We report on a student-faculty partnership in which trained student-researchers guide faculty toward instructional improvement through a professional development format known as reflection cycles. Reflection cycles are guided by a student-developed, literature-informed tool to support faculty in goal setting and reflecting on equity-minded active learning in mathematics. Faculty participants reported benefiting from guided reflection, specialized student knowledge, accountability, support with new strategies, and non-evaluative observation. They also noted room for improvement through additional challenge, more feedback, more follow-up, and additional support with strategies. Our research reveals that faculty are willing to learn from students and that students have valuable perspectives to offer to faculty. We suggest that reflection cycles can allow all instructors, regardless of prior knowledge, confidence, or experience, to work gradually and continuously to improve their instruction at a sustainable pace. Through student-guided reflection, faculty can work towards a more equity-minded active classroom and address longstanding opportunity gaps in mathematics.
This case study describes how a Dutch teacher education program brought students as partners (SaP) principles to life during a major curriculum renewal. Five development teams, comprising staff, field professionals, and student developers, collaborated across 10 co-design days. Students were prepared through workshops on dialogue and decision-making, followed by collective reflection after each session. Using SaP dimensions such as engagement, equity, reflexivity, and ownership clarified what partnership looked like in practice. The process fostered trust, mutual learning, and belonging among all participants. Staff perspectives on curriculum design shifted, and students gained confidence to contribute meaningfully. Early indicators showed reduced student attrition, and the collaboration led to a SaP coordination team to sustain the work. We reflect on key enabling conditions such as time, structure, and relational trust, and discuss dilemmas related to power and workload. Our experience offers encouragement and practical insights for embedding SaP more deeply in curriculum design.
This study contributes to the growing literature on students as partners (SaP) by centering undergraduate voices in the evaluation of virtual reality (VR) simulation-based learning in a speech-language pathology (SLP) practicum course. Three student-researchers engaged in narrative reflection to explore how their clinical personas developed, what changed due to the simulation experience, and the perceived advantages and limitations. Reflections were thematically analyzed using Braun and Clarke’s (2022) framework, emphasizing student agency and shared meaning-making. Unlike prior research focused solely on skill acquisition, this study highlighted the value of collaborative inquiry in shaping clinical identity and adaptive reasoning. The integration of immersive VR simulations, commonly used in teacher education, into clinical SLP training demonstrated the broader applicability of simulation-based learning. The findings underscore the potential of SaP frameworks to foster inclusive, equity-driven pedagogies and inform global best practices. Ultimately, this research has affirmed the transformative impact of student-faculty partnerships on learning, teaching, and the development of innovative educational models.
The Initiative for Students as Partners in Research and Education (InSPiRE) research team and its work on the Second-Year Experience (SYE) project at The University of Texas at Austin (UT) created new opportunities for the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) to engage in student-centered co-curricular learning and research. Prior to their involvement in the InSPiRE team, none of the undergraduate students had experience with moving from initial conceptualizations of a social science research question through the stage of making their research public. By centering community, valuing process as product, embracing methodological pluralism, and making research labor visible, InSPiRE engaged CTL staff and university leaders and shaped conversations about the SYE and student success. In this case study, we use personal narratives to excavate central characteristics of the InSPiRE research and community-building process.
Identity-based tasks can transform students from passive recipients to active partners in cross-cultural language settings. This case study demonstrates such a transformation by introducing the pedagogical framework, Guo’s Triangular Activation Model (GTAM), which effectively integrates purpose-driven, identity-based, and context-embedded learning. Originally developed in China and later adapted in Canadian settings, the framework has been applied across K–12 (kindergarten through Grade 12) and postsecondary contexts. As a result, across these contexts, students moved from passive recipients to active contributors, demonstrating cultural agency, ownership, and motivation. This progression showsthat activating student identity fosters relational engagement and complex learning, aligning with the students-as-partners (SaP) approach. The paper reflects on how identity-based tasks can build authentic partnerships between educators and students. The study offers implications for adapting this identity-based framework to diverse cultural and institutional settings. It also discusses how meaningful, task-driven roles can deepen student participation.
This case study examines the production of "The call," an episode of We Met U When…, a podcastproduced by journalism students at Toronto Metropolitan University. It illustrates how a curriculum co-creation approach that treats students as colleagues and a willingness to seize opportunities created by unforeseen events facilitated a pivot away from a planned assignment and led to deeper learning. During an interview, a student experienced a microaggression that was captured in the recording. The class collaboratively decided to pivot from the original subject and produce an episode about the impact of microaggressions. The instructor’s approach builds on the concept of radical collegiality, which challenges the idea that students are not colleagues (Lubicz-Nawrocka, 2018). This case study, co-authored by the instructor and a student-producer, demonstrates the power of going off plan, taking risks in teaching, and giving students agency.
