Student involvement can be a valuable resource in educational development, but it often requires a clear framework to work effectively in practice. The CED supports processes such as these.

Last semester, the CED collaborated with the degree programme council IGOR (Institut for Geoscience Organiserede Repræsentanter) to design a student-engaging workshop intended to strengthen the work on a new bachelor’s programme and qualification profile at the Department of Geoscience. Valdemar Oksfeldt Enevoldsen, who is currently enrolled in a master’s degree programme in Geoscience, played a significant role in this work.

As chair of IGOR and class representative on the education committee, he contacted the CED when IGOR needed help designing a workshop in which the students’ perspectives could be gathered and structured in a way that could be used in the development process.

“When you sit on a committee, you represent a lot of students, but you don’t always get to speak with your wider constituency. Hence, IGOR wanted to hold a workshop where we could involve the other students. Therefore, we reached out to the CED to get help designing a workshop by the students and for the students,” he explains.

For IGOR, the aim was to articulate a genuine student perspective before moving further in the formal process. This would provide them with a solid foundation for later presenting students’ actual views, and for offering concrete proposals for development.

The contact led to a meeting between representatives from IGOR and two consultants from the CED, My Jakobsen and Simon Jensby.

“At the meeting, we wanted to help IGOR get a sense of how educational development work is approached. When students are able to connect their input to the actual frameworks that programmes operate within, it becomes easier for teachers to incorporate their feedback. The meeting was not about us telling them what to say. We simply helped them understand the development frameworks that programmes are subject to,” says Simon Jensby.

In continuation of this, Valdemar Oksfeldt Enevoldsen points out that language, experience, and prior understanding of processes often make it overwhelming, especially for younger students, to participate in meetings between students and teachers.

“There’s a learning curve as a student. Until you are familiar with the matters, it can feel overwhelming and difficult. Our basis for speaking up is smaller. We don’t have the same language, the same experience, or knowledge of the processes, and that can make it hard to participate on the same level,” says Valdemar Oksfeldt Enevoldsen.

At the same time, My Jakobsen highlights the importance of student involvement, because of the particular perspective students can contribute. Since students follow a programme from the first semester all the way through, they can provide insight into how coherence and progression are experienced by students in practice. Whereas teachers are typically connected to specific courses or semesters, students can offer an overall picture of the degree programme.

Structuring the framework of the workshop

After the meeting, IGOR was left with many ideas that quickly needed to be translated into an actual plan. The workshop was only a few days away, and the ambitions had to be realised in a format that would work in practice.

“My and Simon presented it like a staircase: first the qualifications, then course elements, then teaching formats, and finally exam formats. Elements that build on one another, where each depends on the previous. That helped us structure what we wanted to discuss at the workshop, and how everything was connected. The meeting with the CED was also about how we could best involve the students, and what type of dialogue suited the different topics,” Valdemar Oksfeldt Enevoldsen explains about the process.

Valdemar Oksfeldt Enevoldsen developed a workshop structure divided into distinct themes, which made an otherwise broad topic more manageable for the students. For example, one theme was ’barriers and obstacles’, which gave participants a clear starting point for reflecting on their experiences:

“’Education’ is a broad and somewhat fluffy topic, so it helped to give our fellow students something very specific to reflect on. One piece of advice from the CED was that we could say: ‘Think about the first semester; what barriers and obstacles did you encounter?’ That worked very well,” Valdemar Oksfeldt Enevoldsen notes. Simon Jensby elaborates:

“As Valdemar also says, educational development can feel a bit fluffy. It can include many things. That’s why it’s all about creating structure and quality in the discussions, so it doesn’t just become loose conversations about all sorts of things, but something easier to work with in concrete terms.”

Based on the ideas of the meeting, the IGOR representatives planned a workshop structure in two parts. One part focused on the qualification profile at Geoscience and elements such as fieldwork, IT skills, and other specific competences that the students felt were important to include.

“When developing programmes, it is a good idea to start from the qualification profile and the intended learning outcomes, that is, what graduates should be able to do, know, and be capable of after completing the degree programme. The qualification profile functions as a management tool for the direction of the programme, ensuring that choices regarding content, course structure, teaching formats, and assessment formats support what you want students to learn,” explains My Jakobsen.

The second part focused on the course elements, both the individual courses and the semester structure: which courses worked well, which worked less well, and which could perhaps be placed in a different semester. Here, participants worked in groups to enable more people to contribute and build on one another’s perspectives.

“The workshop went very well. And the advice from the CED was immensely valuable. Of course, we know all the subject-specific aspects, like how things are organised and how the courses work, but the CED knows about educational design, structure, and processes. Talking it through with someone who views it from that angle gave us so much to work with going forward,” says Valdemar Oksfeldt Enevoldsen.

A solid foundation for the next steps

After the workshop, the students’ input was compiled and presented to the local education committee.

“It turned out that many of the points we as students had identified had already been discussed among the staff. There was a great deal of overlap, and that made an impression. It’s very encouraging when students and teachers share the same perspectives on what matters, and when there was disagreement, we also managed to put it into words,” says Valdemar Oksfeldt Enevoldsen.

For Valdemar Oksfeldt Enevoldsen, who is used to chairing general assemblies and degree programme council meetings with presentations and lively debate, this was nevertheless a special experience.

“Facilitating a workshop like that was quite new to me and by far the most comprehensive thing I’ve tried. But I felt well-prepared for the task. I’m proud that we made it work, and that it produced such strong results,” he says.

Looking back on the process, he highlights the meeting with the CED as very valuable. The meeting was not about grand dramatic interventions, but about concrete topics and ways of structuring the work that made it easier for the students to succeed with their workshop. It left a clear mark on both the preparation and the outcome.  

“I was really pleased with the experience with the CED. I think it offers significant learning opportunities for students and value for staff when there’s an outside perspective on the processes. And it’s encouraging to experience that you can ask for this type of support at the university and genuinely receive help. I honestly think that’s great,” he says enthusiastically.

Get support for your development processes

The CED offers support and consultancy across a wide range of educational development tasks in close collaboration with the academic environments. While the academic environments contribute deep insight into their own disciplines, the CED brings research-informed expertise in, among other things, educational design, curriculum revision, quality assurance, and accreditation.

“We don’t know what the content of individual degree programmes should be, or which specific elements should be included in a programme. Instead, we can help ask the right questions and see connections across the degree programme. After that, it is the academic environment that makes the decisions. Our role is simply to support and strengthen the discussions,” concludes My Jakobsen.

Contact us via our booking system to be matched with the right consultants who can help you and your academic field. Or you can contact My Jakobsen directly (lmyj@au.dk | +45 30 58 81 33) and Simon Jensby (sje@au.dk | +45 29 84 61 90).