 25 years this August, I would say that missing out on those classes to make room for experiences was the right thing to do.

(Even though I had no understanding of this at the time.)

Will Alex look back and feel the same?

So many questions that need exploring:

Would Alex be as appalled by my indigence, my failure at optimization, as I am by his ignorance?

Have we lost our belief that we as humans have agency over this world of technology?

Is Alex actively deskilling himself, or am I failing to develop the skills necessary for surviving in the world we’ve made for students like Alex?

I wonder if Alex and I have different definitions of what it is to survive.

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July 11, 2025
60% of Teachers Used AI This Year and Saved up to 6 Hours of Work a Week – The 74

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Nearly two-thirds of teachers utilized artificial intelligence this past school year, and weekly users saved almost six hours of work per week, according to a recently released Gallup survey. But 28% of teachers still oppose AI tools in the classroom.

The poll, published by the research firm and the Walton Family Foundation, includes perspectives from 2,232 U.S. public school teachers.

“[The results] reflect a keen understanding on the part of teachers that this is a technology that is here, and it’s here to stay,” said Zach Hrynowski, a Gallup research director. “It’s never going to mean that students are always going to be taught by artificial intelligence and teachers are going to take a backseat. But I do like that they’re testing the waters and seeing how they can start integrating it and augmenting their teaching activities rather than replacing them.”

At least once a month, 37% of educators take advantage of tools to prepare to teach, including creating worksheets, modifying materials to meet student needs, doing administrative work and making assessments, the survey found. Less common uses include grading, providing one-on-one instruction and analyzing student data.

A 2023 study from the RAND Corp. found the most common AI tools used by teachers include virtual learning platforms, like Google Classroom, and adaptive learning systems, like i-Ready or the Khan Academy. Educators also used chatbots, automated grading tools and lesson plan generators.

Related

How Artificial Intelligence Could Change Schools & Change How We Test Students

Most teachers who use AI tools say they help improve the quality of their work, according to the Gallup survey. About 61% said they receive better insights about student learning or achievement data, while 57% said the tools help improve their grading and student feedback.

Nearly 60% of teachers agreed that AI improves the accessibility of learning materials for students with disabilities. For example, some kids use text-to-speech devices or translators.

More teachers in the Gallup survey agreed on AI’s risks for students versus its opportunities. Roughly a third said students using AI tools weekly would increase their grades, motivation, preparation for jobs in the future and engagement in class. But 57% said it would decrease students’ independent thinking, and 52% said it would decrease critical thinking. Nearly half said it would decrease student persistence in solving problems, ability to build meaningful relationships and resilience for overcoming challenges.

In 2023, the U.S. Department of Education published a report recommending the creation of standards to govern the use of AI.

Related

AI Shows Racial Bias When Grading Essays — and Can’t Tell Good Writing From Bad

“Educators recognize that AI can automatically produce output that is inappropriate or wrong. They are well-aware of ‘teachable moments’ that a human teacher can address but are undetected or misunderstood by AI models,” the report said. “Everyone in education has a responsibility to harness the good to serve educational priorities while also protecting against the dangers that may arise as a result of AI being integrated in ed tech.”

Researchers have found that AI education tools can be incorrect and biased — even scoring academic assignments lower for Asian students than for classmates of any other race.

Hrynowski said teachers are seeking guidance from their schools about how they can use AI. While many are getting used to setting boundaries for their students, they don’t know in what capacity they can use AI tools to improve their jobs.

Related

New Research Finds Schools of Education Fail to Prepare Teachers to Use AI

The survey found that 19% of teachers are employed at schools with an AI policy. During the 2024-25 school year, 68% of those surveyed said they didn’t receive training on how to use AI tools. Roughly half of them taught themselves how to use it.

“There aren’t very many buildings or districts that are giving really clear instructions, and we kind of see that hindering the adoption and use among both students and teachers,” Hrynowski said. “We probably need to start looking at having a more systematic approach to laying down the ground rules and establishing where you can, can’t, should or should not, use AI In the classroom.”

Disclosure: Walton Family Foundation provides financial support to The 74.

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July 8, 2025
ATEC starts work with reform agenda – Campus Review

Tertiary education’s new steward will focus on allocating university funding, harmonising tertiary education and negotiating mission-based contracts, according to its Terms of Reference released on Tuesday.

