Developing “Students as Learners and Teachers”: Lessons from Ten Years of Pedagogical Partnership that Strives to Foster Inclusive and Responsive Practice

Abstract

This case study reviews how the pedagogical partnership program ‘Students as Learners and Teachers’ evolved between 2007 and 2017. It draws on the author’s ten years of experience directing the program to describe the context, steps in development, components and assessment of the program as well as to summarise three lessons learnt: (1) continuing dialogue with, support of, and affirmation of student partners is essential; (2) reaching and supporting, rather than alienating, faculty can be a challenge; and (3) flexibility and evolution of the overall program are critical.

Writing about Learning and Teaching in Higher Education

“…When I assumed leadership of the secondary teacher certification program at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges in the United States in 1994, my priority was to create opportunities for secondary students to inform the preparation of future teachers-and a teacher colleague and I designed a program to do just that, which continues to this day (Cook-Sather 2002;Cook-Sather and Curl 2014). In the early 2000s, I started to assume more responsibility for supporting the educational development of faculty at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges, and I brought the focus of studentteacher partnership to that work, particularly as it affirmed the experiences and perspectives of underrepresented students (Cook-Sather 2018a). The Students as Learners and Teachers program I developed became internationally known and emulated, and as I started publishing work on that program (Cook-Sather 2008, I came into contact with learning and teaching scholars and practitioners who were also interested in students' voices and roles in educational development.…”

Reflections of students and staff in a project-led partnership: Contextualised experiences of students-as-partners

“…It promotes a new concept of relationship where students and staff create, evaluate and analyse purposes together (Bovill, Cook-Sather, & Felten, 2011). Drawing upon Cook-Sather's (2018) work, this paper initially reviews her literature in the field of Student as Learners and Teachers (SaLT) in the United States. Although it has a different name, it shares many of the broader philosophies of SaP.…”

While We Are Here: Resisting Hegemony and Fostering Inclusion through Rhizomatic Growth via Student–Faculty Pedagogical Partnership

“…Students participate in an orientation, are given guidelines, and are supported in weekly meetings with me in my role as director of the program, but there is no additional training [15]. The program was initially created in response to faculty requests for support in making their classrooms more inclusive and responsive and has retained that commitment [6].…”

“…As the director of the Students as Learners and Teachers (SaLT) program at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, a pedagogical partnership program that has embraced a commitment to fostering inclusion since its advent in 2007 [6,7], I have been particularly concerned about the experiences of visiting faculty and students who belong to groups underrepresented in and underserved by postsecondary education and who need meaningful employment to be and to stay there [8]. I have endeavored every year to devote some of the SaLT program's resources to supporting community members of these two groups, and this is the story of one such effort.…”