Synopses & Reviews
Praise for Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching“Oh, how I wish I had this book thirty years ago when I was starting to teach! It is the best resource possible for those who understand that teaching and learning is a partnership process, and that faculty-student collaboration can produce the most informed teaching and the most critical learning.”
—STEVEN S. VOLK, U.S. Professor of the Year 2011
“If we want to truly transform our teaching and student learning, we must create new kinds of dialogue and practice. This book offers powerful ideas and examples of how student-faculty partnerships can do just that!”
—L. DEE FINK, national and international consultant in higher education; author of Creating Significant Learning Experiences
“For those who believe that students can play a much more active role in shaping their own learning, this book has it all—foundational theory and personal voices, practical tips, and lots of great examples. If you’re looking for ways to make students real partners in the educational enterprise, you won’t find better guides than these three authors.”
—PAT HUTCHINGS, senior scholar, National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment
“Reading this book gives me great hope for the future of higher education. We often complain that students aren’t engaged enough in our classes and that even the best of them concentrate too much on grades. In this wonderful book, the authors have given us—with plenty of detailed guidance and examples—a revolutionary approach to engaging students in their own education and thereby fostering deep learning. As the final chapter argues, it is the blueprint for a transformative educational movement.”
—KEN BAIN, author of What the Best College Teachers Do and What the Best College Students Do
“Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching addresses a key practice which if widely adopted has the potential to make a radical change to the nature of higher education. This is an important, topical, and above all practical text which should inspire faculty, academic developers, and administrators to devise better ways of engaging students.”
—MICK HEALEY, higher education consultant and researcher
Synopsis
The book is designed to offer both a theoretical grounding and practical guidelines and advice—from faculty, students, and coordinators/directors of teaching and learning centers—on how to develop student-faculty partnerships focused on affirming and improving teaching and learning in higher education. This is a why-to and a how-to book, and it provides those interested in trying out their own version of student-faculty partnerships with theory and evidence that supports such efforts, various models of how to go about creating and supporting such partnerships, and advice from a wide-range of experts, on the one hand, and faculty and students who have tried this approach, on the other hand. That balance—of theory, step-by-step guidelines, expert advice, and practitioner experience - will provide those interested with a wide range of perspectives and possibilities on how to build student-faculty partnerships and various levels of guidance. The book will include helpful responses to a range of questions that we have been asked by academic staff from different institutions, disciplines, and levels of experience. These responses will attempt to help faculty overcome some of the perceived barriers to student-faculty partnerships and suggest a range of possible levels of partnership that might be appropriate in different circumstances.
Synopsis
A guide to developing productive student-faculty partnerships in higher educationStudent-faculty partnerships is an innovation that is gaining traction on campuses across the country. There are few established models in this new endeavor, however. Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching: A Guide for Faculty offers administrators, faculty, and students both the theoretical grounding and practical guidelines needed to develop student-faculty partnerships that affirm and improve teaching and learning in higher education.
- Provides theory and evidence to support new efforts in student-faculty partnerships
- Describes various models for creating and supporting such partnerships
- Helps faculty overcome some of the perceived barriers to student-faculty partnerships
- Suggests a range of possible levels of partnership that might be appropriate in different circumstances
- Includes helpful responses to a range of questions as well as advice from faculty, students, and administrators who have hands-on experience with partnership programs
Balancing theory, step-by-step guidelines, expert advice, and practitioner experience, this book is a comprehensive why- and how-to handbook for developing a successful student-faculty partnership program.
Synopsis
Teaching and learning together to transform higher educationEngaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching is a guide to an innovative approach to higher education. Around the world, student-faculty partnership is gaining attention as a forward-thinking way to ensure that student voices inform pedagogical practice. This book, authored by three of the most widely recognized experts on the topic, gives faculty members and administrators concrete advice for adopting partnership models that could make passive, disengaged learning a thing of the past.
By exploring the core principles of respect, reciprocity, and shared responsibility, readers will learn how to conceive of higher education as a collaborative process of sharing insights, as well as how to put this deepened conception to practice. Designing the learning experience with the participation of everyone involved is unfamiliar to many and may seem impractical to some. This book shows that it can—and should—be done. The authors provide:
- The key ideas and arguments behind the partnership model
- First-hand accounts from students and faculty showing how student-faculty partnerships work
- Step-by-step guidelines for developing individual, program-level, and institution-level partnerships
- Summaries of research on partnership outcomes
- Concrete strategies for assessing faculty-student partnership projects
All students have insights into the learning process, even if they have never had the chance to voice them. Too often, students find higher education to be a passive, alienating experience where they listen to lectures, take tests, and follow the syllabus to succeed. It’s no wonder that so many students disengage and treat learning as a burdensome inconvenience. Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching reframes the student (and faculty) experience in higher education. Read this book to learn why and how to take advantage of the transformative potential of student-faculty partnership.
About the Author
ALISON COOK-SATHER is the Mary Katherine Woodworth Professor of Education and coordinator of the Teaching and Learning Institute at Bryn Mawr College. She publishes and presents widely on student voice and student-teacher partnerships.
CATHERINE BOVILL is a senior lecturer in the Academic Development Unit at the University of Glasgow in Scotland. Her research and publications focus on students and staff cocreating curricula.
PETER FELTEN is executive director of the Center for Engaged Learning and assistant provost at Elon University. His other books include Transformative Conversations: A Guide to Mentoring Communities Among Colleagues in Higher Education (Jossey-Bass, 2013).
Table of Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xxv
About the Authors xxvii
1. What Are Student-Faculty Partnerships? Our Guiding Principles and Definition 1
2. Preliminary Questions about Student-Faculty Partnerships 15
3. Partnerships with Students Examples from Individual Faculty 27
4. Program-Level Approaches to Student-Faculty Partnerships 59
5. Outcomes of Student-Faculty Partnerships Support from Research Literature and Outcomes for Faculty and Students 97
6. The Challenges of Student-Faculty Partnerships 133
7. Practical Strategies for Developing Student-Faculty Partnerships 143
8. Further Questions about Student-Faculty Partnerships 171
9. Assessing Processes and Outcomes of Student-Faculty Partnerships 187
10. Next Steps . . . Toward a Partnership Movement? 203
Appendix I: The Ladder of Active Student Participation in Curriculum Design 213
Appendix II: Guidelines for the Students as Learners and Teachers (SaLT) Program at Bryn Mawr College (Modified for This Volume) 217
Appendix III: Practical Strategies for Developing Student-led Research Projects From the Students as Change Agents Program, University of Exeter, United Kingdom 229
References 231
Index 257