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July 2, 2025
We have to work together to improve school culture and make our public schools great places to teach, work and learn

A torrent of controversy has erupted over the Trump administration’s decision to shutter the federal Department of Education. Critics howl that it will destroy public education in America. Supporters insist it will somehow make things better.

The only thing that’s clear is that our public education system is broken. It’s time for politicians to stop using education as a political football, with blue and red teams competing for control rather than sharing the responsibility to prepare our children for their futures.

The resulting chaos and confusion and rigid policies choke the joy out of learning and of working in our schools. Insufficient attention by leaders to education culture can result in fear and distrust, turf wars and a tendency to blame and make excuses for a lack of progress.

Such behaviors produce a toxicity that disables learning and disempowers leadership. Instead of increasing our nation’s economic prosperity, we’re deepening inequality, limiting opportunity and sadly wasting the potential of many children, on whose ability to thrive our country depends.

Poor work conditions, insufficient support, inadequate pay and limited career opportunities are among some of the reasons teachers are leaving and schools are struggling to attract top talent. Reductions in funding from the Great Recession through the present render our facilities dangerous in some instances and unwelcoming in others. Would you buy a house with barbed wire fencing and unkempt grounds that make you wonder whether the aim is to keep something out or in?

Related: A lot goes on in classrooms from kindergarten to high school. Keep up with our free weekly newsletter on K-12 education.

What should we do to change what is going on inside our schools?

We must first of all start working together to make our public schools great places to teach and learn.

Great places to work and learn are places that are well led, fueled by purpose and guided by shared, positive behaviors that advance learning goals and serve as “rules of the road” for how employees and students are expected to behave.

In great schools, employees, students and families are respected and valued. Leaders in great schools inspire their employees — all of them — to do more than they think they can. Employees align behind the purpose of enabling learning, which creates momentum and camaraderie for what they are working to attain together.

In great schools, leaders inspire their communities to join them in cheering for and supporting kids’ future successes. Families, no matter their socioeconomic status, feel a sense of belonging.

Problems are perceived as opportunities to get better, not sources of indiscriminate blame. Solutions are found by looking in the mirror first. External threats to learning, such as poverty or parents’ underemployment, are acknowledged and addressed. Schools don’t dodge their responsibility to educate all kids.

In great schools, kids are known by caring employees; they feel seen and heard and are deeply engaged and invested in their learning.

Every employee working in a great school district feels responsible for achieving the district’s mission, no matter whether they work inside or outside of the classroom.

When kids return after being absent, employees welcome them back, tell them they were missed and focus on catching them up. They do not judge the constraints of their families’ lives or mete out punishment as though missing school is a crime.

Related: Horticulture, horses and ‘Chill Rooms’: One district goes all-in on mental health support

Great places to learn must also be great places to work. We must reframe our concept of schools as not just places where kids learn. Great places to work care about the needs of all the human beings in their care, including and especially their employees.

“To win in the marketplace, you must first win in the workplace,” Douglas R. Conant, former Campbell Soup Company CEO famously said. He knew what is becoming clearer within our public school systems — that unhappy, unfulfilled employees lead to high turnover, disengagement by students and staff and disaffected families turning to alternative educational offerings.

It is no secret that attracting and retaining top talent to work in our schools is increasingly difficult as employees seek more stability. Attracting younger workers is even more difficult.

Many of those who currently work in schools, especially teachers, are stressed, burned out and dissatisfied. Being stressed and burned out is not a normative experience; it’s a symptom of a weak culture, and an organizational problem to be solved. And employee turnover is no longer limited to teachers. There are increasing vacancies among principals, bus drivers and food service and facilities staff.

The quality of the experiences of employees working in our schools must be higher. Every point along the employee experience continuum, from applying for a job to choosing to leave, is an opportunity to deepen employee engagement and commitment to being a high performer.

We can fix what we have broken. Thinking differently about making our public schools great places to work and learn is a good place to start. No policy changes are required to demonstrate concern for the human beings the system employs and seeks to educate.

Etienne R. LeGrand is a thought leader, writer and culture-shaping strategist and adviser at Vivify Performance.

Contact the opinion editor at [email protected].

This story about school culture was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.

