Students as Partners: A Quick-Start to Collaboration Success

Are you ready to take your student engagement to new heights through partnership approaches? While fostering shared responsibility holds promise, launching truly collaborative models requires strategic planning. To instructors who are in the early stages of considering student partnership, we cover tips suggested by Bovill, Felten and Cook-Sather (2014) in their paper “Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching (2): Practical guidance for academic staff and academic developers”. Drawing from their experience and review of literature, here we have five keys for thoughtfully introducing partnership.

• Voluntary participation: Students who willingly participate are more likely to be motivated and actively involved. Ensuring their participation is voluntary can lead to a more genuine contribution from students, setting a strong foundation for future collaboration.
• Start Small: Remember to start small to make things feel more manageable at the beginning. Small steps allow you and your partnering students to build up confidence as you proceed and to increase the likelihood of achieving your goals in a sustainable manner. 
• Keep yourself engaged: In the early stage, handing over some decision-making tasks to students may seem daunting to them. Instead of giving them full control, there is still a role for faculty and academic staff’s expertise. Keep in mind that both parties’ involvement counts. 
• Shared Aims: It is important to be clear about the purposes and nature of a partnership. When your team acknowledges the same goal, you then find a deeper connection and purpose in what you do, which will benefit you individually and as a group. 
• Cultivate support: You can meet with other like-minded colleagues who are undertaking or interested in partnership work for practice sharing and suggestions. Cross-collaboration can prevent you from reinventing the reels by pooling experiences.   

If you are interested in getting started with students as partners but still need support, resources are available. Be sure to check out other blog posts for theoretical frameworks and concepts. We also hold workshops and seminars sharing practices and ideas from successful educators and students. You can always reach out if you would like any assistance getting your partnership initiative off to a successful start!

Reference
Bovill, C., Felten, P., & Cook-Sather, A. (2014). Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching (2): Practical guidance for academic staff and academic developers. In International Consortium on Educational Development Conference, Stockholm, Sweden, 16-18 June (pp. 1-6) http://iced2014.se/proceedings/1146_BovillFeltenCook-Sather%20.pdf