Author: Mike Neary

 

Student as Producer has been getting a lot of very positive coverage recently in The Guardian’s Higher Education Network website:

On the 22nd of September the website featured an article Mike Neary had written on Student as Producer: Reinventing the Undergraduate Curriculum.

On  the 11th of October  Student as Producer was the central item in an article about putting student engagement at the heart of higher education.

On the 18th of October The Guardian published an article, written by Joss Winn and Mike Neary, where they argued that hackers are vital to higher education’s  culture of openness and innovation.

In the meantime, Mike Neary and  Dan Derricott, last year’s Vice President for the Student’s Union at Lincoln, have been asked to be panel members for online group discussions about the future of Higher Education.

All of this shows very cleary the amount of interest there is around the sector for Student as Producer and the impact this project is having.

Student as Producer has been on tour in New York, 11 – 14th October, 2011. Mike Neary and Joss Winn spoke at several universities in Manhattan, including Baruch College – City University of New York (CUNY), the Adelphi University and the New School. Mike and Joss gave their talk at Baruch College ( CUNY) alongside Jim Groom, from Mary Washington University. Jim’s work shares similar objectives with Student as Producer. You can see photographs from the presentation here, as well as listen to an audio recording. The talk was well received. There is a great deal of interest among the academics and students who attended the presentations on Student as Producer.

The focus of the first year of the project has been on preparation for institutional change, with many activities aimed at raising awareness among staff and students. This includes informing new students coming to Lincoln for the academic year 2011 – 2012.

The key activities and outputs so far have been:

• Briefing sessions and workshops held with staff across the university in both academic and professional support departments
• Setting up of Fund for Educational Development projects to support curriculum re-design initiatives
• Setting up Undergraduate Research Opportunities Scheme projects to support student involvement in the research work of the University
• Development of a ‘user guide’ and identification of eight key features of Student as Producer
• Self-assessment tool completed by all programmes across the institution, identifying existing practices in line with the eight key features, and planned developments
• High profile project launch and development of project website
• one-day Festival of Teaching and Learning showcasing student-led activities across all departments
• Establish with colleagues and students from other universities the inaugural British Confernce for Undergradaute Resaerch, at UCLAN, and send nine students to present their research
• Establishment of student group: ‘Producers’ as key agents of change
• Promotional materials designed by students, for students, including video, business cards, etc
• Development of evaluation framework
• Keynote presentations given at a number of institutions (UCS, DMU, Newcastle, Galway)
• Conference presentations at HEA and ALDinHE conferences
• Published book chapters and peer-reviewed online journal article
• Article published in THE, April 2011 http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=415973

Key to achieving the intended outcomes of the project is the revision of Quality Assurance and Enhancement Processes in relation to programme approval, monitoring and review, in order to embed Student as Producer fully across the institution. Revised documentation is now in place, ready for implementation during year 2 of the project.

Standout events already planned for next academic year 2011 – 2012:

• Teaching and Learning Festival to take place in early March 2012, dates to be confirmed
• Student as Producer will play a leading role in the organisation of the British Conference for Undergraduate Research  (BCUR) to be held at University of Warwick in March 2012
• Student as Producer will host a national conference for student computer developers and programmers in collaboration with JISC  in November 2011
• Relaunch ‘Neo – a journal for student research’ at the graduate conference. This journal is an outlet for student work that is reviewed by academics. Students take key roles in the management of this journal
• Publish single authored volume:  ‘Student as Producer: How do Revolutionary Teachers Teach’ with Zero Books

 

The poster has been designed by students to publicise the forthcoming Festival of Teaching and Learning at the University of Lincoln on 31st of March 2011.

 

 

Mike Neary has signed a contract with Zero books to publish a monograph on the topic of  Student as Producer and how it extends beyond the University of Lincoln.

Student as Producer – How Do Revolutionary Teachers Teach?

ABSTRACT

This book seeks to recover the idea of the university as a progressive political project. It does this through an engagement with the radical history of higher education, a review of the work of revolutionary teachers, e.g. Hegel, Vygotsky, Friere, Ranciere, Illich, hooks, and a dialogue with the movement of opposition against funding cuts to universities in the UK and around the world.  The book provides an  account of the way a group of  academics and students are attempting to construct a radical form of higher education out of the ruins of the current arrangement. The book provides a compelling account of how revolutionary ideas, e.g., melancholia, magic, comedy and poesis, can be used to reinvent the university as the highest form of social knowing, grounded in a project to confront the many global emergencies that define the contemporary world.  These ideas are used to frame a range of radical practices and principles on which to base revolutionary forms of teaching. These practices include interruption and astonishment,  dissolving the difference between manual and intellectual labour, experimenting with history and  encouraging the positive power of negative thinking ( dialectics), i.e., not teaching, so that we all might learn.