The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

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June 23, 2025
Podcast: Spending review, Tooling Up, REF, students at work

This week on the podcast we examine the government’s spending review and what it means for higher education. How will the £86bn R&D commitment translate into real-terms funding, and why was education notably absent from the Chancellor’s priorities?

Plus we discuss the Post-18 Project’s call to fundamentally reshape HE policy away from market competition, the startling new REF rules, and the striking rise in student term-time working revealed by the latest Student Academic Experience Survey.

With Stephanie Harris, Director of Policy at Universities UK, Ben Vulliamy, Executive Director at the Association of Heads of University Administration, Michael Salmon, News Editor at Wonkhe, and presented by Mark Leach, Editor-in-Chief at Wonkhe.

Tooling up: Building a new economic mission for higher education

Investing for the long term often loses out to pensioner power

What’s in the spending review for higher education

The student experience is beyond breaking point

How to assess anxious, time-poor students in a mass age

REF is about institutions not individuals

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June 12, 2025
How AI Is Transforming Your Work: Insights from CUPA-HR’s Spring Conference – CUPA-HR

by Julie Burrell | June 4, 2025

At the recent CUPA-HR Spring Conference in Seattle, artificial intelligence was a major topic of conversation, from session rooms to hallway discussions. AI has reshaped how many HR pros operate. It’s now being used as a daily tool, whether as a personal assistant for daily tasks or a strategic thought partner in decision-making.

Here’s how higher ed HR is using AI now.

Drafting communications and messaging. AI can help draft everything from emails to campus-wide communications. At her spring keynote, Jennifer Parker of the Colorado Community College System said she uses ChatGPT to rewrite her emails to be more formal in tone. She also recommends trying out AI to make internal communications more creative and tailored, like an inspiring message inviting specific groups of employees to review their benefits during open enrollment.

Making meetings more productive and presentations easier. AI is helping HR pros compile, organize and summarize their meeting notes. AI can also make checklists and to-do’s following meetings. Use AI to create slide decks and scripts for presentations.

If you’re looking to maximize your time, quickly make your longer meeting notes — like those from the recent CUPA-HR conference — into a conversational podcast using Google’s NotebookLM tool.

Helping you with internal talent development or coaching for individual career paths. AI can help you create a training or professional development program in record time, like Jennifer Parker did with her civility training program. It can also act as a career coach when used with the right prompts.

Assisting in talent acquisition. With AI, writing job descriptions has never been easier. For interviews, enter in a job description and ask AI to come up with applicable interview questions or ask for help in creating interview questions that are more neuroinclusive.

Injecting some creativity throughout the day. Members also shared imaginative uses of AI, like using Doodly to create animated whiteboards, asking ChatGPT to turn selfies into Lego minifigures, or using Canva’s AI features to make eye-catching designs.

Scaling Up

AI can do amazing things when used on a larger scale. HR pros are tackling more extensive projects with AI, often in collaboration with other departments.

Analyzing feedback and surveys. AI can process the results of open-ended survey questions and help identify themes to make surveys more effective than ever, with the partnership of survey experts and AI practitioners on campus.

See how Harvard University’s Center for Workplace Development used AI in combination with HRIS data to create a strategic needs assessment survey.

Brainstorming and researching for deeper insights. Proprietary software like Microsoft Copilot enables a deeper dive into existing institutional information and data. By uploading your institution’s mission and strategic priorities, you can accomplish any number of initiatives. Try creating recruitment materials, professional development programs, performance metrics and evaluations, or even a strategic priorities document specific to HR.

During their presentation, the talent management team at Grand Valley State University shared how they integrated AI into their process for creating core competencies. AI assisted them in brainstorming key competencies, cross-checking those competencies with their institutional values, and transforming them into action-oriented language.

Training Others on AI. Many HR leaders have been encouraging their employees to experiment with AI, including launching trainings or directing staff to existing trainings. For example, Microsoft offers general Copilot trainings and HR-specific trainings, all self-directed.

While AI adoption is picking up speed, there are certainly challenges in incorporating it into your workflow. Spring conference attendees mentioned concerns ranging from legal compliance to ensuring truth and authenticity in communication. But used with safeguards, AI has the potential to free up time and allow HR to do what it does best: the fundamentally human work of caring for the people on your campus.

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June 4, 2025
Redistribution doesn’t work when there’s nothing left to redistribute
Too many people across our country do not get the chance to succeed.

