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Student engagement is emerging as a key focus in higher education, as engagement is increasingly understood as a prerequisite for effective learning. This paper reports on the development of an Engagement Framework that provides a practical understanding of student (and staff) engagement which can be applied to any discipline, year level or course. The Engagement Framework proposes five non- hierarchical elements: personal engagement, academic engagement, intellectual engagement, social engagement, and professional engagement. As well as describing these elements, the paper also explores the theoretical foundations of the Engagement Framework, including a recognition of the importance of conation as one of three faculties of the mind alongside cognition and affect. By adopting this Framework, the Faculty aims to enhance unit design and development, teaching practice, and student support practices. This paper describes the development of an Engagement Framework that is designed to be used as an underpinning tool to support a range of initiatives to enhance both staff and student engagement within a Faculty of Education in a regional Australian university. Many students engage actively in their own learning and are passionate about and committed to their studies. This is particularly the case in pre-service teacher education where the goal of becoming a teacher acts as a motivator for many students. This is not to say that all students who are engaged are all engaged equally, or remain fully engaged across the course of their studies. The Engagement Framework described in this paper was designed as a means of breaking apart the concept of engagement in order to more explicitly explore the question of 'how' students engage. A range of courses is offered within the Faculty - including a number of 4-year Bachelor of Education courses (Early Childhood, Primary, and Secondary Specialisations) and 2-year Master of Teaching courses (Primary and Secondary). The majority of courses are offered online as well as on-campus. Over half the student population studies in the wholly online mode and many of these students live in other Australian states or in other countries. The wholly online courses have no residential component and it is possible that students will not physically meet lecturers, tutors, professional staff or their peers during their course of study. Online students interact through the University's learning management system (currently Blackboard) and use a range of other technologies to communicate and develop learning communities. The online nature of much of the teaching and learning presents other challenges for students and staff - being engaged in a virtual space is different from being engaged as an on-campus student, where the support of peers and staff can appear more 'real'. The Engagement Framework described below can be applied to both modes of study, and can be used by staff, students and Faculty leadership to determine various aspects of engagement and how these might be enhanced. |
