Co-Designing Care: Transforming Learning Spaces to Center Student Voices

• In Event: Transformative Designs for Equity: Teacher Education Pathways Across Communities and Contexts

Abstract

Typically absent from a discussion of care in classrooms are the voices of the students a teacher or institution seeks to care for. In keeping with Noddings (2012) assertion that care for students is best achieved by listening to students’ expressed needs, this retrospective qualitative study sought to learn from data collected through a co-design partnership with students to identify ways teaching could improve across a large, state university. Findings from student-generated artifacts suggest that caring classroom spaces rest on a foundation of preconditions that provide space for students to exercise choice, agency, and power. The data suggest those preconditions are established by instructors but are sustained by ongoing partnerships with students to ensure student needs are being met.

Authors

• Gavin Tierney, California State University - Fullerton

• Paul S Sutton, Pacific Lutheran University

• Rebecca Smith, University of Portland