The development of student-focused remediation resources aligns well with students-as-partners approaches, particularly co-design. However, there is limited research exploring co-design in nursing education, and few studies, if any, have examined its use in the development of remediation resources to support clinical placements. This study aimed to explore nursing students' and faculty's perceptions of co-designed remediation resources to support clinical placements. Co-design involved framing the problem through a literature review, student surveys and a focus group; planning and designing the co-designed remediation resources and strategies; and trialling the co-designed remediation outputs. A qualitative, exploratory design was used, involving thematic analysis of students' and faculty's written reflections on the co-design of remediation resources. Participants perceived co-design positively. Four overarching themes were identified, including confidence as co-design evolves; enhanced collaboration and awareness; feeling cared for and connected; and ongoing benefits for oneself and others. Co-design with nursing students and faculty is a feasible, student-focused approach to developing remediation resources that support clinical placements. When designing curricula, faculty should consider co-design and other partnership-based approaches that can have immediate and longer-term benefits for students and faculty.
A learning community (LC) was convened that included university educators and learners to explore perspectives on students-as-partners (SaP) work on the university’s campus. The LC was facilitated by one educator and two learners. The qualitative data identified potential barriers to SaP, including learners’ views that the success or failure of this work was entirely dependent on educators, while the educators were concerned about managing power dynamics and challenges in engaging students in partnerships. Facilitators of SaP work on campus were identified as creating open lines of communication, fostering effective working relationships, and developing a sense of mutuality in which all participants were seen as having equal value in the partnership.
While learning analytics has shown promise to enhance student learning, culturally specific ethical considerations on how students would like their data to be used need to be investigated and included in institutional implementation. This joint study with student researchers from both a United Kingdom-based and an Asian university employed mixed approaches to understand how students 1) use data for learning, 2) view data privacy, and 3) perceive the usefulness of learning analytics for enhancing their student experience. We found that most students in both contexts are concerned about privacy and would like clarity and autonomy over what, how, and with whom their data are shared. In addition, the paper presents the reflections on working with students as partners, identifies this approach as an essential and effective way to enculturate students in data ethics and to gather authentic, context-specific student voices to shape policies around learning analytics.
This case study explores the transformative role of a student-staff partnership (SSP) in redesigning assessment and learning experiences for the core master’s-level course, Global Challenges in Agriculture (AGRC7047). At the heart of this initiative was a diverse team of student and staff partners who co-developed new learning materials and assessment structures to better engage a heterogeneous cohort. A key outcome of this collaboration was the design and implementation of a reflexive ePortfolio assessment. This innovation emerged from the SSP’s commitment to inclusivity, pedagogical alignment, and global citizenship education. Rather than positioning the ePortfolio as the central course, this paper foregrounds the SSP process: how students and staff worked as co-creators, how diverse disciplinary and cultural perspectives enriched the project, and how this model can inform broader efforts to co-create curriculum in agricultural sciences and beyond. By documenting the application of SSP within agricultural sciences, an area where partnership-based pedagogical research remains limited, this study contributes new insights into how co-creation can reshape teaching practices in applied and interdisciplinary STEM-adjacent fields. The findings offer valuable insights into how SSPs can lead to sustainable pedagogical innovation and shift disciplinary cultures toward more reflective and student-centred practices.
In this reflective essay, the author describes their experience utilizing multimodal facilitation strategies during weekly meetings of student consultants working with faculty partners in Students as Teachers and Learners, a pedagogical partnership program at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges. By responding to three imaginative exercises that leveraged the affordances of multiple modalities, student partners were able to reflect upon the multifacetedness of their pedagogical partnership experience, deepening their understanding of the complexity and diversity of partnership work.
This study explores perceptions of the students-as-partners approach in nursing education among students and faculty at the Aga Khan University School of Nursing and Midwifery, Karachi, Pakistan. The approach has gained prominence in higher education for fostering active engagement, mutual respect, and collaborative knowledge construction, making it highly relevant in nursing, where theory and practice must align. This study contributes to the limited body of literature on students as partners (SaP) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) by offering an original perspective that incorporates student, faculty, and leadership voices within a hierarchical, resource-constrained context. This study used, with 120 participants (80 students and 40 faculty) completing a structured questionnaire and open-ended questions. We adopted a qualitative descriptive exploratory design to remain close to participants’ accounts while systematically describing patterns salient to the local context. The findings revealed that 85% of students and 90% of faculty expressed a favorable view of the approach, highlighting benefits such as improved critical thinking, enhanced communication, and stronger mutual respect. Both groups acknowledged their potential to create a more supportive and inclusive learning environment. However, hierarchical traditions, time constraints and the absence of institutional policies were identified as significant barriers. The results underscore strong readiness and mutual interest in adopting the students-as-partners approach, suggesting its promise to enrich nursing education and practice.
