International Journal for Students as Partners

In partnership, for partnership

2023-12-12T22:04:55+00:00

After almost a year of planning an international conference on student partnership for humanitarian action with the UN Refugee Agency, a student-faculty partnership reflect on the learning process they undertook, and how years of working together built a strong foundation for this project. Working in partnership to communicate the importance of partnership to address complex global issues signifies the importance of engaging multi-level stakeholders in new, innovative solutions. This introduction to the special section titled after the conference provides the context for this challenging yet rewarding feat made possible with a community of partnerships.

Students as co-producers

2023-11-30T22:38:48+00:00

To engage students with academic research is recognised as a high-impact activity that supports the development of valuable critical thinking skills. Various approaches have been developed to promote student research both in and outside the curriculum. By incorporating the perspectives of both students and academics, this qualitative study evaluates the extent to which a research partnership is formed through an institutional research scheme called the Junior Research Associate. Our findings indicate that it is critical to move beyond the entrenched academic hierarchies of supervisor/supervisee to develop a negotiated research relationship. Challenges identified include the short timeframe to establish the conditions for successful partnership and differential expectations of partners at the outset of the scheme. It is also important to safeguard against such initiatives being instrumentalised by academics seeking to further their personal research agenda. The findings help to inform strategies to scale up such initiatives.

The potential of student as partners approaches for humanitarian developments

2023-10-12T16:09:44+00:00

This article explores the potential for students-as-partners models developed in the scholarship of teaching and learning and educational development fields to be expanded to new agendas such as humanitarian developments and other agendas related to the so-called civic university. There is a growing appetite for students and staff to work in partnership due to the mutual benefits for both parties (Mapstone et al., 2017), yet the majority of the published works on students as partners is almost exclusively reporting upon partnership activities relating to curriculum and wider student experience developments in higher education. This paper explores the literature on best practice for working with students as partners in order to create new recommendations for how the students-as-partners model can be applied successfully for community and humanitarian development projects, rather than curricular, teaching, or research projects By drawing on literature from student voice, student engagement in quality assurance, and co-design, this paper will highlight the great potential of student-staff partnerships for addressing other development agendas globally.

Students as partners for effective change

2023-11-20T15:08:54+00:00

My journey as a student partner began in the summer of 2020, amidst overwhelming COVID-19 hysteria and an opportunity to explore a new kind of online learning. I was doing research with a professor of mine and invited to a workshop about Pedagogical Partners with Alison Cook-Sather. When I learned how impactful my work could be as a student partner, I was hooked. For many years, I had felt as though students were not listened to, heard, or respected. I wanted students to be able to play an active role in their own learning. My freshman year, I became an undergraduate teaching assistant (UTA). The experience truly changed my college experience - I mended my troubled relationship with school and learning and came to love it.

Now, in my final year of college, I’ve been a UTA every semester since my freshman year. I’ve done research on the number of UTAs across the country and on campus at Syracuse University (SU). At SU, UTAs were few and far between, just about 10% of classes had one. The most common answer as to why UTAs weren’t used was that there was no money to pay them, so I created my own class that gave students 3 credits to be a UTA and partnered up with two close faculty mentors of mine to teach it. We reflected, dished out advice, and made important bonds with faculty and each other. After one very successful semester, we combined with the Partnership for Inclusive Education (PIE) Program through the Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence to merge the UTA program with a student consultant program. This semester, I am enjoying the best of both worlds as a UTA as well as a lead student consultant. Over the course of my college career, I have learned what a true partnership means, experienced the two-way learning it provides, and worked to make courses more inclusive, understanding, and student-centered. I’ve fought hard to put students in decision-making roles and mentored countless students into fantastic student partners that have changed campus for the better.

An authentic discussion of the students-as-partners framework

2023-10-24T13:51:20+00:00

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SaP as an outward focused model

2023-09-10T11:56:26+00:00

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Responsibility and privilege in a long-term faculty partnership with students

2023-12-12T02:58:06+00:00

The Student-to-staff partnership experience in a university-based humanitarian organization

2023-12-11T13:13:39+00:00

My journey of student-faculty partnership is one that I did not anticipate joining when I signed up for the International Students Overcoming War (ISOW) Scholarship Initiative. ISOW is part student-club, part humanitarian organization that provides students the opportunities to hone their leadership skills as they administer the operations of the scholarship program. The partnerships between students, staff, and Faculty create (experiential) learning for all that enhances personal and professional development in this community. Over the course of four years, with progressive leadership responsibilities ranging from Secretary to a full-time contract position, I have been able to experience partnership from the student and staff perspective. In this essay I share the key lessons I have learned about partnership as I moved through these roles and experienced the challenges of self-reflection, holding multiple identities, and moving on.

