Students as co‐creators of teaching approaches, course design, and curricula: implications for academic developers
Summary (4 min read)
Introduction
- '…I think some teachers…are so focused on getting stuff done that they don't pay attention to their students, who I think are the most valuable resources in a classroom.'.
- Drawing on current literature about student engagement and on a growing body of student voice research, the authors contend that academic staff should not only consult students but also explore ways for students to become full participants in the design of teaching approaches, courses and curricula.
- This contention challenges conventional conceptions of learners as subordinate to the expert tutor/faculty in engaging with what is taught and how.
- Moving away from traditional hierarchical models of expertise, it strives for 'radical collegiality' in which students are 'agents in the process of transformative learning'.
Theoretical Grounding
- Student engagement is considered crucial to student success in higher education, with engagement understood as serious interest in, active taking up of, and commitment to learning (Kuh, Kinzie, Shuh & Whitt, 2010) .
- Adopting an active and participatory role in learning is thought to enhance learning processes and outcomes (Kuh, 2008) through, for example: students engaging in meaningful (as opposed to rote) learning; staff and students breaking down the power differential between them; and students experiencing the freedom to become critical thinkers and critical beings in the world (Barnett, 1997; Freire 2003) .
- Baxter Magolda ( 2009) calls this self-authorship.
- Developed largely in school contexts in the UK, Australia, Canada, and the US, 'student voice' is premised on the notions that students have a unique perspective on teaching and learning and that they should be invited to share their insights, which warrant not only the attention but also the response of educators (Fielding, 2001; Rudduck, 2007) .
- Participatory approaches risk unquestioningly reifying the views of the less powerful (Cooke & Kothari, 2001) -in this case, students.
Students as Co-creators of Teaching Approaches
- The first programme the authors highlight, called Students as Learners and Teachers (SaLT), is funded by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
- Part of the Teaching and Learning Initiative at Bryn Mawr College, the programme invites faculty and students to engage in reflective dialogue about what is happening and what could be happening in higher education classrooms.
- Since 2007, SaLT has supported 108 faculty members (who span ranks and divisions and range from new to those with 45 years of teaching experience) and 57 student consultants (second-year through to fourth-year undergraduate students who major in different fields, claim different identities, and bring varying degrees of formal preparation in educational studies) in a total of 137 partnerships.
- Students are not enrolled in the courses for which they serve as consultants.
Students as Co-creators of Course Design
- Course design might be the most important barrier to quality teaching and learning in higher education (Fink 2003) .
- Since 2005, faculty, students, and academic development staff at Elon University have experimented with a variety of approaches to partnering in 'course design teams' (CDT) that co-create, or re-create, a course syllabus.
- Each team's process varies, but typically a CDT includes one or two faculty, between two and six undergraduate students, and one academic developer (Delpish et al., 2010; Mihans et al., 2008; Moore, Altvater, Mattera & Regan, 2010) .
- Once the CDT is assembled, the CDT uses a 'backward design' approach (Wiggins & McTighe, 2005) , first developing course goals and then building pedagogical strategies and learning assessments on the foundation of those goals.
- This collaborative approach prompts both students and academic staff to confront fundamental questions about the nature of teaching and learning.
Benefits to Students and Academic Staff
- Each programme discussed here has been analyzed through a different process.
- SaLT has, since its inception, been the subject of an action research project approved by Bryn Mawr College's Institutional Review Board.
- Through this project, the primary investigator and student researchers have engaged in the 'spiral of selfreflective cycles' of planning a change, acting and observing the consequences of the change, reflecting on these processes and consequences, and then re-planning (Kemmis & Wilkinson, 1998, p. 21) .
- The primary methods of analysis have been constant comparison and grounded theory (Creswell, 2006; Strauss, 1987) .
- The co-created curricula examples were investigated using case study methodology in a research study approved by the University of Glasgow's Education Ethics Committee.
Students and Academic Staff Gain a Deeper Understanding of Learning
- When students work with academic staff to develop pedagogical approaches, they gain a different angle on, and a deeper understanding of, learning.
- Likewise, when academic staff engage in dialogue with students and one another about learning expectations, pedagogical rationales are clarified.
- This is consistent with Hattie's (2008) findings regarding how 'visible teaching' and 'visible learning' improve student learning outcomes.
- As an academic staff member claimed: '…students… demonstrated high levels of self-directed learning and autonomy…improved levels of confidence and motivation with a resultant impact on improved student performance'.
Students and Academic Staff Experience Enhanced Engagement, Motivation, and Enthusiasm
- Having the opportunity to work collaboratively with faculty in developing pedagogical approaches inspires students to experience an increased sense of engagement, motivation, and enthusiasm.
- The thought of actively trying to learn something never crossed my mind.
- This student's recognition that he has a choice regarding the nature of his participation in his education contributes to his taking more responsibility for his own learning (hooks, 1994; Rogers & Freiberg, 1969 ) -a recognition that leads to a re-energizing and renewed commitment to learning.
- One of the teachers at University College Dublin stated '…[this work has] really transformed how I think about teaching and how I teach.
- When academic staff feel reenergized and engage more deeply in their work through extending more opportunities to students to actively engage, learning processes and outcomes are enhanced (Kuh, 2008) .
Students and Academic Staff Relate Differently
- Students and academic staff who work together on pedagogical planning assert consistently that they revise their sense of relationship with one another.
- 'Participating in this programme has dramatically helped me to become more patient and take more responsibility for my education, also known as Students regularly state.
- These articulations of shared commitment and collaborative efforts attest to the power of positioning students as co-creators of learning (Davis & Sumara, 2002) .
- Academic staff 'spoke of the importance of having a liminal…moment early in the negotiation of collaborative relationships, where students realised that they were being listened to and taken seriously'.
