Developing an Inclusive, Student-Led Approach to Scaling Up the Benefits of Pedagogical Partnership for Social Justice in Higher Education

Abstract

(1) Background: Uneven access to the experience of extra-classroom, student–faculty pedagogical partnerships, as well as the relatively small number of students who can participate in this work, raise equity concerns. Calls to scale up such partnership opportunities often focus on expanding the number and kind of existing partnership projects in a given context, which requires resources and infrastructure that many institutions do not have. (2) Method: We took a students-as-co-researchers approach to a three-phase action-research project to test our hypothesis that (a) assessing the benefits of pedagogical partnership, (b) conceptualizing a new approach to fostering those benefits, and (c) piloting that approach could inform efforts at our own and other institutions to pursue social-justice goals in higher education. (3) Findings: Both our review of the wider literature and our analysis of our own partnership program’s student and faculty participant perspectives affirmed that participating in extra-classroom, student–faculty pedagogical partnerships fosters in students personal learning-related capacities, deepens understanding of other learners and of teachers, and builds career-ready competencies. The new scaling-up approach to fostering these benefits that we conceptualized and have begun to pilot has the potential to be more inclusive, equitable, and feasible than replicating existing extra-classroom pedagogical partnership models. (4) Conclusions: Creating such opportunities for students to develop educational, interpersonal, and professional capacities and competencies can contribute to equity and social justice in higher education.

1. Introduction

The benefits to student partners of participating in extra-classroom, student–faculty pedagogical partnerships have been well documented. These include fostering personal learning-related capacities and wellbeing, deepening understanding of other learners and of teachers, and building career-ready competencies. All of these outcomes empower students during their higher education experiences as well as prepare them to contribute to ongoing equity and inclusion efforts. However, uneven access to partnership work (Marquis et al. 2018) and the relatively small number of students who can participate in partnership projects (Mercer-Mapstone and Bovill 2020) raise equity concerns.

Calls to scale up partnership opportunities to be more inclusive often focus on expanding the number and kind of existing partnership projects (Mercer-Mapstone and Clarke 2018; Mercer-Mapstone and Marie 2019) in any given context, which requires resources and infrastructure that many institutions do not have. Considering these access and inclusion challenges, we hypothesized that (a) assessing the benefits of pedagogical partnership, (b) conceptualizing a new approach to fostering those benefits, and (c) piloting that approach could inform efforts at our own and other institutions to pursue social-justice goals.

To test this hypothesis, we engaged in a students-as-co-researchers approach to implementing Stringer and Aragón’s (2020) three-phase action-research model. We conducted this study in the context of a pedagogical partnership program, Students as Learners and Teachers (SaLT), piloted in 2006 and established in 2007 at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges, which has supported hundreds of faculty and student participants (Cook-Sather 2018). In this article we present findings from the first two phases of the action-research project and outline the third phase that we are beginning to pilot. We focus on how this approach contributes to social justice in higher education.

2. Method

Our research team included Alison Cook-Sather, faculty member in Education Studies at Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges for 30 years, and founder and facilitator of the SaLT program. It included four experienced SaLT student partners as well: Van Nguyen, Atalie Pierre-Louis, and Abhirami Suresh, all of whom graduated from Bryn Mawr College in May of 2024, and Dante Nguyen, on course to graduate from Haverford College in May of 2025. V. Nguyen, Suresh, and D. Nguyen all worked on the project during the latter part of the 2023–2024 academic year. Suresh and D. Nguyen worked on it during the 2024–2025 academic year and joined Cook-Sather as co-authors.

Our team chose a students-as-co-researchers approach to a three-phase action-research project to test our hypothesis that (a) assessing the benefits of pedagogical partnership, (b) conceptualizing a different approach to fostering those benefits, and (c) piloting that approach could inform efforts at our own and other institutions to pursue social justice goals in higher education. Dollinger et al. (2023) define a students-as-co-researchers process as students “authentically involved in a scholarly research project … [through being] … included in all stages of research from design, data collection, analysis, and academic writing” (p. 1379). Our approach embraces the notion that student partners have unique forms of expertise regarding partnership work (Cook-Sather 2023b) and can enact an approach to scaling up the benefits for a greater number of students to distribute more equitably and inclusively the capacities known to be fostered through pedagogical partnership.

