Katie Stripe - Staff stories

Katie Stripe - Staff Stories

I have worked in many StudentShapers projects in the past as well as working with student partners and consultants in other contexts. Each experience has been different and bought with it its own challenges, frustrations, benefits, and joys. All of this means I went into this particular project with an open mind but also a knowledge of previous frustrations so I was able to start the partnership off in a way that I hoped would help to mitigate the challenges and make the project really productive.

One of my favourite things about this project was how different the staff and student partners were.  As a collaboration across disciplines we all brought different things to the project, as you would expect, but the dynamic of the team really worked and everyone embraced not only what they are good at but the areas where they are not confident or do not necessarily have the most knowledge or skills. This made for a really supportive group and the development of a better output.

Working with students always brings different viewpoints and opinions, as well as a reminder that I am no longer young! The older we get, the further away we are from our own student days the more important it is to listen to the students. I submitted maths coursework written by hand and all my resources were books. Our students have access to so much knowledge, much of which is unverified in terms of quality. They have a wildly different experience as students and that is without considering the changes in social and cultural norms.

This project, to develop an introductory maths catalogue, was an embodiment of this and aimed to help incoming students to navigate their maths curriculum. It also needed to do so in an inclusive way and again the students have valuable input here.

As staff partner, my ‘subject’ is inclusion, meaning that I have studied it and read the academic discourse in terms of inclusive education. However, this is no substitute for the human feelings and experiences of current students from different backgrounds. Being able to discuss those experiences with students and apply that to the academic discourse was a really valuable personal outcome from this project. Working with students also forces you to look at your own discipline in a different way because you have to view it, and explain it, in a way that is meaningful to a completely different audience. That in turns makes you see things differently and that is fundamentally what you get from partnering with students.

In terms of the project itself I hope this collaboration of differing backgrounds, opinions, and experiences has created a resource that will help future students settle into their courses and be more comfortable in asking for help or using other resources.