So the government is committed to supporting the aspiration of every person who meets the requirements and wants to go to university or pursue an apprenticeship, regardless of their background, where they live and their personal circumstances.

Those aren’t my words – they’re the words of the House of Commons’ HE supply teacher Janet Daby, who answers for actual (Lords) minister Jacqui Smith whenever a question comes up about universities or students.

This answer is a typical one – in which she notes that in the summer, the department (for education) will set out its plan for HE reform and that it will expect providers to play an “even stronger” role in improving access and outcomes for all disadvantaged students.

Specifically on financial support:

Whilst many HE providers have demonstrated positive examples of widening access, including targeted outreach and bursaries, we want to see the sector go further.

Back in 2014, partly to get “top-up fees” through Parliament, then secretary of state Charles Clarke announced that a new Office for Fair Access (OFFA) would be created – and that it would require universities to offer up some of their additional fee income in bursaries.

Assuming that a proportion of student financial support should come partly via universities’ own budgets has always created a tension – between those who say that local decision making (aka institutional autonomy) is better at designing schemes that get the money to where it’s really needed, and those that argue that redistributing fee income within a provider rather than across the country means that financial support ends up being based not on need, but on the number of other students at your university that need it.

We used to be able to see that clearly. OfFA used to track how many “OfFA countable” students each provider had and their spending on financial support, and it would generally show that providers doing the most for access tended to have the least to spend per student.

Over time, direct student financial support declined in popularity. Research questioned bursaries’ impact on applications (unsurprising given how hard it was to find information on them), and it tended to struggle to find retention benefits from 2006-2011 – findings that then got extrapolated far beyond their timeframe.

Pressure to demonstrate impact led providers to focus on entry and completion metrics rather than the experience students were having as a result. That seemed less critical in the mid-2010s when inflation was low and maintenance loans were cranked up to hide the fact that grants were eliminated. Students living at home (more likely from widening participation backgrounds) also got relatively generous maintenance support compared to their costs.

Eventually, provider-level reporting on student financial support pretty much disappeared as the Office for Students started to emphasise outcomes over experience or spending transparency.

But with maintenance support over the past few years some distance from inflation, and the income thresholds over which parents are expected to top up stuck at the level they were set at in the year that Madeleine McCann went missing (18 whole years ago), we really do need some sense of how the mix is panning out.

So to help us to understand what’s been going on, for the fourth year running we’ve managed to extract some data out of OfS via an FOI request.

The data

Ever since the days of the Office for Fair Access (OFFA), HESA has collected data on the amounts of student financial support, and the number of students that helps, for each university in England – and here we have that data over the past few years.

It covers four different types of spend on student financial support:
- Cash: This covers any bursary/scholarship/award that is paid to students, where there is no restriction on the use of the award
- Near cash: This includes any voucher schemes or prepaid cards awarded to students where there are defined outlets or services for which the voucher/card can be used
- Accommodation discounts: This includes discounted accommodation in university halls / residences
- Other: This includes all in-kind or cash support that is not included in the above categories and includes, but is not limited to, travel costs, laboratory costs, printer credits, equipment paid for, subsidised field trips and subsidised meal costs
Some caveats: We remain less than 100 per cent convinced about the data quality, this doesn’t tell us how much money is going to disadvantaged students specifically, it doesn’t tell us about need (and the extent to which need is being met), I’ve yanked out most of what we used to call alternative providers for comparison purposes, and it only covers home domiciled undergraduates (and below, in terms of level of study).

But it is, nevertheless, fascinating. Here’s the numbers for each provider in England:

[Full Screen]

If we nationally just look at cash help, in 2023/24 just over £496m went to just under 311k students – a spend per head of £1,598 – very slightly above last year’s £1,464 per head.

But dive a little deeper and you find astonishing disparities. In the Russell Group the £ per head was £2,362 – about £40 up on the previous year. Across Million+ providers that figure was £726 – just £4 more than 2 years ago.

Interestingly, per student helped, the Russell Group spent the same in cash help per student as it did in 2019. Maybe inflation doesn’t apply in elite universities, or maybe they’re getting worse at recruiting those on low incomes. Meanwhile the cash spend per student helped across Million+ universities has almost halved from £1,309 in 2019/20.