This students-as-partners approach is particularly appropriate to our research project because we are analyzing the benefits to students of participating in a student–faculty pedagogical partnership program and considering how to extend those benefits to students not involved in such partnerships. We define pedagogical partnership as: “a collaborative, reciprocal process through which all participants have the opportunity to contribute equally, although not necessarily in the same ways, to curricular or pedagogical conceptualization, decision making, implementation, investigation, or analysis” (Cook-Sather et al. 2014, pp. 6–7). The form of partnership we focus on—extra-classroom, student–faculty pedagogical partnership—unfolds outside of academic classes in the bi-college consortium of Bryn Mawr and Haverford Colleges and informs students’ experiences within and beyond those academic spaces. The student partners in the SaLT program are not enrolled in their faculty partners’ courses; instead, they are paid by the hour to work in semester-long pedagogical partnerships with faculty to explore how to make the faculty members’ classrooms places of equity and inclusion (Cook-Sather and Kaur 2022). The student partners observe one class session of their faculty partners’ course each week, meet weekly with their faculty partners, and meet weekly in small cohorts convened by Cook-Sather in her role as SaLT program facilitator. Although this approach is, according to faculty participants, a worthwhile investment of time to grow as reflective practitioners (Cook-Sather et al. 2024), it is far too costly for most institutions to support, and it is most certainly not conducive to “scaling up” in the sense of replication; there will always be far more students in most higher education contexts than there will be such partnership opportunities.

We chose action research as a method through which to enact a students-as-partners approach because it is “an action-oriented, systematic approach to investigation and reflective practice” that seeks to engage directly “the complex dynamics of specific social contexts”, including institutional settings such as higher education, to “accomplish practical solutions to issues affecting people’s lives” and that, in particular, that “threaten their well-being” (Stringer and Aragón 2020, pp. 1, 4). Following Carr and Kemmis (1986), who were among the first to argue for teachers as researchers who can critically examine their own practices through approaches such as action research, we see ourselves as both teachers and learners in the processes of engaging in and analyzing student–faculty pedagogical partnership. We draw on different definitions of action research that emphasize different aspects or purposes of this work. As Nasrollahi (2015) notes, some definitions focus on the philosophical, self-reflective aspect of action research (e.g., McNiff 2002), which certainly informs our critical reflection on ourselves as participants in and facilitators of pedagogical partnership as a practice. We also see ourselves aligned with Stringer’s (2007) emphasis on the potential for action research to enable people “to find effective solutions to problems they confront in their everyday lives” (Nasrollahi 2015, p. 18664), which is particularly relevant to the social-justice challenges many students face in higher education. Finally, we embrace Whitehead’s (2017) description of a living theory approach to educational action research, which references the researchers’ life-affirming and life-enhancing values as both explanatory principles and standards of judgment for evaluating the research’s contribution to educational knowledge, all of which are particularly relevant to challenges of equity, inclusion, and social justice.

With approval from the ethics review board at Bryn Mawr College (#24-044), we conducted an action-research project spanning two years. We chose to use Stringer and Aragón’s (2020) three-phase model of action research because it is in keeping with our own commitment to a collaborative approach to inquiry that honors and strives to “give voice to people who have previously been silent research subjects” (Nasrollahi 2015, p. 18665), as is often the case for students, and because it was a particularly good fit for our three-phase research project. Box 1 lists Stringer and Aragón (2020, p. 9) three phases of a basic action-research routine:

Box 1. A Basic Action Research Routine.

Look

• Observe what is going on (Observe)
• Gather relevant information (Gather data)
• Describe the situation (Define and describe)

Think

• Explore and analyze: What is happening here? (Analyze)
• Interpret and explain: How or why are things as they are? (Theorize)

Act

• Define a course of action based on analysis and interpretation (Plan)
• Implement the plan (Implement)
• Assess the effectiveness of actions taken (Evaluate)

During the “Look” phase of Stringer and Aragón’s (2020) model, we observed both outwardly and inwardly to address the first part of our hypothesis focused on assessing the benefits of pedagogical partnership. Cook-Sather carried out the outward-looking observation through revisiting the benefits of pedagogical partnership to student partners as represented in the literature. Experienced student partners V. Nguyen, Pierre-Louis, and Suresh led the inward-looking observation through revisiting data Cook-Sather had gathered in the form of anonymous mid-semester and end-of-semester feedback from all 93 student partners who have participated in SaLT over the previous five years. We chose to focus only on the last five years of student feedback (rather than all 20 years of feedback) to ensure that the benefits we identify are current—relevant to the world as it is. The questions on these mid-semester and end-of-semester feedback forms are open ended rather than keyed to this research project, and the question that yielded the most pertinent data was this one: “What insights and skills have you gained as a student, teacher, pedagogical partner, and/or person?”.