Voices from the field

2023-12-03T16:19:20+00:00

The choreography of partnership

2023-07-19T20:53:12+00:00

Pedagogical partnership

2023-09-01T03:46:36+00:00

Values and vision

2022-10-17T12:02:42+00:00

In this paper we detail the background to our project and provide reflections on the pedagogic partnership and its impact on medical education.

Inspiration strikes

2023-06-15T07:35:58+00:00

This article examines the process of partnering with experienced undergraduate SaLT consultants to ready educators to work in partnership with high school student consultants. We discuss the benefits of preparation: giving time to building relationships, being ready to receive feedback, learning to trust the process of student partnership, and honoring authenticity and vulnerability.

Exploring the importance of backstage conversations in student-faculty partnerships

2023-05-29T19:06:14+00:00

Book review: Connections are everything: A college student’s guide to relationship-rich education, by Peter Felten, Leo M. Lambert, Isis Artze-Vega, and Oscar R. Miranda Tapia

2024-01-02T22:18:29+00:00

The power of introspection

2023-11-03T10:54:19+00:00

This article presents the results of collaborative autoethnographical (CAE) research that investigated the group dynamics and processes of an undergraduate student, a post-doctoral fellow, and two senior administrators engaged in a students-as-partners (SaP) project. The CAE methodology allowed us to systematically, collaboratively, and iteratively analyze reflections on key takeaways from our experiences. We identified empowerment through learning and support and putting values into practice as essential components of working with SaP in mixed-role groups. This CAE research also substantiates the importance of negotiating existing power dynamics, as we identified a hierarchical structure within our group that we did not address during the actual project. Based on our group’s dynamics, we suggest that active reflection and communication regarding intersecting identities, shared and individual values, and an openness to learning and growth for all group members are critical components of working toward equitable partnerships with SaP.

Promoting students as partners in a pilot study involving undergraduate students and instructors in Spanish as a foreign language courses

2023-09-22T02:07:21+00:00

Through the student-as-partners (SaP) framework, this paper explores how this can enhance undergraduate Spanish as a foreign language flipped classroom courses and promote student engagement and satisfaction. Traditionally, higher education courses are designed and developed by faculty members; however, our pilot project proposed collaboration between students and instructors in the design and implementation of course activities. This paper explores the model’s effects and outcomes through four surveys administered at the end of the academic year. Each survey included key factors related to the learning experience: student enjoyment, emotional support, relatedness to peers, feedback from/for students, and content-related support. Collectively, these perspectives were used to reflect on the feedback provided, which helped us achieve our objective: the creation of teaching and learning resources to engage future cohorts and increase student retention. Although this model is presented in the foreign language context, it is transferable to any discipline.

Teacher candidates as student partners in decoding the disciplines research

2023-10-29T23:19:54+00:00

This study examines the role of secondary teacher candidates as student partners in research into undergraduate students’ historical cognition while contextualizing documents. It highlights the unique role of teacher candidates as near-peer interviewers and change agents within higher education and secondary curricula. Through using decoding the disciplines methodology to solicit student voice in near-peer interviews, teacher candidates identified areas for curricular change in teaching contextualization in university history courses. The involvement of teacher candidates extended beyond the university classroom and informed their future work in secondary education. Decoding experiences in university courses provided teacher candidates with insights into supporting secondary pupils’ abilities to contextualize historical sources. This research demonstrates the potential of teacher candidates as near-peer interviewers and curricular change agents in secondary and higher education. Collaborative partnerships between teacher candidates and faculty can lead to meaningful curricular changes and effective teaching practices in higher education and secondary education contexts.

Culture of engagement

2023-06-13T12:46:58+00:00

Students can influence their education through evaluations and as representatives in university decision-making bodies. A way to give them more power is through participation in course development as equal partners. In this study, the relationship between the outcome of a student-teacher partnership and a culture of student influence and engagement is explored. This is done through specifically targeting examination, an area where formal power rests far away from the actual partnership. The partnership outcome was evaluated through post-project surveys and group interviews, together with post-course evaluations. The students in the project, most of them with significant experience as student representatives, emphasized their ability to make meaningful change. At the same time, the students taking the revised course appreciated the implemented changes. A culture of engagement positively affected the outcome of the partnership, while the partnership itself strengthened students in their roles as change agents.

The power of naming students-as-partners practices

2023-09-01T04:18:22+00:00

Involving students in the design of their educational experience is increasingly being understood by higher education institutions to enhance learning, to build a better culture, and to foster inclusivity amongst a host of other benefits. Accordingly, institutions are trialling a wide range of Students as Partners practices. There is currently huge variation in the nature and scale of these practices. This paper proposes a taxonomy that will allow Students as Partners practices to be consistently described, and therefore compared and mapped. This is a vital next step in the development and widespread adoption of this transformational set of practices.