Higher education is shifting from traditional teaching models to participatory approaches that emphasize student engagement and collaboration. The students as partners (SaP) framework redefines the student-teacher relationship, positioning students as co-creators of knowledge. This study explores a student’s transition from conventional learning to co-creation in the department of education at Aga Khan University in Pakistan. The paper examines perspectives of both students and teachers. Using an exploratory case study, this study focuses on a student who engaged in SaP at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and later collaborated professionally with the same teachers. Data from student reflections and interviews with three educators highlight SaP’s transformative potential to foster engagement, innovation, and mutual learning. The study contributes empirical insights into how partnership can evolve relationally and professionally beyond formal coursework as well as highlights the considerations necessary for more equitable and contextually responsive implementation.
While the pedagogical benefits of Staff-Student Partnerships (SSP) and Students as Partners (SaP) are widely recognized, the complex and often invisible challenges of initiating and sustaining such collaborations remain underexplored. This reflective essay critically examines the unspoken dimensions that shape SSP/SaP practices across diverse institutional and cultural contexts. Drawing on our lived experiences and collaborative inquiry, we explore four provocations: the challenge of achieving conceptual clarity across institutions; the generative potential of uncertainty in partnership work; the often-overlooked emotional labor involved; and the systemic resistance to transformative change. Rather than offering solutions, we invite the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) community into deeper dialogue about the paradoxes, tensions, and lived realities of co-creation in higher education. By highlighting these underexplored aspects, we aim to foster more honest, inclusive, and critically engaged conversations about partnership practices in teaching and learning.
The following article presents a review and reflection on digital teaching, learning, and assessment (TL&A) in higher education (HE) in the context of the emergency pivot to online delivery during the pandemic, as experienced by the Enhancing Digital Teaching and Learning (EDTL) student interns across multiple disciplines and institutions. The project was led by the Irish Universities Association (IUA, https://www.iua.ie/ourwork/learning-teaching/digital-learning/) and funded by the Irish Higher Education Authority (HEA, https://hea.ie/). Additionally, this review draws upon previous literature related to successful staff-student partnerships, advocating the inclusion of the student voice in all aspects of teaching and learning, specifically in relation to the adoption of digital technologies, assessment, and teaching strategies within education. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with each of the original interns (n=7) representing HE universities in Ireland in 2021. Key findings from this study highlight a strong sense of inclusion, partnership and collaboration within each intern’s institution.
Test anxiety is on the rise within higher education, even though the phenomenon has been researched and interventions have been developed to address this issue. Often, approaches focus on actions that the student needs to perform to address the cognitive or physiological aspects of test anxiety. In this study, we explore the possibility that co-creation approaches to assessment can contribute to reducing assessment anxiety. Analysis of interviews and questionnaires with students identified four key themes: (a) the type of assessment is important in influencing students’ assessment anxiety, (b) knowing the assessor and assessment is important to students, (c) co-creation enables students to develop agency over assessments, (d) and co-creating with students helps reduce assessment anxiety. Results suggest that co-creation may reduce the worry component of assessment anxiety while other characteristic outcomes of co-creation (i.e., trust, respect, community, and a sense of belonging) may prove preventative against the emotionality component of assessment anxiety.
Co-creation in higher education (HE) involving students, teachers, and working field professionals can lead to innovative solutions for complex issues. In seven cases, equitable multistakeholder co-creation has been examined. Participants (N=52) completed a survey with open-ended questions and participated in interviews. We found that equitable co-creation led to a strong feeling of involvement, a better understanding of other perspectives, ideas for solutions, and the professionalization of all stakeholders. Students felt heard, experienced growing self-confidence, gained deeper insights into their future professional field, and expanded their professional network. Teachers gained inspiration to enrich and rewrite their curricula content and lesson activities. Working field professionals found innovative ideas for their practice, discovered new possibilities to find partners with whom sustainable development plans could be set out, and experienced feelings of satisfaction by contributing to the development of students. Supporting and hindering factors for equitable co-creation and implications for HE are discussed.