As part of the inward-looking observation, we also gathered new data. Student researchers offered faculty the option of completing an anonymous survey or participating in a short, confidential, in-person or Zoom interview with one of the three student partners working as co-researchers. A total of 26 faculty members identified by Cook-Sather, who have worked closely and, in some cases, repeatedly, with SaLT student partners, participated. The questions student researchers used for the survey of and interviews with faculty were keyed to this research project: “(1) What understandings and/or ways of engaging, if any, did your SaLT student consultant(s) demonstrate through their work with you that you wish other students (enrolled students, students at the college in general) would develop?; and (2) Why would it be beneficial to you—and also to students—to develop these insights and ways of engaging/interacting?” We invited faculty members to share dimensions of their identity that they thought might inform their responses, and some shared that information and some did not. We include those details in quoting faculty in our findings section.

Assessing the benefits of pedagogical partnership through both outward-looking and inward-looking observations informed our understanding of what is going on, constituted an appropriate gathering of relevant information (components one and two of the “Look” phase in Stringer and Aragón’s (2020) model), and allowed us to describe the situation (component three of the “Look” phase). For the inward-looking observation, we used constant comparison/grounded theory (Creswell 2006; Glaser and Strauss 1967) to identify themes and trends in the student and faculty reflections. Student researchers generated themes through the first step in the constant comparison method: identifying a phenomenon (Glaser and Strauss 1967), followed by open coding: “the process of breaking down, examining, comparing, conceptualizing, and categorizing data” (Strauss and Corbin 1990, p. 61).

Entering the “Think” phase, we turned our attention to the second part of our hypothesis: that conceptualizing a different way of scaling up the benefits of pedagogical partnership could inform efforts at our own and other institutions to pursue social-justice goals in higher education. During this phase, the student co-researchers and Cook-Sather continued to employ the constant comparison/grounded theory approach (Creswell 2006; Glaser and Strauss 1967). We analyzed the nature of the benefits the student and faculty partners identified, focusing particularly on how those benefits might be especially important to address inequities and work toward social justice. Addressing the “What is happening here?” question (the first component of the “Think” phase) allowed us to name both the benefits students experienced and what structures, practices, and areas of focus supported students having those experiences. To address the “How or why are things as they are?” question (the second component of the “Think” phase), our theorizing focused on how and why student partners derive the benefits they do and also on how to create other conditions under which students could derive some or all of the same benefits. Our analysis informed our conceptualization of a student-led approach to fostering those benefits that does not rely on the replication of the existing pedagogical-partnership model.

During the initial part of the “Act” phase of Stringer and Aragón’s (2020) model, experienced student partner D. Nguyen worked with Cook-Sather to refine the intervention (Plan), prepare to pilot it with a small number of students (Implement) in the fall of 2024 and spring of 2025, and consider how to assess the effectiveness of the intervention (Evaluate). The “Act” phase afforded us an opportunity to test the third part of our hypothesis: that piloting a different way to scale up the benefits of pedagogical partnership could make it more possible for our own and other institutions to pursue social-justice goals in higher education by reaching more students.

3. Findings

We organize our findings according to the three phases of Stringer and Aragón’s (2020) action-research model. We first share our findings from the outward-looking component of the “Look” phase, focused on the benefits to student partners of participating in pedagogical partnerships as captured in the literature, followed by a presentation of our findings from the inward-looking component of the “Look” phase, drawing on what we learned from our analysis of the anonymous student partner feedback and faculty partner surveys and interviews. To report our findings from the “Think” phase, we draw on findings from the “Look” phase to identify what contributed to the development of understandings and/or ways of engaging that SaLT student partners experience and demonstrate through their work that would be beneficial to students who do not participate in pedagogical partnerships. For the “Act” phase, we provide details of the approach D. Nguyen is piloting for students who are not participating in a formal SaLT pedagogical partnership.

