We are the Process: Reflections on the Underestimation of Power in Students as Partners in Practice

Kehler, Angela; Verwoord, Roselynn; Smith, Heather A.

doi:10.15173/ijsap.v1i1.3176

“…At the beginning of this process, we knew that an article would be written but we could not have predicted the insights we would glean from the process. Our work contributes to SoTL literature that interrogates spaces of power, positionality, and intersectionality (Chick 2014;Kehler, Verwoord, and Smith 2017;Little, Green, and Felten 2019;Matthews 2017). Through our conversations about living an undivided life we challenge the use of binaries that do not capture the fluidity of identity.…”

Section: What Does This Research Mean For Sotl Scholars?mentioning

confidence: 98%

The Courage to SoTL

Smith

¹

,

Schlesselman²,

McSweeney-Flaherty

³

et al. 2021

TLI

Self Cite

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Using Parker Palmer’s The Courage to Teach, and in particular the notion of the undivided life, to guide reflections through the process of collaborative autoethnography, we reflect on our lived experiences with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). The central question being: How does Palmer’s idea of the undivided life enable SoTL scholars to explore notions of identity and integrity that are intertwined with our academic practice? Ultimately, we found that Palmer’s insights provoked us to think deeply about our identities, and while perhaps we did not always see ourselves on the paths he illuminates, his work, and our collaborative ethnographic process, helped us to illuminate our own paths. More specifically, we share five themes arising from our collaborative autoethnography related to the importance of context and positionality, defining a SoTL scholar, the power to diminish, the importance of relationships and community, and collaborative autoethnography as method and process. Our stories highlight the need for us to see our community as complex, messy, and deeply human, and we remind readers of the need to think about the ethics of all methods and the power in our everyday practice to include or exclude.

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“…At the beginning of this process, we knew that an article would be written but we could not have predicted the insights we would glean from the process. Our work contributes to SoTL literature that interrogates spaces of power, positionality, and intersectionality (Chick 2014;Kehler, Verwoord, and Smith 2017;Little, Green, and Felten 2019;Matthews 2017). Through our conversations about living an undivided life we challenge the use of binaries that do not capture the fluidity of identity.…”

Section: What Does This Research Mean For Sotl Scholars?mentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Such is the magic of telling our stories through collaborative autoethnography. Collaborative autoethnography, autoethnography, and personal narrative are methods that require vulnerability and courage-they are methods of the heart (Custer 2014;Kehler, Verwoord, and Smith 2017;Sparkes 2007). Scholarly distance is removed as we become our own data.…”

Section: How To Find the Couragementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Autoethnography has a rich and varied literature (see Lapadat 2017), emphasizing that we are in and of the world (see Custer 2014). Autoethnography, the use of personal narratives and or autoethnographic vignettes (Allin 2014;Duarte 2007;Kehler, Verwoord, and Smith 2017;Little, Green, and Felten 2019;Verwoord and Smith 2020;Yahlnaaw 2019), offer insight and understanding into the connection of subject, identity, and culture. Such reflections "illuminate in fresh ways the "messy," nuanced arena of teaching and learning" (Ng, Carney 2017, 11) that are not typically measured through quantitative outcomes.…”

Section: Our Research Processmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Courage to SoTL

Irving-Bell

¹

,

Schlesselman

²

,

Prusko

³

et al. 2021

TLI

Self Cite

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Using Parker Palmer’s The Courage to Teach, and in particular the notion of the undivided life, to guide reflections through the process of collaborative autoethnography, we reflect on our lived experiences with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). The central question being: How does Palmer’s idea of the undivided life enable SoTL scholars to explore notions of identity and integrity that are intertwined with our academic practice? Ultimately, we found that Palmer’s insights provoked us to think deeply about our identities, and while perhaps we did not always see ourselves on the paths he illuminates, his work, and our collaborative ethnographic process, helped us to illuminate our own paths. More specifically, we share five themes arising from our collaborative autoethnography related to the importance of context and positionality, defining a SoTL scholar, the power to diminish, the importance of relationships and community, and collaborative autoethnography as method and process. Our stories highlight the need for us to see our community as complex, messy, and deeply human, and we remind readers of the need to think about the ethics of all methods and the power in our everyday practice to include or exclude.

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“…For some of the peer mentors, however, this level of engagement created a challenge and for some was experienced as an obligation: "it felt sort of pressured, like 'We want you to organize this"' (FG4). Kehler et al (2017) have argued that power dynamics are underestimated in students as partners practice, even in well-intentioned encouragement to participate and to rise to the challenge of becoming equals. Peer mentors construed the encouragement to organise events as pressure, suggesting perhaps that greater attention needs to be paid by staff to the ways in which students perceive requests or suggestions.…”

Section: Perceived Benefits Of the Peer Mentor Experiencementioning

confidence: 99%

Students as Partners in Peer Mentoring: Expectations, Experiences and Emotions

Seery

¹

,

Andres

²

,

Moore‐Cherry

³

et al. 2021

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Increasing emphasis in recent years has been placed on how faculty, staff and students in higher education can be drawn into more collaborative learning relationships through partnership working. The significant challenges in terms of negotiating shifting roles and responsibilities have been well documented. Less attention has been paid to the affective challenges, and particularly the emotional labour involved. This paper focuses on the adoption of a partnership approach to first year peer mentoring and orientation in a large Social Science programme. Peer mentors played a critical role as designers of the programme, as partners delivering the programme, and as co-researchers, offering a unique understanding and insight into aspects of the peer mentor experience that often remain hidden. Our findings draw attention to the need to consider and manage more carefully the impact of students on each other in mentoring relationships but also suggest an opportunity to harness the mentoring experience to embed a partnership culture more fully.

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We are the Process: Reflections on the Underestimation of Power in Students as Partners in Practice

Cited by 32 publications

References 21 publications

The Courage to SoTL

The Courage to SoTL

The Courage to SoTL

Students as Partners in Peer Mentoring: Expectations, Experiences and Emotions

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