Objectives

This CoP aims to build an SSP community that seeks to empower students and staff to work together in the teaching, learning and assessment process. By building a network of PolyU staff from across departments, schools, faculties, and non-academic centres, it is hoped that the CoP will enrich its members' knowledge of, and increase their confidence when implementing, SSP projects. It is envisaged that a balanced membership of academics, students (who will be invited as guests) and educational specialists, in this close collaboration will increase the chance of success of this CoP. Students will also be regularly invited to CoP events, both as participants and presenters.

The specific objectives of the proposed CoP are:

1. To identify and share good practices that support SSP, including the co-creation of learning resources, co-creation of assessment rubrics, co-creation of subject curriculum and other SSP pedagogies.
2. To plan and conduct activities that explore and raise awareness of the use of SSP in the teaching, learning and assessment process.
3. To learn about the design, development and implementation of SSP, from other institutions that have already been engaging in SSP.
4. To become a resource centre for staff wishing to engage in SSP, bringing together knowledge from people, a repository of case studies, Open Educational Resources (OER’s) and connections to external networks.

Expected Outcomes

This CoP aims to build a network of like-minded staff from across the University and empower them to use SSP as a means to help engage students and enhance the quality of teaching and learning. The CoP aims to establish a network of members from across all faculties, schools and non-academic centres. The CoP will host a number of events, including seminars, brainstorming sessions and professional development opportunities.

Members will share their knowledge, experiences and best practices of implementing and participating in an SSP, enabling other members to learn from what they did well and any issues that they faced. Enhanced student engagement, increased motivation, increased sense of ownership of their own learning, higher levels of confidence and self-awareness, as well as an increased sense of belonging to the University are some of the most important positive impacts of SSP (Mercer-Mapstone et al., 2017). The CoP will engage members of staff to enable them to share, learn and effectively embed SSP into their teaching, and ultimately enable students to be the main beneficiaries of the CoP.

The major outcomes for the CoP are expected to be:

1. The best practice relating to SSP shared via the activities conducted by the CoP
2. An increased number of staff and students engaging in SSP initiatives across the University
3. An online repository of resources, and a virtual space for the CoP will be developed to harness and share knowledge and experiences on topics and issues related to SSP

Work Plan and Activities

The proposed CoP plans to hold a number of events per year, inviting both PolyU staff, students and external experts to share their SSP experiences and knowledge. As members join a CoP to learn from and share with each other, the CoP proposes to hold a number of seminars, workshops, and staff and student sharing sessions, with members from PolyU and external institutions presenting the sessions. They will involve introducing the pedagogical background of SSP, staff and students sharing their experiences of working on an SSP, and identifying and overcoming organisational problems in SSP. The specific topics below have also been identified as areas of interest for the members of the CoP:

• Developing Rubrics with Students
• Co-Creating Learning Resources
• Flipped Content Student-Staff Partnerships
• Co-creation of Curricula with Students
• Co-sourcing and Sharing of OER’s
• Publishing Scholarly Publications with your Students

The CoP also intends to help initiate SSP pilots/trials with interested members and will recruit student partners, who are employed as student helpers by the CoP, to collaboratively work on SSP with academic CoP members. It is hoped that this will drive membership and encourage active participation in the CoP and SSP initiatives across the University.

Another way in which the CoP will be promoted is to identify an SSP champion in each of the departments/schools. This member of staff will help promote the CoP and SSP initiatives within their department and help to recruit new members for the CoP. If you are interested in becoming an SSP champion then please let us know.