Perspectives on Partnerships – What we are doing

Engagement Through Partnerships -My experiences
Dr Christine Eastman. Senior Fellow HEA, School of Business

I am currently running a writing and publication course through our partner Consalia, with alumni from an eclectic array of fields such as artificial intelligence, coaching, education, sales and finance.

They represent a range of countries across three continents and are in the process of crafting monographs, book proposals and academic and professional journal articles for publication with a view to enhancing their career and promotion prospects.

They are exploring various publication routes towards transforming their doctoral and masters theses and projects into tremendous academic and personal achievements, and so working in partnership with publishers is key.

• there is the goal of getting one’s thesis or project revised and published in an academic or professional journal (or in the case of a book or monograph, a proposal completed and a first chapter drafted);
• there is also the objective of learning to write with clarity and verve.

The workshops are designed as spaces for discussion and times to reflect on being a critical, discerning reader and intellectual explorer.

I am currently running the course as a pilot but would like to roll it out in 2019 as an on-going CPD course delivered to alumni with an interest in getting their work and ideas out to a wider audience.

The objectives of the course are duo-fold:

Students are exposed to the writing of contentious philosophers, towering educationalists, compelling polemicists, and great novelists. The reading is chosen to produce an indelible impression on student thinking and writing.

As many students want highlight their innovative coaching, sales or productivity models and signpost the cutting edge work of their organisation, this course is an excellent way to start thinking about getting their name in print and consider how their work will develop in partnership with other institutions.

Teaching and Learning in Partnership with the RAF Museum

Liz Beasley,  Dept of Education

Osbert Parker, Visual Arts

As a relatively new member of staff at Middlesex University, and a new member of the local community, I was quick to notice that the RAF Museum would be an ideal location for student field trips.

Here I outline a project involving students who are Teaching Assistants working in local schools on the FdA Learning and Teaching programme. They are experienced in classrooms and very capable of supporting each other as a community of learners to develop new ideas for teaching.

This non-school setting for learning has proved to be a great opportunity to think beyond their own workplace and situate their work within that of other institutions and to consider how to support other adults in teaching opportunities.  The students, for example, would be tasked with developing new ideas for dialogic tasks that could be easily used by volunteers and helpers visiting the museum with children.


Following initial meetings to discuss the visits with a museum learning advisor, a Director of Learning was appointed with an educational focus. We met to discuss our student assignment focus and align the assignment products with RAF Museum action plan so they could be used in practice.

The initial sharing of dialogic activities based on museum artefacts took place in July 2017, just as the museum was preparing for the 100 year celebrations. We were fortunate that one particular idea relating to Biomimicry would lead to a significant project at Colindale Primary School and several displays in the museum then recognised the work done as a result of the project (see photo).

This has proved to be a great recognition of the work of the students involved and has been an inspiration for the current students who eagerly anticipate their own involvement, and the opportunity to engage in working with external partners.

Women’s health partnership sessions

Nicky Lambert, Dept Mental Health and Social work.

The mental health, social work, nursing and midwifery teams work with a range of partners from schools, trusts, charities and businesses. We are currently working in partnership with the West Hampstead Women’s centre who are hosting us to deliver informal teaching and learning sessions.

The South Asian Women’s group based there, organises health sessions which the women use to make wellbeing information accessible and relevant to their lives. The group work together to nominate a set of topics related to the health issues currently affecting them. Once they have set a topic for each month, they decide on a few burning questions and we attend the session or use our connections to find speakers who can respond to them.

The main points that we share are translated into Guajarati, Bengali, Urdu and alongside English are made into a calendar which the group gives out to friends and family. It’s a great way to bring our professional skills in health and education into our local communities and in the coming year the sessions are set to range from discussing happiness to understanding Alzheimer’s. 