- In one case, for example, the collaborative selection of a course textbook changed 'the dynamic of the design group, empowering students to be active participants and showing faculty the value of listening to students'.
Implications for Academic Developers
- Recent approaches to academic development build on constructive alternatives to what Shulman (2004) has called 'pedagogical solitude'.
- Reflective and collaborative approaches to professional development (Cowan & Westwood, 2006) and faculty learning communities (Richlin & Cox, 2004) have become models of good practice.
- Drawing upon the approaches the authors have presented, they suggest that embracing the following characteristics may enable academic developers to begin to effect this change: 1. Invite students to be partners (active and authoritative collaborators) with academic staff in pedagogical planning, thus challenging traditional hierarchies and roles.
- Foster collaboration through which both academic staff and students take more responsibility for teaching and learning and adopt new views of both.
Challenges
- Academic staff might resist new approaches viewed as time consuming if they already feel overloaded with work.
- They can acknowledge that what is possible will vary in different contexts, and provide illustrative frameworks for academic staff to use in guiding their first attempts at partnership planning with students.
- Time investments up front can pay off later as students take a more active role in the learning process (Wolf-Wendel et al, 2009) .
- Academic developers can understand and work with the disciplinary differences and needs across the university setting (Jenkins, 1996) , and they can remind academic staff that professional requirements usually relate to outcomes in terms of 'fitness to practice' and less frequently dictate the way in which the knowledge, skills and values required of a professional graduate are to be achieved.
Opportunities
- The authors have suggested some possible responses to the challenges raised, but there are other possible opportunities for promoting student participation in pedagogical planning.
- Build on existing commitments among academic staff.
- Many academic staff already collaborate with students in the research arena and others embrace liberatory pedagogies that place active student participation at the centre of their teaching practice.
- Academic developers can build upon these practices, find places where student voice work aligns with teachers' disciplinary and philosophical approaches, and help academic staff to bridge between existing approaches and new forms of collaboration.
- Such efforts make explicit for academic staff, as they do for students, the kinds of self-authorship in which they are engaged (Baxter Magolda, 2009; Cook-Sather, 2006) .
Promote and practice co-creative approaches in academic development fora. Courses such as Postgraduate
- Certificates in Learning and Teaching emphasize the importance of reflection on and evaluation of one's own teaching practice.
- These fora may also provide opportunities to promote alternative and democratic pedagogies and engender greater expectations of students.
- The authors can also practice what they preach by using co-creation in their own practice (Swennen, Lunenberg & Korthagen, 2008; Brew & Barrie, 1999) .
- Act as a bridge between different parts of the University and influence policy.
- This positioning provides a range of additional opportunities for developers to influence and support student/academic staff partnership approaches at institutional policy levels, including, for example, influencing the nature of learning and teaching strategies.
Questions for Further Exploration
- The complexity of student participation in pedagogical planning means that there are many areas of practice with questions that remain unanswered:.
- Involving students in designing their own educational experiences can enhance student ownership of their learning, but this implies the need for redesign by the next cohort of students to ensure that they achieve this same degree of ownership.
- Involving students in pedagogical planning is a significant step in deepening engaged learning and might therefore be understood as a professional responsibility for academic developers.
- The authors have attempted to illustrate the added value of this approach: the implications in terms of deeper learning and changed relationships between academic staff and students.
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Cites background from "Students as co‐creators of teaching..."
...The idea of students as partners, change agents, producers, and co-creators of their own learning has been the subject of increasing interest in recent years (see for example Bovill et al. 2011; Carey 2013; Dunne and Zandstra 2011)....
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"Students as co‐creators of teaching..." refers methods in this paper
...The primary methods of analysis have been constant comparison and grounded theory (Creswell, 2006; Strauss, 1987)....
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"Students as co‐creators of teaching..." refers background in this paper
...Proposals for higher education students to collaborate in pedagogical planning are not new (Dewey, 1916)....
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Frequently Asked Questions (9)
Q2. What is the key to enhancing collegial partnerships between faculty members and students?
Positioning students as peers who have valuable perspectives (Sorenson, 2001) is key to3supporting collegial partnerships between faculty members and students with the goal of clarifying and improving classroom practice (Cook-Sather, 2010; 2009, 2008).
Q3. How did students and academic staff develop their negotiation skills?
Students and academic staff developed their negotiation skills through discussion, compromise and agreement about curriculum decisions.
Q4. What are the main reasons for the inclusion of students in the fora?
These fora may also provide opportunities to promote alternative and democratic pedagogies and engender greater expectations of students.
Q5. What can academic developers do to help students?
Academic developers canInternational Journal for Academic Developmentunderstand and work with the disciplinary differences and needs across the university setting (Jenkins, 1996), and they can remind academic staff that professional requirements usually relate to outcomes in terms of ‘fitness to practice’ and less frequently dictate the way in which the knowledge, skills and values required of a professional graduate are to be achieved.
Q6. What is the role of students in pedagogical planning?
Involving students in pedagogical planning is a significant step in deepening engaged learning and might therefore be understood as a professional responsibility for academic developers.
Q7. What is the meaning of student voice?
Like engagement, student voice is a theory and set of practices that position students as active agents in analyses and revisions of education.
Q8. What do academic staff say about the change in relationship?
Academic staff similarly comment on the change in relationship: ‘I work with students more as colleagues, more as people engaged in similar struggles to learn and grow.’
Q9. What is the main argument for students as co-creators of learning?
In virtually every definition of engaged learning, students take an active role in the learning process (WolfWendel, Ward & Kinzie, 2009), with recent calls for students to become co-creators of learning (Davis & Sumara, 2002; McCulloch, 2009).