Students as Partners in Action: a scalable mentorship framework to enhance students’ employability and transition to university

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About this Masterclass

This presentation describes a Students-as-Partners (SAP) framework that has been employed in the School of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences in 2017 and 2018.

The framework was devised in response to a cluster of teaching and learning challenges. These include the twin objectives of developing authentic learning experiences to enhance: 1) first year students’ engagement with core content and development of professional identity, and 2) advanced students’ communication and professional skills. We aimed to provide 3rd year students enrolled in a professional program with authentic opportunities to apply and reflect on their communication and instructional skills in a disciplinary setting and to enhance technical learning of 1st year students through more personal instruction.

In this masterclass, we present evidence that the framework has been highly successful in achieving these goals. Given that communication is a critically important graduate attribute across all disciplines and professional degrees, we consider the framework to be a truly scalable SAP option for most university programs. Critically, our SAP framework simultaneously solves the significant challenges of embedding authentic communication exercises into advanced professionally oriented courses, facilitating student engagement with technical laboratory content in introductory courses through very high instructor to student ratios, and facilitating mentoring interactions beyond the specific content of class exercises.

Benefits of attending

At the completion of this Masterclass, participants will have learned of the components and benefits of the framework, and understand the requirements to adapt and apply to other program areas. 

Presenters

Dr Louise McCuaig is Senior Lecturer Health and Physical Education (HPE) and Learning Chair at the School of Human Movement & Nutrition Science, The University of Queensland. Louise’s teaching and research address the curriculum, pedagogical and assessment practices underpinning effective HPE in school and tertiary settings. For over 30 years Louise has been a dynamic educator whose innovative delivery of advanced and specialist Health Education courses has been recognised with the awarding of a Carrick Institute Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning and UQ Teaching Excellence award. Louise serves as curriculum advisor to the Queensland and Australian curriculum and assessment authorities. Her national leadership of innovative HPE programs was recognized in the recent bestowing of an Australian Council for Health, Physical Education and Recreation Fellow’s award.

A/Prof Sean Tweedy has taught at UQ in the school of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences since 1997. He is currently Program Convenor for the Master of Clinical Exercise Physiology and Coordinates a number of undergraduate and postgraduate courses including EXMD3372 – Exercise Science Professional Skills. From a teaching perspective, he has a particular interest in initiatives which permit students to apply and reinforce newly acquired knowledge, skills and competencies in settings which are "real-world" and authentic, but which also which also permit direct and structured supervision and feedback. For example, Sean established the HMNS Personal Training Service in which third year students provide a personal training service to fee-paying clients (http://www.hms.uq.edu.au/community-services/professional-services/human-movement-and-nutrition-sciences-personal-training-service-2018/). The initiative described in this Masterclass is consistent with this approach.

A/Prof Timothy Carroll has contributed to undergraduate and postgraduate university teaching and learning at UNSW and UQ since 2003. He works in the broad field of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences, with a specific focus on how the brain controls the movements of our bodies. He is the program coordinator for the Bachelor of Exercise and Sport Sciences degree at UQ, in which capacity he is focused on finding innovative ways to build learning activities that integrate knowledge and experiences across degree program year levels. He coordinates the large, introductory, first year course in which the students as partners framework was trialled, and has been integral to the development and evaluation of the framework.