The sessions are fun to deliver and the group shares a meal afterwards, however it can be quite challenging to pitch the content. Whilst the group are all adults they come with their own experiences and there is always a range of understanding and language abilities. Making a complex topic accessible to lay people but not simplistic, is an art but as these sessions are live translated in up to four languages its important to think carefully about what the important message are, and what you want to convey.

I try to use images and stories which connect across any language barriers to common experiences and leave lots of room for questions. It’s a great pleasure to work with these lovely women and their feedback has helped me think again about how I structure and prioritise information and how I check back in the classroom to ensure I have everyone on board when it comes to understanding.

If you want to get involved please email me! n.lambert@mdx.ac.uk

Teaching Innovation and Creating Partnerships –

Simon Best, Programme Leader Msc Innovation Management and Entrepreneurship

MGT 3193 Business start-ups is an optional module on a number of programmes in the Business School.  The teaching strategy is focused on the students requirements and tries to measure learning (observable changes in thinking and behaviour) rather than knowledge. 

As a result the module takes an unusual approach.  There are no recommended text books, nor are any text books specifically followed.  What happens is that during a workshop students are given a framework of concepts and notions within which they need to construct their approach to setting up and running a micro pop-up business.  Students initially explore the concepts and notions in their groups without supervision through self-directed learning activities.  They then come back into the classroom where they discuss their findings/views with up to 8 local business people. 

The workshops simply provide boundaries for the students to explore.  The development of knowledge takes place during the self-directed learning.  During the third step the students explain and discuss with the business people what they have discovered and why they think it is useful.  The role of the business people is to question and challenge every thing the students tell them.  They are not allowed to give advice, nor are they allowed to make too many positive contributions.

What we find happens is that the students understanding of the knowledge they collect deepens and that they are able to apply this knowledge in a way that changes their thinking about starting a business, as well as the actions they take to enable the business function. 

The business people also report learning taking place for them.  Often the business people comment that as a result of their participation they find themselves reflecting and thinking more deeply about their own businesses as a result of this interaction.

‘The Student Success Festival’: How Helping Engage Students Has Also Helped Us Engage And Collaborate With Colleagues

Faith Dillon-Lee, Learning Enhancement Team

Joanna Peksa, Learning Enhancement Team

The Student Success Festival (SSF) was devised to help the various support services at our institution, Middlesex University, connect with students.  It brings together somewhere in the region of fifteen individual support teams and around 120 members of staff, from areas such as Counselling and Mental Health, Employability, Maths and Numeracy, Alumni Networks, Writing and Language, the Students’ Union, Sports and Recreation, Library services, Post-Graduate Support, Erasmus, and Language Culture Exchange, amongst others.

Whilst working on the project, we began to recognise that, as much as the students were unaware of what different support services offered and how these services can interlink, so were the various teams.  Both Wager () and Kuh () talk about the importance of building a community to help students progress and achieve. We feel that these aims can also be applied to staff – both for employee wellbeing and staff retention.

The SSF provides an umbrella for different groups to explore overlap between their offerings, looking for ways to work together and enhance their services. This is made possible by our commitment to focusing the SSF on the skills being offered, rather than the boundaries of each team’s remit. For example, our Employability service, our Post-Graduate support team and our Alumni team all work in various ways with LinkedIn. As such, we have been able to facilitate these teams working together to provide one area of support for students around building and maintaining LinkedIn profiles, rather than each team working separately to offer similar provision to students.

We feel that looking at skills and offerings rather than being focused on team remits and boundaries allows us to facilitate a community and collegiate ethos in the SSF, where teams recognise their shared goals and values. This has encouraged greater communication and also a reduction in repeated work. Moreover, we are also working on ways to extend this ethos into friendship-building through the instigation of SSF interdepartmental social events for stakeholders. While we have found that take-up is slow, we are noticing increased engagement and enjoyment in this area.

We believe, if we can offer a space for our colleagues to become our friends, staff will feel more supported and connected to the community of the university – a result everyone, staff and students, will benefit from.