1. — Students as partners: What is the role of the academic?
Thembi Mason & Andrea McLagan
HERDSA June 2017

2. Introduce ourselves
Started looking at Students as Partners this year with a focus on enhancing learning and teaching, so looking at curriculum, assessment, course or program outlines etc.

3. app.gosoapbox.com enter code 511-424-464
Before we get into a debate though - we’d love to find out who we have in the room. Could you please login to gosoapbox and answer the two questions online:
POLL: Who is in the room?
Student / Academic developer / Disciplinary academic / Other: _____
Have you been involved with or led a student-staff partnership arrangement?
Once you have done that, turn to the person next to you and discuss what type of student-staff partnership arrangement it was and what role you took in the partnership. What experience did you have with students or academics?
This idea of students as partners sounded great but a number of questions bubbled up...some of which related to the different roles involved, particularly the role that the student plays and the role that the disciplinary academic plays. What type of engagement is needed from these roles?

4. “Is students as partners the end of expertise as we know it?”
Question at Students as Partners Summer Institute at McMaster University

5. “Students are accustomed to
“Students are accustomed to...assuming a relatively powerless role in the classroom, just as faculty are trained to believe that their disciplinary expertise gives them complete authority over the learning process.”
Delpish, Darby, Holmes, Knight- McKenna, Mihans, King, & Felten (2010)
Turning to the literature we found lots of information about the types of roles that the student can play in a partnership…
There were models and ladders of participation for students…
Students as evaluators
Students as participants
Students as partners, co-creators and experts
Students as change agents
There were numerous examples of how students had been engaged in projects...

6. Theoretical model of students as change agents
Dunne & Zandstra (2011)
Turning to the literature we found lots of information about the types of roles that the student can play in a partnership…
There were models and ladders of participation for students…
Students as evaluators
Students as participants
Students as partners, co-creators and experts
Students as change agents
There were numerous examples of how students had been engaged in projects...

7. “...many academic staff may be uncomfortable with the necessary change in power relations a more democratic pedagogical planning process requires.”
Bovill, Cook‐Sather & Felten (2011)
“...some staff were initially resistant, perceiving these student-led explorations as a direct challenge.”
Kay, Dunne & Hutchinson (2010)
And there was was recognition of scholarly expertise that a disciplinary academic has developed
student–faculty partnerships to redesign undergraduate courses challenge
students’ customary, and often comfortable, passive role in the classroom, as well as
a common academic staff assumption that their disciplinary expertise gives them
complete authority over the learni
There was also acknowledgement of the challenge in overcoming the passivity of students and the authority of academic in institutional settings.
ng process.

8. “[Academics] spend many years developing and honing [their] scholarly expertise.”
Cook-Sather, Bovill, & Felten (2014)
“It is important to note that enhancing student participation in pedagogical planning does not replace teachers’ expertise and their key role in facilitating learning.”
Bovill, Cook-Sather., & Felten (2011)
And there was was recognition of scholarly expertise that a disciplinary academic has developed
student–faculty partnerships to redesign undergraduate courses challenge
students’ customary, and often comfortable, passive role in the classroom, as well as
a common academic staff assumption that their disciplinary expertise gives them
complete authority over the learni
There was also acknowledgement of the challenge in overcoming the passivity of students and the authority of academic in institutional settings.
ng process.

9. “...some faculty members described having trouble deciding when to lead and when to fall back to let their partner take on more responsibility.”
Marquis, Black & Healey (2017)
“Even when individuals are willing to step outside of these pre-existing roles, the unfamiliarity of the process can create uncertainties about how to act. For example, some faculty members described having trouble deciding when to lead and when to fall back to let their partner take on more responsibility. Particularly in larger groups, participants noticed that they looked to the faculty member as the leader, causing the implicit power structure to remain.”
Marquis, Black & Healey 2017, p.7
Image: _Team_Sky_-_Paris_-_Froome_( ).jpg

10. ROLE OF STUDENT ROLE OF ACADEMIC Share experiences Liaison with peers
Help with student feedback survey questions
Be unbiased / impartial student liaison
Suggest solutions to problems
Co-operate with staff
Build mutual understanding
Booking appointments
Leading meetings / workshops
Equal vote on decisions in project
Listen
Inform but not patronise
Explain terminology & concepts to create a level playing field
Listen and take feedback seriously
Treat students as colleagues rather than students
Constructive / objective outlook and guiding student feedback
Accessible to students (communication)
Equal consideration of suggestions, implementation / action upon issues
Reflection / recognition of participation and effort
In a focus group at RMIT, we asked 1st year students what they thought the roles were. What do you think is good about these perceptions and what do you think is limited?

