The five Ps of LD in practice: student partnership approaches in one-to-one, workshops and online work

Learning Development espouses values that promote tailored, holistic, empowering, emancipatory, non-judgemental and student-centred practice. However, it is harder to imagine what these values look like as concrete principles in the context of our work, so we can ensure that we are consciously and deliberately enacting them. The Five Ps of LD (Webster, 2023) were developed as a framework to embed the principle of ‘formulation’ into LD practice. Formulation is a partnership approach, borrowed from counselling and psychology, in which the student and the LDer work together as equals to explore academic skills issues holistically and identify suitable ways forward in the context of the student’s own lived experience, rather than a hierarchical, directive one in which the LDer diagnoses and prescribes guidance to the passive student. It also offers a way to turn Academic Literacies (Lea and Street, 1998) from an abstract theory to a pedagogy and a praxis. This partnership approach has many benefits, not least ensuring that provision is inclusive, emancipatory, and empowering rather than normative and oppressive. It centres and validates the student’s perspective, expertise, and experience of their own learning, not just that of academia, inviting them to respond to the practices and conventions of higher education as works best for them. It also offers a lens to make visible the distinct expertise that Learning Developers bring. This workshop explored practical approaches for using the Five Ps of LD in a range of common LD contexts: the one-to-one tutorial, small and large group workshops, and online resources. It considered how to use dialogic partnership approaches even in circumstances which favour one-way dissemination of ‘skills guidance’.