3.1. Findings from the Outward-Looking Component of the “Look” Phase

The outward-looking component of the “Look” phase focuses on several sets of benefits of extra-classroom, student–faculty pedagogical-partnership work reported by researchers, faculty partners, and student partners. We group the benefits into three related sets consistently identified in the scholarship: (1) fostering personal learning-related capacities and wellbeing; (2) deepening understanding of other students and teachers; and (3) developing career-ready competencies. We discuss each of these in turn, noting the ways in which supporting the development of each contributes to social justice in higher education.

3.1.1. Fostering Personal Learning-Related Capacities and Wellbeing

Pedagogical-partnership work has been shown to foster personal learning-related capacities and wellbeing through developing metacognitive awareness in students (Cates et al. 2018), inspiring a deepened academic engagement by students in their own courses (Cates et al. 2018; Marcovici 2021), and building confidence (Allard 2021; Cook-Sather and Wilson 2020; Evans 2011). As one student partner explained, understanding how learning works helps students to gain insight into “the pedagogical reasoning” behind assignments and activities, which “totally deepened my learning” (quoted in Cook-Sather 2018, p. 927). Participating in pedagogical-partnership work also fosters a sense of belonging and mattering (Colón García 2017; Cook-Sather et al. 2024; de Bie et al. 2021; Perez-Putnam 2016; Weston et al. 2021), inspires a sense of empowerment (Lubicz-Nawrocka 2019; McKinnes 2014; Thompson 2020), and nurtures wellbeing through meaningful and reciprocally affirming relationships among students and faculty (Cook-Sather and Cott 2024).

Developing personal learning-related capacities can contribute to academic performance (Ahn and Davis 2020) and persistence and graduation rates (Lewis et al. 2017; Gopalan and Brady 2019), including for students from historically excluded groups (Hausmann et al. 2009). These capacities have also been linked with mental health and wellbeing (Bye et al. 2020; Larcombe et al. 2021), fostering what Nair et al. (2018) describe as high positive affect, competence, positive relations, sense of fulfillment, and related markers of wellbeing (Hill et al. 2021). Student partners have also documented ways in which participating in partnership work contributes to their healing, empowerment, and wellbeing (Chan 2024; Giron 2021; Perez-Putnam 2016; Umar 2021).

A social-justice orientation in higher education requires that all students have equal opportunity to develop these capacities that contribute to their thriving, but we know this is not the case (Brownson et al. 2023; Dunkle and Zhang 2023; Mushunje et al. 2023). Learning about and working to develop these capacities in student-led fora could help move higher-education institutions toward greater social justice.

3.1.2. Deepening Understanding of Other Students and of Teachers

The literature offers many examples of how participating in pedagogical partnerships deepens student partners’ understanding of other students and of teachers and teaching in ways that are linked to student partners’ own capacity for learning and personal wellbeing and also can contribute to others’ learning and wellbeing. This deepening understanding can make student partners more aware, empathetic, and agentic (Cook-Sather and Mejia 2018; Marcovici 2021)—all qualities that make higher education less alien and hostile and more navigable and nurturing, which can in turn make it more socially just. Student attitudes toward and treatment of one another contribute significantly to a sense of social inclusion (Juvonen et al. 2019; Taff and Clifton 2022). When students understand the diversity of ways that other students engage in their learning, they become “more conscientious and open minded” (Gulley 2014), which can make learning spaces more inclusive (Cook-Sather 2018).

Complementing their deeper understanding of other students, student partners develop a deeper understanding of teachers and teaching. They gain “a newfound appreciation for professors and the amount of work they put into teaching” (Charkoudian et al. 2015, p. 7), and they become “a lot more compassionate, … more empathetic” (student partner quoted in Cook-Sather and Mejia 2018). They also become “more confident speaking to professors” because they understand “how to approach a teacher” and feel as though they “have something to say that’s worth hearing” (student partner quoted in Cook-Sather 2018, p. 927; Smith 2023).

Students who come to higher education with a sense of confidence, agency, and even entitlement might have this capacity from the get-go, but most students, particularly those who have not had the opportunity to build such social capital, might not (Giron 2021; Najib 2021). Developing this kind of confidence and agency can contribute to a more socially just learning environment.

3.1.3. Developing Career-Ready Competencies

The National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE 2021) identifies competencies for a career-ready workforce as proficiency in the following areas: career and self development, communication, critical thinking, equity and inclusion, leadership, professional development, teamwork, and technology. Many of these skills are best developed through high-impact practices (Kuh 2008; Kuh et al. 2014). However, research shows that not all students have equal access to high-impact practices, revealing lower participation rates for historically underserved students (NSSE 2021), partly because the practices are often not “culturally relevant” (Zilvinskis et al. 2022, p. 15). Pedagogical partnership has been shown to develop these competencies in student partners (Cook-Sather 2023a; Cook-Sather et al. 2023b; Lewis 2017; Ortquist-Ahrens 2021).

