Students as co-creators of teaching approaches, course design and curricula: implications for academic developers

Within higher education, students’ voices are frequently overlooked in the design of teaching approaches, courses and curricula. In this paper we outline the theoretical background to arguments for including students as partners in pedagogical planning processes. We present examples where students have worked collaboratively in design processes along with the beneficial outcomes of these examples. Finally we focus on some of the implications and opportunities for academic developers of proposing collaborative approaches to pedagogical planning

Participatory instructional redesign by students and teachers in secondary education: effects on perceptions of instruction

Könings, K. D., Brand-Gruwel, S., & Van Merriënboer, J. J. G. (2011). Participatory instructional redesign by students and teachers in secondary education: effects on perceptions of instruction. Instructional Science, 39(5), 737–762.Students’ perceptions of instruction are important because they direct the learning of students. The fact that teachers have only limited knowledge of these perceptions is likely to threaten the effectiveness of learning, because congruence between interpretations of an instructional intervention is necesarry for its optimal use. This study examines participatory design as a strategy for taking student perceptions into account in instructional re/design. Participatory design meetings of groups of teachers and seven co-designing students in a secondary education setting identified changes to improve the regular education process. The results on changes in student perceptions, perceived-desired discrepancy, and teacher-student disagreement showed some improvement for the co-designers but, unexpectedly, limited or even negative effects for the non-co-designing students. Possible causes are discussed. Participatory design seems to have potential for improving education, but further research is needed

Cultivating student-staff partnerships through research and practice

No abstract available

Towards an ecology of participation: Process philosophy and co-creation of higher education curricula

This article brings together the authors' previous work on co-created curricula (Bovill et al., 2011; Bovill, 2013a; Bovill, 2014) and on partnership and ethics (Taylor and Robinson, 2014; Taylor, 2015), to develop the concept of co-created curricula as an ecology of participation. In doing so, it deploys Alfred North Whitehead’s process philosophy to formulate a new way of considering co-creation in the curriculum and co-creation of the curriculum in higher education. Two empirical examples are used to illuminate what such an approach offers. From this, we outline three dimensions of an ecology of participation: a process of becoming which recasts subjectivity; acting well in relation which enacts concern; and an orientation to harmony in which difference in equality is valued. The contribution of the article is twofold: first, the concept of an ecology of participation takes forward current thinking on higher education curricula and partnership ethics; second, its use of process philosophy provides a new lens to consider co-creation in the curriculum and co-creation of the curriculum

Students and academics working in partnership to embed cultural competence as a graduate quality

Since 2014, the University of Sydney has been experimenting with a new initiative motivated by the research on “students as partners”. In 2014, six students were selected as Ambassadors of the Sydney Teaching Colloquium (STC)-the University’s annual learning and teaching conference-as undergraduate researchers. In that year, the focus was on assessment standards

Translating Learners, Researchers, and Qualitative Approaches through Investigations of Students’ Experiences in School

This article uses the conceptual framework offered by ‘translation’ to argue for transforming students into authorities and agents in research on educational practice. Drawing on various definitions of translation and highlighting the influence of recent feminist perspectives on translation studies, the article presents two cases that illustrate how learners can be translated into co-researchers of educational experiences, researchers translated into partners with students in making meaning through the research process, and qualitative research’s approaches and modes of presenting findings translated into new versions of those processes and products

Student participation in the design of learning and teaching: Disentangling the terminology and approaches

Background: Students are ever more involved in the design of educational practices, which is reflected in the growing body of literature about approaches to student participation. Similarities and differences between these approaches often remain vague since the terms are used interchangeably. This confusing and fragmented body of literature hampers our understanding the process and outcomes of student participation and choosing the most suitable approach for it. Method: We identified the three most frequently used terms related to the design of learning and teaching–design-based research (DBR), participatory design (PD), and co-creation–and disentangled the terminology by focusing on relevant definitions, aims, involvement of students, outcomes, and related terminology. Results: Differences between the approaches to student participation can be found in the degree to which students are the central actors and the degree to which the design is informed by educational theory. Conclusion: It is important to align the level of student participation with the purpose of the approach

General anesthesia versus deep sedation for children undergoing invasive procedures in oncologic clinic.

Abstract Introduction Several successful general anesthetic and deep sedation techniques have been established for children under- going invasive oncologic procedures. This pilot pro- spective cohort study examined whether general ane- sthesia facilitated lumbar puncture and bone marrow aspiration and improved patient conditions better than sedation in patients with acute lymphocytic leukemia. Materials Nineteen children with newly diagnosed leukemia who required day seven lumbar puncture/bone marrow aspi- rates at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia were en- rolled. Subjects were initially randomized, but due to falling recruitment, the final nine subjects were allowed to choose treatment arm. Ten patients received sedation and nine received general anesthesia. Intravenous mi- dazolam and fentanyl were administered for sedation. General anesthesia subjects were induced with intrave- nous lidocaine and propofol, and maintained by mask with isoflurane or sevoflurane and N2O in O2. Procedure room entry, procedure start and finish, and discharge readiness times were recorded. Serum cortisol, epineph- rine, and norepinephrine levels were determined. Proce- dural difficulty and parent/child comfort levels were measured using 10 cm visual analog scales. Validated instruments were used to assess anxiety, quality of life, and satisfaction. Results Average preparation time (34.0+21.8 min vs. 11.6+10.2 min, p=0.01) and procedure time (19.4±8.8 min vs. 8.1±5.9 min, p=0.005) were longer for sedation. Onco- logists rated sedation procedures more difficult than ge- neral anesthesia (4.3±4.4 vs. 0.8±0.8, p=0.03). General anesthesia decreased neither recovery time nor time to discharge readiness (25.0±21.1 min vs. 34.1±9.2 min, p=not significant). Neither parental perception of child comfort nor overall satisfaction differed significantly between groups. One failed sedation required conver- sion to general anesthesia. Conclusions General anesthesia improved operative conditions, redu- ced procedure time, and decreased variability in recove- ry time without increasing side effects. General anesthe- sia did not appear to alleviate patient anxiety, improve comfort, or reduce discharge readiness time over seda- tion