Clearly all universities are under financial pressure – but what we see is almost certainly an artefact of redistributing fee income around a provider rather than around a country, and it appears to result in manifest unfairness.

Even if we don’t adjust for inflation, spend per student helped has fallen for 45 universities between 2022/23 and 2023/24, and since 2019, it’s fallen for 56 universities. If we do apply inflation (CPI), only five are beating their 2019 SPH. No wonder students are struggling to come to campus.

Some may say that it might be better just to look at what’s been going on under the auspices of formal, declarable access and participation work. HESA finance data now includes a look at expenditure – but not the number of students that expenditure covers, nor the total amounts invested pre-pandemic, and nor the amounts allocated in premium funding, all of which would aid meaningful comparison.

Moving money around

I tend, in general, to be a fan of redistribution and cross-subsidy. It can help reduce economic inequality, promote social stability, and ensure that everyone has access to basic necessities. It reflects a commitment to fairness and the idea that a society should care for all its members.

As such, the logical bit of my brian never had much of a problem with the Charles Clarke/OFFA expectation – it was at least aimed at ensuring that everyone got to have a decent experience at university.

But the redistributive effects of moving money around a provider when some providers (which already tend to be the richest) have fewer poor kids to spend it on never really added up.

If you really wanted the system to be fairer, and for the most money to reach those who need it most, you might start by acting regionally. I doubt that John Blake’s regional partnership structures – which will involve cohort-level renewal for Access and Participation Plans will actually go as far as expecting providers in a region to pool their bursary or hardship spend – but there’s a very good logical case for that kind of approach.

When students at Salford are getting £358 each in cash help while their neighbours at the University of Manchester are getting £1,829, there’s a very strong case for pooling the money.

But even if that was to happen, beware the regional agglomeration effects. The region with the lowest higher education participation rate in the UK is the North East of England, at 33.4 per cent. London, with its 63 per cent rate, ought to be giving some of its spend on student financial support away to support participation up North.

And once you’re there, you (re)realise what many said at the time of the Clarke announcement – that moving money around a university when participation in universities is so unequal to start with is no way to run a fair system.

And even more importantly, it’s not fair on fee-paying students. When the assumption was that fees were a small part of the overall funding mix, we could say to students that the state’s contribution would be focussed more on those in need.

Even with fees at £9,000, the redistributive effects of some paying much more than that through interest of RPI+3% and some much less via the repayment threshold and the cut-off – all while funding a moderately comfortable financial support system for all – was some sort of egalitarianism in action.

But once the subsidy slips away, and students are expected to pay back almost all of the debt they incur, we end up expecting their personal debt to do what the state ought to do. And while it’s one thing for your fees to be spent subsidising other students at your own university, it would be quite another for them to be spent subsidising those at others in your region, or even around the UK.

Then add in the fact that in UUK’s cuts survey, just under half of universities (49 per cent) say they may still need to cut hardship funding and 59 per cent say they may need to cut bursaries. Even if some sort of tougher APP regime was to find a way to stop that, that just means that wider cuts will fall on everyone – and so for some students, less and less of their actual contribution will end up being spent on their actual education.

It turns out that the progressive taxation – ensuring that those with higher incomes contribute a larger share of their earnings to public services – is the much better way to promote economic fairness and reduce income inequality. Who knew?
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May 15, 2025
If it’s top down it won’t work

Higher education institutions are complex ecosystems where policies shape the experiences of students, academics, and administrative staff.

However, the process of policy creation and implementation often lacks inclusivity, flexibility, and responsiveness to the rapidly evolving educational landscape.

If institutions are to thrive in an era of digital transformation, shifting student expectations, and increasing socio-economic challenges, they must rethink how policies are designed and enacted.

A more participatory, adaptive, and evidence-based approach is essential to creating institutional policies that truly serve the needs of all stakeholders.

Top down without engagement

Institutional policies often emerge from a centralised, top-down approach, where senior leadership teams develop policies without adequate engagement with those directly affected (students, faculty, and professional service staff).

This results in policies that may be well-intended but are disconnected from on-the-ground realities. For instance, policies surrounding Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) frequently fail because they do not account for academic workload constraints, staff and students’ digital literacy levels, or disparities in institutional infrastructure.

The gap between policy intentions and practical implementation then leads to confusion, resistance, and limited adoption.

