Background
Building up skills for newer, innovative pedagogies such as SSP, are core to this CoP and have recently been strongly advocated by the UGC. It is encouraging to see that some PolyU staff are engaging in SSP as an innovative way to motivate students to take ownership of their own learning and it is important that we capitalise on this opportunity to launch this CoP to enable even more staff to become involved and help to transform the student learning experience of even more students.
In a systematic review conducted by Mercer-Mapstone et al. (2017), it was found that 92% of their reviewed papers reported positive outcomes for students as a result of engaging in SSP, they found that over half of the papers mentioned increased student engagement or motivation, so designing and implementing SSP is a worthwhile endeavour and should be promoted throughout the University.
The CoP will build up the skills and experiences of staff seeking to use SSP as a way to engage and empower students as this has the potential to lead to deep, transformative learning (Healey et al., 2014). It is hoped that by participating in an SSP, students will pick up new problem solving, critical thinking and lifelong learning skills. In addition, Ollis and Gravett (2020) found that students had increased levels of confidence and self-efficacy, increased understanding of staff and an enhanced relationship between students and staff when participating in an SSP. A literature search in this area has shown four main benefits for students including enhanced engagement and learning, personal development, positive relationships, and skill development/employability.
Other universities in Hong Kong and overseas are actively pushing forward SSP through different events and channels. For example, in November 2021, the University of Hong Kong organized a series of five seminars on SSP and invited global practitioners and researchers to talk about the best practices of embedding SSP in programmes based on their successful projects or research works at different universities in Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. As engaging students in their own learning through innovative teaching strategies is one of the key domains in the University’s Strategic Plan 2019-2025, the proposed SSP CoP will assist the University in promoting and advancing student-staff partnership approaches recognized and heralded in higher education institutions across the globe.
In addition, quite a number of teachers at PolyU are already practising different degrees of partnership with their students in the areas of learning, teaching and assessment, curriculum design, subject-based research and inquiry, and scholarship of teaching and learning. The establishment of an SSP CoP will encourage teachers to share their knowledge and best practices to create a synergistic effect among different departments/faculties/schools at PolyU.