Creating Conditions for students to flourish: a Case study of Capabilities developed through a non-formal learning community in a Collegiate university

摘要

It is widely acknowledged that higher education offers greatopportunities for students to develop as learners, as future employees and ascitizens. Much of this learning and development takes place outside the structuresof the formal classroom and yet there is little evidence about the waysthat these spaces may best create conditions for students to develop their capabilitiesand interests, and flourish as positive members of a just society.Universities are in a position to “provide the enabling spaces and conditionsfor development and learning in the way that individuals cannot do alone”(Walker, 2006: 37), and this research seeks to explore ways that non-formalspaces can create conditions for such learning to occur.A new learning community has been set up within one university college witha focus on learning about and engaging with issues related to internationaldevelopment and human rights. Learning communities are structured with thepurpose of encouraging students to connect ideas from different disciplinesand of creating long-term, sustained social interactions (Zhao and Kuh, 2004).This learning project aims provide participative and critical learning opportunitiesfor a core group of approximately ten students, and considers studentdevelopment based on a holistic concept of areas of life that a student hasreason to value. Since this differs depending on the interests and ambitionsof the student, the project is necessarily student led, but support is providedto students to ensure equality of opportunity to participate. Non-formal(i.e. non-credit bearing and optional), interdisciplinary workshops are run forstudents who sign up to the community and networking events to facilitatelinks with international organisations, human rights activists and local refugee groups to help the students self-organise and lead events and activities forfurther learning.The research looks at the ways that the project develops students’ capabilities,defined as their sense of agency and their “freedom to achieve well-being”(Sen, 1992: 48). In an ever more competitive market, universities are increasinglyinterested in what they can offer to the student experience in addition toclassroom teaching. Often the focus is on employability, understood narrowlyas a ‘checklist’ of skills perceived to be of value to prospective employers.Here we explore broader areas of value that contribute to students’ well-beingand how these might impact on their experience of university and their freedomto make a positive contribution to society beyond university. In particularwe focus on the way students engage with social justice issues through theproject, and consider the ways they become involved with issues of globalimportance and how they interpret their freedom to act, participate and contributein a more just society, through consideration of their perceptions ofchanges in their capabilities.In this paper I report on the development of capabilities that increase students’freedom to achieve well-being and agency, and to participate in issues relatedto social justice and the learning outcomes for students involved in thelearning community in terms of knowledge and understanding, attitudes andtransferable skills that may enable them to make a positive contribution tosociety beyond university. These outcomes have been explored through Sen’scapability approach to examine the impact of a learning community from theperspective of what students value. Through observations of the activities thestudents organise, we attempt to unpick the interpretations of the learningcommunity as a space to learn, consider different attitudes and acquire skills.