Developing the NACE competencies is a matter of social justice, since these will shape students’ professional prospects. However, the epistemic, affective, and ontological harms many minoritized students experience (de Bie et al. 2021) inflicted by both structural and interpersonal dynamics in higher education militate against minoritized students being able to focus on developing these competencies. In contrast, while students, especially those from minoritized groups, are working in pedagogical partnerships, they have an opportunity, as one former student partner put it, to “advocate for myself and for other students of multiple underrepresented identities” and “to heal from all the harm that higher education and educators have caused” (Giron 2021, p. xiii). After participating in pedagogical partnerships, students assert that they “feel empowered to make a difference in the places I work (universities), even as I recognize the way they are mired in systemic inequality” (former student partner quoted in Cook-Sather et al. 2023b). Such agency and power directly inform the development of career-ready competencies.

3.2. Findings from the Inward-Looking Compnent of the “Look” Phase

There is complexity and nuance in what student partners in our pedagogical partnership program offer in their anonymous feedback on their experiences of pedagogical partnerships, in part because, as noted in our Methods section above, the feedback forms pose open-ended questions rather than questions keyed to the specific focus of this research project. Nevertheless, student co-researchers Suresh and Pierre-Louis identified across the five years’ worth of student partner feedback themes in keeping with previous research on the benefits to student partners that are strikingly similar to what faculty partners identified in their responses to the anonymous surveys and the interviews designed for this research project. The three most consistent themes we identified in both student and faculty partner responses are (1) building confidence and capacity to communicate; (2) developing insight into and empathy or compassion for the complex work of teaching; and (3) deepening understanding of how learning works.

For each of the three themes, we provide examples from the anonymous SaLT student partner feedback and from faculty reflections on the survey or in interviews. For the anonymous student feedback, we list the year it was offered. For the faculty responses, we indicate which faculty partner response we are quoting (e.g., F1) and, where it was provided, information about the faculty members’ identities.

3.2.1. Building Confidence and Capacity to Communicate

The themes of confidence and capacity to communicate are the most common themes in the inward-looking observation data we gathered. Typical student partner responses about confidence include: “I’ve become so much more comfortable and confident meeting new people and connecting with them” (Spring 2021) and “As a person, it makes me more confident in my being that I’m able to suggest to a professor things they could do to improve their teaching style/pedagogy!” (Fall 2022). Faculty members commented both about student partner confidence and about how developing such confidence would benefit all students. A faculty member in political science with 14 years of teaching experience mused that student partners seem to “develop a confidence as part of their work”, noting that their student partner “was confident and helpful in assessing my teaching and helping me improve” (F2). Such confidence, a female faculty member with seven years teaching experience in physics and astronomy noted, “would help everyone interact with everyone better … [because] … it would create a collaboration between faculty and students at a level we don’t currently enjoy” (F19). Considering how “the confidence to self-advocate and share their thoughts and opinions on how a particular classroom environment could be improved to benefit the educational experience of their peers” (F6), a faculty member in biology explained: “information from my students regarding barriers to understanding and equitable instruction is extremely valuable as it allows me to address concerns directly and offer students assistance instead of them suffering in silence” (F6).

About capacity to communicate, common statements from anonymous student partner feedback include: “I’ve gotten very good at communicating sensitive information that might be difficult to hear but constructing it so that it is productive” (Fall 2019) and “[I’ve gained] confidence in giving constructive feedback in spaces where it’s appreciated” (Spring 2023). Faculty reflections highlight, in the words of one faculty partner with 12 years of teaching in art history, how “SaLT students excelled in facilitating and engaging in clear communication with faculty” (F8); student partners develop “a particularly mature and helpful way of giving suggestions without sounding judgmental or prescriptive”, according to a female faculty partner in physics with 1.5 years of teaching experience (F11).

