Benefits of Community: Students-as-Partners Work by an Undergraduate Student, a Graduate Student, and a Faculty Member
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.10.25Keywords:
communities of practice, students-as-partners, partnership learning communities, role developmentAbstract
Unfamiliarity and uncertainty can be disorienting, but when provided space to collectively navigate such challenges, opportunities arise for novel ways of engaging, collaborating, and navigating in our varied communities—including those in higher education. This article builds on previous students-as-partners (SaP) research by describing a collaborative investigation into teaching and learning and how the three authors of this article (an undergraduate student, a graduate student, and a faculty member) worked together to address challenges in their personal and professional spheres. We recount exploratory mixed-methods work that highlights the natural evolution of a unique community of practice (CoP) through a SaP partnership, and the collaborative benefits for teaching, learning, and research that developed within this “partnership learning community” over the course of a semester. Analyzing systematic discussion mappings of our meetings, transcripts from those meetings, and personal reflections, we describe our developing roles through sharing and listening to each other. Even though our CoP was set within the space of higher education and grounded by goals of SaP research, this community building partnership, in which members move beyond novice/expert relationships, has implications beyond higher education.
References
Abbot, Sophia, Alison Cook‐Sather, and Carola Hein. 2014. “Mapping Classroom Interactions: A Spatial Approach to Analyzing Patterns of Student Participation.” To Improve the Academy 33 (2): 131–52. https://doi.org/10.1002/tia2.20014.
Ahmad, Arshad, Aadil Ali, John VanMaaren, Janette Barrington, Olivia Merritt, and Kyle Ansilio. 2017. “Partnership in Practice: Implementing Healey’s Conceptual Model.” International Journal for Students as Partners 1 (2). https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v1i2.3197.
Bovill, Catherine, Alison Cook‐Sather, and Peter Felten. 2011. “Students as Co‐creators of Teaching Approaches, Course Design, and Curricula: Implications for Academic Developers.” International Journal for Academic Development 16 (2): 133–45. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2011.568690.
Carver-Thomas, Desiree, and Linda Darling-Hammond. 2019. “The Trouble with Teacher Turnover: How Teacher Attrition Affects Students and Schools.” Education Policy Analysis Archives 27 (36). https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.27.3699.
Cook-Sather, Alison. 2014. “Student-Faculty Partnership in Explorations of Pedagogical Practice: A Threshold Concept in Academic Development.” International Journal for Academic Development 19 (3): 186–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144X.2013.805694.
Cook-Sather, Alison, Catherine Bovill, and Peter Felten. 2014. Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching: A Guide for Faculty. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.
Curran, Roisín. 2017. “Students as Partners—Good for Students, Good for Staff: A Study on the Impact of Partnership Working and How this Translates to Improved Student-Staff Engagement.” International Journal for Students as Partners 1 (2): 1–16. https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v1i2.3089.
Dwyer, Alexander. 2018. “Toward the Formation of Genuine Partnership Spaces.” International Journal for Students as Partners 2 (1): 11–15. https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v2i1.3503.
Healey, Mick, Abbi Flint, and Kathy Harrington. 2014. Engagement Through Partnership: Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. HE Academy. https://s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets.creode.advancehe-document-manager/documents/hea/private/resources/engagement_through_partnership_1568036621.pdf.
Healey, Mick, Abbi Flint, and Kathy Harrington. 2016. “Students as Partners: Reflections on a Conceptual Model.” Teaching & Learning Inquiry 4 (2): 8–20. https://doi.org/10.20343/teachlearninqu.4.2.3.
Hiller, Tammy, and Amy Hietapelto. 2001. “Contract Grading: Encouraging Commitment to the Learning Process Through Voice in the Evaluation Process.” Journal of Management Education 25 (6): 660–84. https://doi.org/10.1177/105256290102500605.
Hunt, Lynne, and Lyall Hunt. 2017. “The Importance of a Whole-of-Department Framework in Learning Partnerships.” International Journal for Students as Partners 1 (2). https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v1i2.3091.
Kehler, Angela, Roselynn Verwoord, and Heather Smith. 2017. “We Are the Process: Reflections on the Underestimation of Power in Students as Partners in Practice.” International Journal for Students as Partners 1 (1): https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v1i1.3176.
Lubicz-Nawrocka, Tanya. 2018. “Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching: The Benefits of Co-creation of the Curriculum.” International Journal for Students as Partners 2 (1): 47–63. https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v2i1.3207.
MacIntyre, Peter. 1999. “Language Anxiety: A Review of the Research for Language Teachers.” In Affect in Foreign Language and Second Language Learning: A Practical Guide to Creating a Low-anxiety Classroom Atmosphere. Edited by D.J. Young. Boston: McGraw-Hill College, 24–45.
Matthews, Kelly. 2017. “Five Propositions for Genuine Students as Partners Practice.” International Journal for Students as Partners 1 (2). https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v1i2.3315.
Mercer-Mapstone, Lucy, Sam Dvorakova, Kelly Matthews, Sophia Abbot, Breagh Cheng, Peter Felten, Kris Knorr, Elizabeth Marquis, Rafaella Shammas, and Kelly Swaim. 2017. “A Systematic Literature Review of Students as Partners in Higher Education.” International Journal for Students as Partners 1 (1). https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v1i1.3119.
Molesworth, Mike, Richard Scullion, and Elizabeth Nixon, eds. 2011. The Marketisation of Higher Education and the Student as Consumer. London: Routledge.
Ntem, Anita, Elaina Nguyen, Caelan Rafferty, Connie Kwan, and Abderrahim Benlahcene. 2020. “Students As Partners in Crisis? Student Co-editors’ Perspectives on COVID-19, Values, and the Shift to Virtual Spaces.” International Journal for Students As Partners 4 (2):1–8. https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v4i2.4432.
Riddell, Jessica, Georges-Philippe Gadoury-Sansfaçon, and Scott Stoddard. 2021. “Building Institutional Capacities for Students as Partners in the Design of COVID Classrooms.” International Journal for Students as Partners 5 (2): 111–22. https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v5i2.4603.
Seely Brown, John, and Paul Duguid. 1991. “Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice: Toward a Unified View of Working, Learning, and Innovation.” Organization Science 2 (1): 40–57. https://doi.org/10.1287/orsc.2.1.40.
Shulman, Lee. 2004. Teaching as Community Property: Essays on Higher Education. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Slates, Sarah, and Alison Cook-Sather. 2021. “The Many Manifestations of Successful Partnership.” International Journal for Students as Partners 5 (2): 221–32. https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v5i2.4911.
Streeting, Wes, and Graeme Wise. 2009 “Rethinking the Values of Higher Education—Consumption, Partnership, Community?” Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/4151588.pdf.
Wenger, Etienne. 1999. Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wenger, Etienne, Richard McDermott, and William Snyder. 2002. Cultivating Communities of Practice: A Guide to Managing Knowledge. Cambridge: Harvard Business Press.
Zola, John. 2018. “A Reflection on Reflection in Socratic Seminars. Equity Maps.” Equity Maps. https://equitymaps.com/2018/09/a-reflection-on-reflection-in-socratic-seminars/.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2022 Anna Piotti, Elizabeth DeFelice, Carrie Jackson
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
