Teaching and Learning Together in Higher Education

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Fall 2014

In This Issue:

I. Introduction —”Digging Deeper into Partnership: The Stories Behind the Cases in Engaging Students as Partners in Learning & Teaching, in which Alison Cook-Sather, Mary Katharine Woodworth Professor of Education and Coordinator of the Teaching and Learning Institute at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges, offers brief glimpses into the stories told by the student, faculty, and staff authors of essay in this issue, each of whom was involved in one of the examples of student-partnership presented in Engaging Students as Partners in Learning & Teaching: A Guide for Faculty (Jossey-Bass, 2014).

II. Improving Engagement and Learning through Sharing Course Design with Students: A Multi-level Case, in which Sarah Bunnell, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Ohio Wesleyan University, and Dan Bernstein, Professor of Psychology at the University of Kansas, offer a short series of brief narratives about the rich collaborations that followed from multi-level exchanges they had across courses.

III. Learning Through Partnership in Assessment, in which Susan J. Deeley, Senior University Teacher and Convenor of Undergraduate Studies, School of Social and Political Sciences, and Ruth A. Brown, M.A. (Hons) Social Sciences (Psychology and Public Policy) Class of 2014, both of University of Glasgow, Scotland, offer two case examples of learning through student-teacher partnership in assessment. Alternating voices, they convey their respective experiences of the partnerships and the collective insights they gained.

IV. Who Are the Teachers and Who Are the Students? Feminism and Freire in Scotland, in which Julie Young, postgraduate research student in sociology, and Eurig Scandrett, Lecturer in Sociology, both at Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, frame and tell the story of Young’s experience as a student working in partnership with Scandrett and others to develop a module that “seeks to challenge traditional university assumptions about the production and consumption of knowledge, and to contribute in its small way to political change through resourcing counter hegemonic voices in Scottish society (and beyond).”

V. Faculty-student partnership in advanced undergraduate mathematics course design, in which Francis Duah, Academic Support Office, The University of York, and Tony Croft, Professor of Mathematics Education, Loughborough University, describe how a faculty-student partnership was created in a United Kingdom Higher Education institution to redesign two undergraduate mathematics courses and the outcomes that accrued from the partnership to the faculty members and the students who were involved in the partnership.

VI. Constructing Community in the Freshman Seminar: Fostering Autonomy in an Era of Accountability, in which Suzanne Hudd, Professor of Sociology, and Alex Wile, Class of 2016, Resident Assistant and Former Peer Catalyst, both of Quinnipiac University, present their respective perspectives on a syllabus construction exercise and “highlight the pinnacles and pitfalls that await adventurous instructors like us who are willing to ‘let go of the reins’ a bit during the process of course design.”

VII. Students as Teachers: Transforming a History Course, in which Alejandro Quintana, Assistant Professor, History Department, and Morgan Zajkowski, student, both at St. John’s University, New York, describe how their collaboration not only resulted in productive revisions to Quintana’s course but also catalyzed revisions of both their perspectives on their roles in supporting student engagement.

VIII. The Student Observer Program at Carleton College: Three Perspectives on Supporting Good Teaching, in which Fred Hagstrom, Director of the Perlman Learning and Teaching Center, Humphrey Doermann Professor of Liberal Learning, and Rae Schupack Nathan Professor of Art, Jon Olson, Visiting Lecturer, Political Science Department, and Charlie Cross, Student Observer, all of Carleton College, write from their respective positions on participating in Carlton’s Student Observer program and how, through this program, faculty and students can work together “to make the classroom a place where deep learning happens.”

IX. The Story of Students as Change Agents at the University of Exeter: From Slow Beginnings to Institutional Initiative, in which Liz Dunne, Head of Student Engagement and Skills, University of Exeter, Derfel Owen, Director of Academic Services, University College London, Hannah Barr, final year student in Theology, University of Exeter, Will Page, Student Engagement Officer, University of Exeter, James Smith, Academic Representation Co-ordinator, Students’ Guild, University of Exeter, and Sabina Szydlo, Giving Assistant, Alumni Relations, University of Exeter, tell the ‘back story’of the development and growth of Students as Change Agents program at the University of Exeter.