This is a post by Dr. Juliette Wilson-Thomas for the Fall 2023 Newsletter

Caption: Street art project with children from a local primary school painting a mural on their school wall in Manchester. Picture Source Juliette Wilon-Thomas

Since former UK  Prime Minister Tony Blair’s vow to get 50% of young people into university in 1999 the UK undergraduate population has rapidly increased and diversified. There are now more women, ethnic minorities, and to some extent, working class students than ever before. However, these new higher education students do not always feel welcome or ‘at home’ in universities, and this can have a negative impact on their achievements.

Governments tend to be interested in increasing the number of university students in order to develop ‘social mobility’, the idea that people can ‘improve’ their class position and fortunes. But this is really a fallacy when there is no room at the top for all. In an era where social inequalities are intensifying worldwide it is arguably more impactful for universities to focus instead on social justice and destabilizing inequitable hierarchies.

My teaching and learning in higher education focuses on using project-based pedagogy to include diverse students, providing them with a choice and voice in their curriculum. In framing the projects around a social justice theme, I also aim to support students in developing their awareness of inequalities, and empowering them so that they can help address it.

Project-based Pedagogy (PBP)

PBP is a method of teaching and learning which engages students in a process of answering a challenging (and real!) problem, with a project they work on and deliver in groups. My use of PBP is grounded in the critical pedagogy of Paulo Freire and of bell hooks, who advocate for all education as ‘the practice of freedom.’ To me this means that the education I provide must be meaningful to the students, and support changing the inequitable conditions of society.

My students are studying education and childhood studies, and so in supporting the development of the educators of the future, it is an ethical imperative to me that they become skilled in addressing inequalities through social action. To do so I pose different projects increasing in scale over the year. Their first challenge, for example, is to develop a public campaign on anything they are passionate about, with the aim of changing people’s behavior.

Students often find this task daunting but enjoyable. In my research with these students they commented on how the projects prepared them for the future and helped to build their confidence. As one student commented, “[it] was definitely an enlightening experience and did wonders for our courage to speak up collectively.’ PBP is not only good at including diverse students, it also supports their development of agency and action.

Caption: Manchester Metropolitan University Students delivering their public campigns. Source: Juliette Wilson-Thomas

Creative-Critical Assessment

To assess students’ learning on the PBP course I use ‘creative-critical assessment’, which means I leave the format of assessment open to students. But students must use whatever format they choose to reflect creatively and meaningfully on their experiences. Students often opt to make a short animation video which is usually shared with a wider audience via Youtube. Creative-critical assessment is argued to be a socially just practice in itself, through challenging neoliberalism and marketization in higher education through the agency afforded to students.

There’s also the question of what it is we want our students to take away from higher education. In my view, one objective is to provide memorable and valuable learning experiences. As one of my students remarked on the difference between traditional essays and creative critical assessments: “I think it was a better way to apply the learning. Well, obviously I still remember that really clearly because it was something that I valued. But the majority of essays that I’ve written throughout my degree I probably couldn’t tell you about them. I think it is really important to be able to creatively apply learning.”

It is also true that in the rapidly advancing age of artificial intelligence (AI), universities need to radically overhaul many of their more traditional assessment practices which are no longer fit for purpose. Project-based pedagogy and creative-critical assessments offer an answer, as well as providing students with an assessment format that reaches a wider audience and may give them evidence to support their future employment.

Agency and Action

So for me, PBP is about socially just teaching and learning in higher education, because it gives students choice and agency over their learning process. Some have critiqued PBP as lacking the information or detail of more traditional courses. But when evidence demonstrates students from marginalized groups do much better than others on courses that use PBP, it is important to diversify our approach for equality.

The action component of PBP also provides students with the opportunity to do something with a wider community reach. This civic action may be a future direction of the increasingly socially conscious higher education sector, and supports the development of social action in undergraduate students. Therefore, PBP has the double benefit of being a more inclusive and socially just teaching practice, but also developing that social action in students for the greater good.

Author Bio

Dr Juliette Wilson-Thomas is a Senior Lecturer in Education and Childhood Studies at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Read More

Wilson-Thomas, J., 2022. Swiftly switching project-based learning to the online environment. Student Engagement in Higher Education Journal, 4(2), pp.72-81.