Working in partnership to plan and run a welcome day for Opportunity Oxford offer holders

In this conversation recorded on 19 March 2024, Anna Price, a biochemistry student at University College and Dominic Alonzi, the Medical Sciences Division Opportunity Oxford Coordinator, discuss their experience working in partnership to plan and run a virtual welcome day for Opportunity Oxford offer holders. 

Listen to conversation

https://ox.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Embed.aspx?id=3cf4677d-92db-4583-b565-b14f0091e577&autoplay=false&offerviewer=true&showtitle=true&showbrand=true&captions=false&start=0&interactivity=all

Read transcript of conversation

Lauren Bolz: 

Hello to anyone listening in. You're about to hear from three of us—a student and two members of staff—discussing a case study of student-staff partnerships at the University of Oxford. This case study is part of the Centre for Teaching and Learning’s Student-Staff Partnerships Toolkit. So, thank you both for joining me and having this chat with me today. Could you start by just telling me your names and your roles within the University?

Anna Price: 

I'm Anna. I’m a fourth-year biochemist at University College, and I’m completing my master's this year. 

Dom Alonzi: 

Hi, I'm Dom Alonzi. I'm the Medical Sciences Division Opportunity Oxford Coordinator. 

Lauren: 

Great, thank you. And I'm Lauren Bolz, an Educational Development Project Officer at the Centre for Teaching and Learning.  

The reason we’re having this chat is so that I and anyone who listens in can learn about a student-staff partnership that you were both involved in. Student-staff partnerships refer to a way of working where students and staff work alongside each other to achieve a goal. This goal could be to learn about something, to teach something, to plan something, to research something... really, any verb that falls into teaching, learning and learning enhancement activities. 

My understanding is that your goal in the partnership we’re going to talk about today was to design and run an online welcome day program for Opportunity Oxford, which (and I’m reading off Opportunity Oxford’s website here) is an academic program that helps to prepare talented UK offer-holders from under-represented backgrounds for successful student careers at our university. So, could you tell me a bit more about what your goal was, what you set out to achieve, that kind of thing? 

Anna: 

Our main goal was, from my point of view, to curate an informative and interactive online open day session, which included a lot of different sessions run by people that have different roles within Opportunity Oxford. From the attendees perspective (the students and their parents and guardians) what we really wanted them to get out of the open day was to ease any queries or concerns that they had regarding anything that's associated with Opportunity Oxford, whether that's why they were admitted on the programme, what the academic aspect of that looks like, what the social aspect of that looks like, or what you can gain as you enter your degree.

Dom: 

I think as Anna said, it's to allay any unease that they may have had. They get their offer after being interviewed in December, and it sort of looks to appears to have come with a caveat that you're in Opportunity Oxford. But that this isn't a bad thing. It's a really rewarding experience. [In Opportunity Oxford] they're going to do some work over the summer and learn what that entails and a lot of the logistics around that such as how they will navigate Canvas courses and what the aim of those are. It's not content based, it's academic skills and getting feedback from your tutors over that period. But then also coming for these two weeks and learning how the logistics of that work but also the goals and how this is a transition thing. It’s a really positive two weeks and then a positive summer. So hopefully that's what we achieve. And having Anna and the other ambassadors lead these sessions and interact with us shows that this isn't a scary place and this isn't a bad thing and hopefully builds some confidence in the whole process.

Lauren: 

And Anna, how did you get involved in this? 

Anna: 

I was a student, an Opportunity Oxford student, on the first ever year of the programme, which was the COVID year, as we all remember. My experience of seeing how this programme has grown has actually been really exciting for me, because I was really at the start when it hadn't really grown into itself yet, shall we say. You know, there were masks and there was the rule of six. So I feel as though, although my time was great on the programme, it probably wasn't the best that it could have been. And I remember after my first year, the Opportunity Oxford team sent out emails recruiting student workers and helpers. The first ever session I did was in the October when I first started at Oxford. We all, a group of students and I, met and did an informative video for Opportunity Oxford, which they now use on the welcome day of the residential every year to answer the general and specific questions that all students will have about the programme. And since then, I've also worked on three Residential's for Opportunity Oxford. 

Lauren: 

Could you tell me a bit more about the work that you did in partnership between students and staff? Were you jointly making the event schedule for the day? I know that you led sessions together. Were you involved in the planning of the day, anything like that? 