Policies should not be dictated from the top – but rather co-created with those who will implement and be impacted by them. This requires institutions to foster genuine dialogue with diverse stakeholders, ensuring that different perspectives and experiences shape decision-making.

Adopting participatory approaches such as Change Laboratories, a method that engages stakeholders in problem-solving workshops, can provide a structured way for institutions to address contradictions and inefficiencies in their current policy frameworks.

A recent Change Laboratory intervention at a UK research-intensive university demonstrated the benefits of participatory policy development. The initiative brought together academics, administrators, and digital learning specialists to collaboratively identify barriers to effective blended learning adoption.

Through iterative discussions and problem-solving exercises, the group developed a Culturally Advanced Activity System (CAAS), aligning institutional policies with pedagogical realities. The process not only resulted in a more practical and effective policy framework but also increased staff engagement and willingness to adopt blended learning practices.

The success of participatory policy-making in blended learning highlights its potential application across other areas of policy. Institutions could apply similar methodologies to enhance policies related to assessment frameworks, student support services, diversity and inclusion, and faculty development. By institutionalising collaborative problem-solving approaches, HE governance structures can become more responsive to evolving educational needs.

Rigid policies that fail to account for evolving challenges and opportunities quickly become obsolete. HE institutions must adopt a more dynamic approach, treating policies as living documents that are regularly reviewed and updated based on data-driven insights.

For example, instead of prescribing a one-size-fits-all approaches, institutions should allow for staff-led experimentation, followed by structured evaluations to refine policies based on what works best in different disciplines.

An evidence-based policy culture?

Stakeholder-led policy development is crucial to ensuring that policies are not only relevant but also widely accepted and effectively implemented. By actively involving students, faculty, and administrative staff in the policy-making process, HE institutions can create frameworks that reflect the lived experiences of their communities.

This participatory approach fosters greater trust, encourages meaningful engagement, and enhances the practicality of policies. When stakeholders have ownership over policy development, they are more likely to support its implementation, leading to smoother transitions and sustainable institutional improvements.

Additionally, fostering a culture of continuous professional development ensures that policy decisions align with the latest pedagogical and technological advancements.

For HE institutions to remain relevant and responsive in the 21st century, they must overhaul how they create and implement policies. Moving away from rigid, top-down structures and embracing participatory, flexible, and evidence-driven approaches will ensure that policies are both effective and widely supported.

Institutional leaders must prioritise stakeholder engagement, foster a culture of continuous learning, and create policies that genuinely enhance teaching, learning, and student success.

Without these changes, HE risks stagnation in an era that demands adaptability and innovation. By embedding participatory mechanisms and evidence-based strategies in governance, HE institutions can pave the way for a more inclusive and forward-thinking educational environment.

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May 6, 2025
Creating learning environments that work for BTEC entrants to higher education

We know that past learning experiences directly correlate to progress and preparedness for higher education study. But are we to accept that the adverse relationship with outcomes for different students’ entry routes is driven by academic performance at university?

There is evidence that students who enter with vocational qualifications are more likely to drop out or get a lower degree classification because of poorer academic performance. This lack of progression is alarming, and initiatives steered to increase progression opportunities that support better overall performance remain both a challenge and a strategic priority for the university sector. HESA statistics for the 2021–22 academic year show the “dropout rate” for first year students with vocational qualifications continues to increase by one percentage point across the sector year on year.

Furthermore, there remains a consistent four percentage point awarding gap between those with vocational and those with traditional qualifications. Despite their higher dropout and non-progression rates, students progressing from vocational qualifications represent a significant growing pathway into HE and many who progress, go on to graduate with at least a 2.1.

A 2022 Nuffield report on the relationship between 16-19 subject, higher education choices and graduate outcomes found “…a weakening of the relationship between entry qualifications and outcomes once comparing individuals with similar module scores.” This implies that educators have a significant part to play in ensuring approaches to setting, measuring and enhancing performance are fair and equitable. Specifically, inclusive assessment design should be central to the educational experience, ensuring all students can fulfil their potential irrespective of their route to HE.

A very particular set of skills

Ongoing work on student engagement such as this 2023 framework for inclusive and effective student engagement from QAA, has demonstrated clear benefits from creating communities that build identity and belonging though adopting inclusive approaches, enhancing student engagement, motivation and progression. Applying these principles means recognising that students entering HE from vocational routes like BTECs possess unique skills.