A key skill in communicating—listening—also emerges in both sets of reflections. One student partner describes “being a good listener every single week” (Spring 2022), and another states: “I have learned how to deeply and actively listen to someone. This work has taught me how to notice trends over time and weave them coherently together” (Fall 2019). A faculty partner in history noted that their student partner “was a great active listener”; when this faculty member shared their concerns about pedagogical practices, the student partner “took the time to express my concerns back [to me] in the way that she was interpreting them, and to ask me what made me feel concerned, before then offering her perspective on or solution to the problem” (F7).

These are examples of what a faculty partner in social work who identifies as Black and international/immigrant and has four years of teaching experience describes as “ongoing open and honest professional communication” that is “important for everyday living” (F10). Such confidence and capacity to communicate effectively are essential, faculty assert, because “our student body is changing and evolving and every year we have new students coming in with experiences, life stories and opinions” (F25). To keep current and responsive, this faculty partner continued, “it’s really important to keep pedagogy alive because I think that something like a language or anything stays alive because it evolves” (F25).

3.2.2. Developing Insight into and Empathy for the Complex Work of Teaching

Echoing findings from previous research, the data reveal a range of ways that student partners develop insight into the complex work of teaching and being a teacher. One student partner stated in anonymous feedback: “I’ve learned that it is just as hard to be a good professor as it is to be a good student” (Fall 2020). Another explained: “I’ve learned a little bit more about the amount of consideration that goes into classes and gained more appreciation for the professors who put in that work” (Spring 2021). Using very similar language to that of student partners, a faculty partner in the social sciences with a year of teaching experience wrote that their student partner “began to understand and appreciate the amount of effort an instructor spent on preparing for a course” (F9). Likewise, an early-career faculty member, with two years of experience teaching in Africana studies, noted that the partnership work “allowed my student consultant to see the immense work that occurs to make a class functional”, a perception that prompted the student partner to speak about “not previously understanding how much time went into class preparation and how they could appreciate the material taught even more” (F18). Some student partners link these new insights directly with awareness that they carry into interactions with others beyond their SaLT partnerships: “This has made me a much more caring student and has enriched my relationship with my [own] professors” (Fall 2023). Faculty also link these insights to how all students could benefit from these understandings: “The appreciation of each other’s work helps us develop a better working relationship and motivates the students to [put] more effort into their study” (F9).

Focusing specifically on the empathy they develop through pedagogical-partnership work, a student partner asserted: “This role gave me a new lens with which to empathize with the role of the professor: never before have I been able to see all the decisions and all the navigation professors partake in behind the scenes” (Fall 2019). Another student partner reflected that, “Professors and educators are humans … [who] … share the same doubts, vulnerability, and fears as students do … [and] … are trying just as hard as students are to help students to learn in a safe environment” (Fall 2023). Using very similar language to the student partners quoted above, an early-career faculty member suggested that this partnership work “demystifies teaching”, revealing that “faculty are people”, they are not “perfect, nor do they know everything, and they struggle, and they balance things, and they make mistakes, and they also try new things” (F23). Likewise, a faculty member with half a year of teaching experience in sociology and social work described what she appreciated most about her student partner—”Empathy and compassion for how challenging it can be to show up in the classroom”—and this faculty partner asserted that “it would ease student-professor interactions” if all students developed such awareness (F14).

Both student and faculty partners link this new awareness and empathy to growth and development. A student partner reflected on having “learned a lot about empathy, communications, and deep and applied thinking”, which they identified as “skills that are useful in pretty much every aspect of life from personal relationships to all kinds of jobs” (Spring 2022). Offering a similar point, a faculty member in education studies with 27 years of teaching experience wrote in a survey response: “above all my students consultants held and manifested an understanding that teaching and learning are dynamic processes, and their improvement is likewise” (F1). This faculty member specified that student partners “expected growth to entail struggle and challenge, and encouraged me to lean into them with confidence” (F1). Reflecting on how this understanding would be beneficial to develop in all students, and linking this theme with the theme of confidence and capacity, this faculty member suggested that

it would be beneficial for more students to feel comfortable with the inevitable challenges and struggles that accompany teaching and learning because it would help them and our community be more confident in response to these. Such confidence in turn reduces perfectionism (self-imposed or applied to others) and nourishes instead a sense of curiosity about ways to move resourcefully in relation to difficulty.

