Student engagement (or the ‘student voice’) is very much at the forefront of Higher Education at present. In 2009 it was identified by the Higher Education Academy as a priority area though as noted by Duah & Croft [1] it is not always obvious what this means for Mathematics and Statistics. Student engagement is often taken to mean involving students more in their own learning or in that of others. Students who are more engaged are generally more satisfied but are also more likely to fulfil their potential at university (see e.g. Trowler [2] for a review of the literature on student engagement and its benefits).
At the same time it is widely known that work placement schemes are extremely beneficial for the students undertaking them no matter what degree programme they are following. Not only do they get to experience work directly related to their subject of study but they are also able to develop a wide range of transferable skills beyond those taught in the classroom and develop more academically (e.g. Gomez et al [3]). Each of these aspects of industrial training lead to enhanced employability.
The natural way to bring together the benefits of student engagement in the curriculum with the benefits of work-based placement schemes is to create a teaching and learning (T+L) placement scheme. This is exactly what we have done at Reading in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics this past year with much success. In this article we outline the scheme that we have developed and highlight in detail the advantages for both staff and students.