11. How can academics and students negotiate a partnership?
What is the role of the discipline academic in supporting the partnership?
What skills and qualities are required by each party for this to be successful?
Thinking about a world where students have agency in what they are doing, and what is the role of the disciplinary academic in bringing that about.
Given that we are trying to give students agency in their learning. What do you think is then the role of the student and the role of the academic in a contemporary university?
Thinking about your experiences, what do you think is the role of the student and the role of the disciplinary academic
And how is a relationship negotiated?

12. It’s about getting insight into the other’s domain
In Mick Healey, Abbi Flint and Kathy Harrington July 2014 (p19-20):
“Interestingly, Cook-Sather, Bovill and Felten (2014, p.100) note that: “Research suggests that partnerships tend to produce similar outcomes for both students and faculty”. They go on to identify three clusters of outcomes:
engagement – enhancing motivation and learning;
awareness – developing meta-cognitive awareness and a stronger sense of identity;
enhancement – improving teaching and the classroom experience.
For example, they analyse engagement outcomes for students in terms of:
enhanced confidence, motivation, and enthusiasm;
enhanced engagement in the process not just the outcomes of learning;
enhanced responsibility for, and ownership of, their own learning;
deepened understanding of, and contributions to, the academic community.
And engagement outcomes for staff (faculty) included:
transformed thinking about and practice of teaching;
changed understandings of learning and teaching through experiencing different viewpoints;
reconceptualization of learning and teaching as collaborative processes.”
“IF YOU CHANGE THE WAY YOU LOOK AT THINGS, THE THINGS YOU LOOK AT CHANGE.”
-WAYNE DYER

13. “It is necessary for individuals and teams to invent their own wheels in order to understand and take ownership of change to gain improvement.”
Jackson (2004)
With this in mind, we suggest that it is a good idea to get students and staff to look at what they think their roles are and each other’s roles are in relation to a student as partners project. These will obviously be different based on the individuals and the project however, it is an opportunity to begin the dialogue that is needed to negotiate the relationships in the partnership as well as the activities.

14. — Questions?

15. Stay in touch app.gosoapbox.com
enter code
Before we get into a debate though - we’d love to find out who we have in the room. Could you please login to gosoapbox and answer the two questions online:
POLL: Who is in the room?
Student / Academic developer / Disciplinary academic / Other: _____
Have you been involved with or led a student-staff partnership arrangement?
Once you have done that, turn to the person next to you and discuss what type of student-staff partnership arrangement it was and what role you took in the partnership. What experience did you have with students or academics?
This idea of students as partners sounded great but a number of questions bubbled up...some of which related to the different roles involved, particularly the role that the student plays and the role that the disciplinary academic plays. What type of engagement is needed from these roles?

16. Bovill, C. , Cook-Sather, A. , & Felten, P. (2011)
Bovill, C., Cook-Sather, A., & Felten, P. (2011). Students as co‐creators of teaching approaches, course design, and curricula: implications for academic developers. International Journal for Academic Development, 16(2). Available online.
Cook-Sather, A., Bovill, C., & Felten, P. (2014). Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching: A Guide for Faculty. Jossey-Bass.
Cook-Sather, A. (2014). Multiplying Perspectives and Improving Practice: What Can Happen When Undergraduate Students Partner with College Faculty to Explore Teaching and Learning. Instructional Science, 41:
Available online.
Delpish, A., Darby, A., Holmes, A., Knight-McKenna, M., Mihans, R., King, C., & Felten, P. (2010). Equalizing voices: Student-faculty partnership in course design. Engaging student voices in the study of teaching and learning,
Dunne, E., & Zandstra, R. (2011). Students as Change Agents. New Ways of Engaging with Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. Bristol: Escalate.
Jackson,N (2004) Paper1, Setting the scene: A Change Academy Perspective on Change and Changing. York:LTSN. Available online.
Kay, J., Dunne., E., & Hutchinson, J. (). Rethinking the values of higher education - students as change agents? Gloucester: QAA and University of Exeter. Available online.
Marquis, E., Black, C., & Healey, M. (2017) Responding to the challenges of student-staff partnership: the reflections of participants at an international summer institute, Teaching in Higher Education, 22:6, Available online.