(F1)

3.2.3. Deepening Understanding of Learning

Another prevalent theme in the data was how participating in extra-classroom pedagogical partnerships deepens understanding of learning. Typical student partner responses in anonymous feedback include statements like this: “It makes me rethink learning and my learning experiences” (Fall 2022). Faculty also note this rethinking: a white, heterosexual, cis-gendered man with 16 years of experience teaching biology asserted that “engaging with faculty over issues of how to make a classroom more inclusive and effective allows a student the opportunity to reflect not only on the practice of teaching, but back upon their own practices as a student” (F17). A faculty partner in mathematics with 20+ years of teaching experience noted how such understanding transfers to other contexts: “An understanding of pedagogical ideas can help a student learn better in their own classes as they see why their instructor is using a particular technique and/or as they apply pedagogical ideas to their own processes” (F5).

Deepening understanding of learning includes recognizing it as both individual and collective, and also as structured. One student partner wrote in anonymous feedback: “I am once again reminded that we all are learners trying to figure out the best possible way forward. No one person has all the answers, we all have good ideas as a collective and we should use that to our advantage” (Fall 2021). A faculty partner with two years of teaching experience in ethnomusicology commented on this capacity of student partners that should be developed in all students in order to support “a more democratic approach to the creation of knowledge”, which is “a more empowering process that allows students to speak to topics from other academic and non-academic experiences; e.g., thinking through issues rather than being the sole author of knowledge” (F16). Similarly, a faculty partner with four years of experience teaching language and literatures praised his SaLT student partners’ “ability to understand and discuss class activities in relation to course learning goals”, reading course syllabi, for instance, for what the courses “aimed to accomplish not just in terms of content covered but in terms of skills developed” (F12). The partnership work prompted this faculty member to reflect on how much better learning experiences would be if all students “read the parts of the syllabus that related to learning goals and engaged with class activities and assignments with those specific goals in mind” (F12).

Developing metacognitive awareness is a widely acknowledged benefit of engaging in extra-classroom pedagogical partnerships. Student partners commented on how working in pedagogical partnerships was “so rewarding for my own personal learning as a student but also researcher who is passionate about human interactions” (Spring 2022) and specifically about their raised awareness of themselves as learners: “I have learnt a lot about myself as a student, and how I can be a more active learner in the classroom” (Fall 2019). Echoing these student partner reflections, an Asian-American female faculty member with 2.5 years teaching in the humanities explained that her student partner “demonstrated metacognitive skills through the ways in which she described the kinds of interpretations and connections my students were making about the course content” (F13). This faculty member continued: “I think being aware not only of WHAT is being learned but also HOW such learning is happening is crucial … for students because metacognition can be empowering for them as they recognize the development of their thinking/ideas as well as the means by which they arrived at them” (F13). Similarly, a faculty member in history mused: “I think if students were more aware of how they learn, how they take in information and how they process it, they might be able to be more intentional about articulating bigger takeaways from the content presented and discussed” (F7). And finally, a white, heterosexual, cis-gendered man with 16 years of experience teaching biology reflected that “this sort of metacognition produces more deliberative, empowered and committed students”, and he asserted that “having such students—self-aware, confident, and possessing the skills they need to succeed—would” make his “job as an educator easier” but also more demanding, as students, “aware of what effective, inclusive pedagogy looks like, would also be more likely to hold me accountable to be the best educator I can be” (F17).

3.2.4. Reflections Across Findings from the Inward-Looking and the Outward-Looking Components of the “Look” Phase

The benefits to students of participating in extra-classroom, student–faculty pedagogical partnerships, as identified in the scholarship, intersect with the benefits to students identified in the reflections from student and faculty partners in our partnership program. The most common finding from our analysis of the student and faculty partner reflections—that participating in pedagogical partnerships supports student partners in building confidence and the capacity to communicate—is most closely in keeping with developing career-ready competencies discussed in the literature. The second most common finding from our analysis of the student and faculty partner reflections—that student partners develop insight into and empathy or compassion for the complex work of teaching through their partnership work—is very consistent with the focus in the literature on student partners deepening understanding of other students and teachers. Finally, the third finding from our analysis of the student and faculty partner reflections—that participating in pedagogical partnerships deepens student partner understanding of how learning works—affirms the theme in the literature that pedagogical-partnership work fosters personal learning-related capacities and wellbeing.

