Students as Partners: A critical-digital partnership model for redesigning the language curriculum

Abstract

The global COVID-19 pandemic has caused considerable and drastic changes to teaching and learning, forcing many teachers to adopt an online pedagogical approach. This disruption has caused traditional universities to change how their curriculum is delivered and also revisit how learning occurs. While we are indeed living in challenging times, we argue that this defining moment will become the impetus for pedagogical reform wherein new methods of teaching and learning will emerge. In this paper, we bring together three broad subjects of teaching and learning scholarship: (a) learning design, (b) critical pedagogy, and (c) student partnership. We contend that together, these three fields provide room for students to become actors and agents of their own learning through student-led learning design. Using critical participatory action research (CPAR) spanning 4 years and 22 projects, this case study offers a starting point for learning designers and student partners to work together in nine different instructional design models.

Co-designing an equity, diversity, and inclusion (un)conference by and for staff and students

“…Building upon Stommel's (2014) articulation of critical digital pedagogy (CDP), Dianati (2022) and Dianati, & Oberhollenzer (2020) developed a framework for CDP for use within university classroom spaces to enact transformative teaching and learning through the SaP model. Our work here further develops and applies CDP to conference settings.…”

“…A suggestion for the SaP community in the (un)conference space is the application and use of an online collaboration and organisation tool to ensure "responsibility" as an ethos is met. An Atlassian online product, Trello, is free to use and was the preferred online organisational template at the university based on student and staff experiences across a 3year period (Dianati, 2022;Dianati & Oberhollenzer 2020). Secondly, to ensure "respect," we propose that staff and students organise weekly check-ins with staff and students and genuinely share what is occurring in our daily and weekly lives.…”