Student Voice and Leadership in Pedagogical Partnerships With Professors: Catalyzing Students’ Personal and Academic Development

• In Event: The Roles of Student Voice, Participation, and Youth-Adult Partnerships in Promoting Student Development

Abstract

Purpose: There is growing evidence that partnering undergraduate students with college faculty in pedagogical explorations enhances student motivation, confidence, and sense of intellectual agency, both within the immediate partnership and in wider academic settings (Cook-Sather, Bovill, & Felten, forthcoming). The purpose of this case study is to provide an in-depth analysis of what happens when students have a strong voice and leadership roles through one such partnership program at a college in the northeastern United States.

Framework: Working at the intersection of frameworks drawn from student voice literature, the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning that includes students as partners, and faculty development constituted by student-faculty partnerships, this paper focuses on the range of ways that, according to students themselves, pedagogical partnerships with college faculty catalyze students’ personal and academic development.

Method and data sources: Within an IRB-approved action research project, constant comparison/grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) was used to analyze seven years’ of audiorecorded weekly meetings and written mid- and end-of-semester feedback from 95 student consultants who have participated in a total of over 230 student-faculty partnerships through the program.

Results: Through engaging in extended dialogue with faculty about pedagogical issues and taking on leadership roles in those pedagogical partnerships, students develop confidence, language, and agency that inform their academic engagement as well as their sense of self-authorship (Baxter Magolda, 2004). We will focus on students’ explanations, in their own words, of how partnerships support integration of the academic and the personal in ways that lead to insights about identity, deepened relationships with peers and faculty, and more empowered choices regarding active engagement within and beyond the classroom.

Significance: Deeper engagement leads both to greater personal satisfaction and academic success (Bryson & Hand, 2007; Kuh, Kinzie, Schuh, & Whitt, 2010). Student voice and leadership in pedagogical partnerships can counter the lack of engagement and learning about which some researchers warn us (Arum & Roska, 2010) and better position students to be satisfied and successful.

Arum, R., & Roska, J. (2010). Academically adrift: Limited learning on college campuses. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Baxter Magolda, M. B. (2004). Learning partnerships model: A framework for promoting self-authorship. In M. B. Baxter Magolda & P. M. King (Eds.), Learning partnerships: Theory and models of practice to educate for self-authorship (pp. 37–62). Sterling, VA: Stylus.
Bryson, C., & Hand, L. (2007). The role of engagement in inspiring teaching and learning. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 44(4), 349–362.
Cook-Sather, A., Bovill, C., & Felten, P. (forthcoming). Engaging students as partners in teaching & learning: A guide for faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Glaser, B. G,. & Strauss, A. L. (1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. New York: Aldine De Gruyter.
Kuh, G., Kinzie, J., Schuh, J. H., & Whitt, E. J. (2010). Student success in college: Creating conditions that matter. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.

Authors

• Alison Cook-Sather, Bryn Mawr College

• Esther Chiang, Bryn Mawr College