A partnership mindset : students as partners in and beyond the academy

Abstract

The Students as Partners (SAP) literature is flooded with case after case from around the world of students, staff, practices, and institutions being transformed by authentic encounters of pedagogical partnership. We read narratives of students genuinely astonished that staff seek out their perspectives and act on them in some way that improves the student experience (Peseta et al. 2016; Bell et al. 2017). We come to learn that staff are reenergized by the thoughtfulness students display about their learning and education more broadly, despite the circling of contested SAP understandings and agendas (Sabri 2011; Matthews et al. 2018). We understand that there are significant learning gains for students when they are engaged in partnership initiatives in ways that are consequential to their futures. Students engage with their studies differently—with more agency—and start to see themselves as part of the university community. In many ways, these are precisely the kinds of educational and developmental outcomes that advocates of SAP are interested in disseminating more widely, despite the suggestion that SAP is better conceived as an ethos rather than a set of outcomes (Healey, Flint, and Harrington 2014). Taken together, these insights add compelling nuance to the evidence base for not only continuing SAP initiatives but also for scaling up these schemes for richer and thicker impact