Through their studies they have developed hands-on learning and real-world application, giving them practical skills directly relevant to their chosen field. Additionally, they engage in self-directed projects and coursework, fostering independence and time management skills essential for managing university workloads. Many vocational courses offer work placements, providing valuable career insights that foster a professional mind-set from day one. Unlike traditional A levels, BTECs are assessed through coursework and practical assessments, helping students develop strong research, critical writing, and project management skills.

All of the above combines with a wealth of lived experience – BTEC students often come from diverse educational backgrounds – which enhances these students’ adaptability and resilience. Furthermore, the emphasis on practical achievements and continuous assessment fosters a positive mindset and a sense of belonging and community. These skills provide vocational students with a solid foundation for success in HE. So what are we not getting right?

Like many other universities, we recognise each cohort is unique and a one size fits all approach may not have sustained impact. Learning, teaching, and assessment design should provide an equitable experience for all students regardless of prior learning experiences and route into HE. We have streamlined our approaches, drawing on evidence of what is “working” to enable us to embed efficient and effective approaches to being intentionally inclusive within assessment design.

Five ways to inclusion

It’s early days, but we are already seeing improvements in the number of students that are passing all modules first time from a variety of entry routes and through approaches that celebrate and embrace the unique skillsets of all students. Through five interconnected themes we are making steady and sustained progress through exploring inclusive assessment practices and reviewing the narrative of learning.

Supporting student confidence is foundational to academic success. We have found that developing shared assessment literacies can help students recognise their capabilities and potential. This can directly speak to the unique skillset that students bring from a range of diverse routes: for example, creating Hidden Curriculum Guides that unpack unfamiliar language and concepts, drawing from past experiences to socialises the unknown so that students can feel confident in their understanding and learning journey.

Embedding effective pedagogical approaches employs a blend of student-centred and humanistic methods to create dynamic and responsive learning environments. These approaches are tailored to meet the specific needs of students. Evidence-based approaches include empowering students to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical application for life-wide learning and preparedness for the journey ahead. These examples not only integrate effective pedagogical approaches but support a range of skillsets, positioning the educational experience through empathy and compassion in developing supportive transition and orientation interventions and deepening the shared understanding of lived experiences.

Assessment diversity and timely feedback are crucial. Our commitment to inclusive assessment practices creates space where all students can demonstrate their knowledge and skills effectively. Through co-created integrated approach to inclusive assessment, we have produced a set of inclusive assessment and feedback principles: clear, understood, authentic, robust and personalised.

Creating a sense of belonging is vital for student engagement and retention. Inclusive classroom environments that celebrate diversity and foster community connections help students feel valued and supported. Harnessing the practice elements will bring a newfound confidence to the forefront of the learning experience. Flipping the classroom, so students have a more meaningful experience creates a sticky campus, and a strong sense of togetherness which particularly suit students that have entered HE via a vocational route. Initiatives such as peer mentoring and collaborative projects have been successful in creating a welcoming and inclusive atmosphere.

Recognising and valuing the diverse entry backgrounds of students not only enhances learning but also promotes equity and inclusion by drawing on the value of their individual learning experiences to enhance their learning journey. We identified the need for targeted support mechanisms that bolster student confidence during the transition to and through HE. Our emphasis on the importance of diverse pedagogical approaches, inclusive assessment practices, and feedback mechanisms provided solid foundations.

Learning from programme teams about what works to maximise real-world learning from current practice is essential to building trust. Our five-phase approach provides a scaffolding based on our unique learning journey. The challenge remains for us as a sector to address and share knowledge holistically, which draws from evidence-based practice with the aim of enhancing student outcomes. Working collegiately with the student body, this is both an urgent and important issue to address with the growing number of students joining universities from vocational routes. There is a government push to increase capacity for vocational routes in HE and so if universities are to stay relevant in this space, there is an urgency to find solutions, learning from programme leaders who are passionate and best placed to know students. Together and collaboratively, we can drive forward real intervention with sustained impact, it matters for student success.

For more about the authors’ work to create inclusive learning environments see the special editions of Innovative practice in higher education and Pedagogy collating evidence shared at our learning and teaching festivals in 2023 and 2024.

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April 29, 2025