Anna: 

Sure. Specifically, my role was a host. Like Dom said, I would introduce and welcome the students and then introduce each section. A major part of that was doing a student Q&A panel. But the way the staff-student [partnership] really worked was that before the online event, a week before we all met on teams. All the students would meet with all the staff, and we'd get to do a training session, which was led by the staff. They would guide us through what they envisioned for the day, you know, the logistics of what schedules were going when. And that was a really collaborative effort in trying to understand what the day would entail and what our specific responsibilities were. Because although there was a group of students, our responsibilities were also divided. I was a co-host with someone else. Then there were other students who were called chat managers, who would do more of the tech/logistical side, answering any questions that came in on the Teams chat or anonymously via Slido. Throughout that training day, the staff would give us opportunities to ask questions about what our role was, but also to give any input we thought. So, for example, one specific role we had in providing input for the day was to provide our opinion of how the staff actually presented us as a student cohort and the way in which the slides were presented. So we had a lot of input on the presentation that the students would be receiving, which I think is important, considering the students are the ones in the positions that can relate most to the audience of that day. 

Lauren: 

It sounds like you guys were really able to bring your experience of what it was like showing up to this day with so many questions. 

Dom: 

Yeah, the offer holders do have a huge array of questions. You know, it's very strange. And in the academic session that Anna and I did together, [the questions] were a little bit about 'what is a tutorial' and those kind of ideas. What are these actual tasks we're going to do? Can we look at the canvas course? What questions would the students have and how would Anna respond to them? And what can she bring having had the experience of going through that process herself? And that, I think, was so invaluable that actually [the students] take the lead on this so that it’s the real students who've been through this process saying, you know, this isn't something strange. This is actually a really good chance to do a little bit of work over the summer and get ahead of that transition. And, like I said, there's so many different ways that the offer holders can then interact in those sessions. They can put on their camera and ask a question. But this is a very new experience to them, so having the Slido, having the teams chat, having all those things going on at once meant that the session is really interactive. And seeing Anna talk and interact with me gives them confidence that these academics are real people and students and staff. All they're learning is about working together.

Lauren: 

Could you tell me both about what you feel like you kind of got out of engaging in this process?  

Dom: 

I think learning from what [Opportunity Oxford students] want to know at an open day and how that can allay life fears of Opportunity Oxford offer holder has been hugely informative. I think having the students and people who have been through that experience really informs how you want to progress these things, how can they be most effective, what do you want to get out of the open day? What do students in their places, what do their guardians, what do their parents need to get out of this this day? And without the students leading the whole day doing all the interactions, I think it would be a lot weaker and a lot poorer experience for everyone. 

Anna: 

For me, I feel as though my first experience on Opportunity Oxford was four years ago, and those memories and how I was feeling and my first initial impressions of Oxford and this programme, you know, it was still very fresh. I think that doing these roles and participating in any activities for Opportunity Oxford, I find really rewarding and just generally really fun as well. It's nice to be able to provide help and ease to new students. Although getting into Oxford is obviously a very exciting and huge achievement, a lot of students will have huge worries and concerns about what that looks like. And I think that if I could have any input in making them feel a lot more comfortable with starting their journey here, then that's something that I really aim to achieve, especially whilst I'm still a student and have first-hand experiences within this Uni and of being on Opportunity Oxford. 

Lauren: 

That does sound like a really rewarding experience. Reflecting on that and your whole experience taking part in this student-staff partnership, do you have any advice that you would give to anyone who wants to engage in a similar student-staff partnership? Say, planning or running some kind of welcome day event? 

Anna: 

I think that focusing your project around your audience and around who your project will benefit the most is probably the best way that you can get the most out of your experience. But I agree and would encourage people to really try student-led projects. I think that's something really unique and I think is something that students will have good opinions on and a lot to say. I think that taking advantage of that whilst you're in a position in which you can work with students would be very rewarding. 

Lauren: 

Thank you so much for kind of sharing your experiences with engaging in this student-staff partnership. It sounds like, from what you guys have been saying, that had students only been involved in more of a consultative way, where students had just provided their feedback on the day, there's no way you would have been able to really take on board and integrate the questions and the approaches that would most benefit the next cohort of students in the day. So, that's great to hear that students were able to be involved and really shape that day alongside staff. But thank you, Anna and Dom, so much for having this conversation with me and sharing it as part of the Centre for Teaching and Learning’s Student-Staff Partnerships Toolkit.