Midterm conversations as co-creation of equitable and inclusive formative assessment

2023-07-05T11:59:41+00:00

Although assessment of student learning remains a thorny area for co-creation in education, a growing number of researchers and practitioners advocate and enact partnership in formative and summative assessment as part of equity work. In this case study, we join these efforts in reflecting on students’ and our own experiences of the midterm conversation that we use as a key formative assessment structure and process across three co-facilitated courses. The midterm conversation—a partnership among students and instructors as co-teachers—is embedded in course design and curriculum with the goal of advancing, informing, and sustaining our pedagogical commitments. This case illustrates how we practice assessment as dialogue and as emergent understanding. This practice is based on an expectation of diverse learning goals and outcomes and on trust in students’ capacities to direct their learning with reference to their own interests and standards for their work.

Design thinking and shared ignorance as a framework for student-faculty partnerships

2023-10-31T23:15:40+00:00

This case study describes and discusses how student-faculty partnerships can be strengthened through design thinking and the establishment of shared ignorance, i.e., an awareness of how none of the involved parties understands the problem or knows the optimum solution of the partnership project. As a case, we use a student-faculty project that aimed to develop course material for an electrical engineering course based on project work involving wicked problems. This project illustrates, through student and faculty reflections, how design thinking and shared ignorance can be used to subvert implicit power structures and strengthen the partnership and project outcomes.

Students priming students for success

2023-06-06T14:26:31+00:00

Introductory science courses can be a struggle for instructors and students not only because of the challenging nature of the material, but also due to differences in the background knowledge of students. Provision of pre-lecture resources reviewing or introducing key concepts is recommended to support diverse students. In this paper, we describe the iterative design, implementation, and assessment of pre-lecture PRIMERs in a large, introductory genetics course. The development of PRIMERs was conceived, driven, and performed by a student-staff team. Data over 2 years demonstrate that most students considered that PRIMERs supported their learning of the lecture material. Student comments revealed that they found the summaries and practice problems useful, and that they used PRIMERs both as lecture preparation and examination review resources. These results suggest that the students-as-partners model is an effective way to create and refine course resources.

The students-as-partner experience

2023-09-06T18:14:59+00:00

This article offers a case study of a student-faculty partnership. Focusing on the perspectives of two student research assistants and a faculty member, the authors utilize current literature on student-faculty partnerships to support their perspectives. This case study adds to the body of research suggesting student-faculty partnerships enrich and mutually benefit those involved. This article explores the working partnership of the consultation team and their work as part of a large collaborative project amongst post-secondary institutions and community-based organizations. Over the course of 3 years, success was evidenced by the outcomes of this project. The team has led workshops on the subject matter, and, additionally, contributed to the co-creation of a workbook/e-course on mitigating vicarious trauma for English language learning teachers. The research team published two subject-related articles. This article explores the facets that impacted the quality of the partnership.

Collaborative authoring using wiki

2023-07-13T14:56:03+00:00

This case study describes a collaborative online authoring project in which undergraduate students co-produce open educational resources as a learning and assessment exercise. Over 1,500 chapters and videos about how psychological science can improve people’s motivational and emotional lives have been co-created. Wikiversity provides a simple and powerful open editing and hosting platform. The project’s key pedagogical principles include students as partners, open education, guided experiential learning, and self-determined learning. Other key ingredients include scaffolding, skill development, and formative feedback. Potential issues are framed as educational opportunities, including privacy and anonymity, intellectual property and copyright, and individual versus collective work. Collaborative online authoring projects offer real-world benefits over disposable essays in higher education. The principles and methods are adaptable to a wide variety of disciplines and educational contexts, offering a scalable approach to collaborative student-staff partnerships.

Strengthening a peer mentorship program for accelerated nursing students

2023-10-06T09:34:21+00:00

In nursing education, peer mentorship programs aim to develop students’ clinical skills, encourage socialization within the program, and improve academic outcomes. This quality improvement project used the Plan-Do-Study-Act (PDSA) cycle to improve an existing student mentorship program within an accelerated nursing program in Ontario. Through a needs assessment, two areas for improvement were identified: (a) increased focus on accelerated students’ social and academic needs and (b) evaluation of the mentor-mentee interface. As the first round of changes was implemented, qualitative feedback was obtained to facilitate future improvements. Findings from this project included identifying the benefits of adopting students as partners in quality improvement and generating successful improvement strategies that cater towards peer mentorship programs for accelerated undergraduate nursing students.