3.3. Findings from “Think” Phase

We used the “Think” phase to explore and analyze (addressing the question, “What is happening here?”) and interpret and explain (addressing the question, “How or why are things as they are?”) (Stringer and Aragón 2020, p. 9). To address both questions, we focused on the findings from our inward-looking observations presented in Section 3.2 above, since we are focused on piloting a scaling-up approach in our context. Here, we spiral through responses to these two questions in relation to each set of those findings presented in Section 3.2: building confidence and capacity in relation to communication; developing insight into and empathy for the complex work of teaching; and deepening understanding of learning. What we derive from this exploration, analysis, interpretation, and explanation informs how we address the second part of our hypothesis: that conceptualizing a different way to scale up the benefits of pedagogical partnership could inform efforts at our own and other institutions to pursue social-justice goals in higher education.

Second author Suresh notes that part of what is revealed in the “Think” phase is how complex or simple the work that takes place in a partnership can be. This phase unveils the layering and depth of this work because a lot of things can happen at once in a partnership/relationship—problem identification and analysis, empathy, and integration into practice. From the perspective of a student partner, this complex engagement is as emotional as it is intellectual.

3.3.1. Building Confidence and Capacity in Relation to Communication

“What is happening here?” Through participating in extra-classroom-pedagogical-partnership work, student partners are developing confidence—a self-assurance that informs how they think about themselves and their capacity as well as how they interact with others. Importantly, this self-assurance is not arrogant or fixed; it is confidence that inspires engagement and that remains responsive. It is characterized by “deeply and actively listen[ing]” (anonymous student partner feedback, Fall 2019), sharing back interpretations and asking for further faculty partner thoughts “before then offering [a] perspective on or solution to the problem” (F7), and “a particularly mature and helpful way of giving suggestions without sounding judgmental or prescriptive” (F11). Also, this role allows student partners to realize that they can bring concerns, suggestions, questions, and critiques to faculty members and that student learning should be (and is) centered in the classroom. This aspect of the role is related to “demystifying teachers”; many times students feel as if they aren’t active contributors in how the structure of learning in a course is created, and by engaging in student–faculty partnerships, it’s like getting the “go ahead” that you can hold conversations on ways that the course is and is not serving students. In the long term, this process builds structures of inclusion and equity in the classroom: when students feel heard and seen, they are far more likely to share, speak, write, and be themselves in classrooms. The process yields an understanding of the faculty position from the student perspective, and vice versa, as these brave spaces hold up respect, honesty, and trustworthiness in classrooms and in pedagogy. Students and faculty are able to empower one another and to contribute to a far more effective shared learning experience.

“How or why are things as they are?” Student partners develop this confidence because they are positioned as those with legitimate experiences and perspectives (Cook-Sather et al. 2014; Matthews 2017) and because they are treated by the SaLT program and by their faculty partners with respect and open mindedness (Cook-Sather and Kaur 2022). Within the structures of the SaLT program—the weekly meetings of student and faculty partners and the weekly cohort meetings convened by Cook-Sather—student partners experience opportunities to reflect, and they find support in their explorations, encouragement to trust themselves as knowers, guidance, affirmation, and appreciation (Jonsson 2020). They practice developing the mindset, language, and courage necessary to engage in dialogue with faculty about pedagogical practice.

3.3.2. Developing Insight into and Empathy for the Complex Work of Teaching

“What is happening here?” Student partners are developing greater awareness of the ones on the other side of the teaching–learning relationship—faculty—and their experiences, pedagogical commitments, rationales, fears, struggles, and more. Student partners get glimpses that most students never see that it is, in their words, “hard to be a good professor” (Fall 2020), that faculty put a tremendous “amount of consideration” into their work (Spring 2021), and that faculty are “humans, and at the end of the day they share the same doubts, vulnerability, and fears as students do” (Fall 2023). These glimpses foster “deeper awareness and appreciation” (Fall 2023) and allow student partners “to empathize with the role of the professor” (Fall 2019).

“How or why are things as they are?” Student partners gain these insights and develop this sense of empathy because their faculty partners pull back the curtain—a metaphor many student partners use—to reveal the lived experiences of and thinking that goes into teaching. Partnership work supports faculty in being, and being perceived as, more fully human (Cook-Sather et al. 2023a), and it shifts what some faculty and students experience as an “us-them” dynamic to a “we” (Singh 2018)—a recognition of and a commitment to teaching and learning as shared responsibilities. As one faculty partner put it: “one thing that I’ve been working [on] with my SaLT consultant is the ways of showing and putting into practice that I’m really on the same team as it were, as the students, and that we’re all in this” (F21). Partnership gives faculty a space to discuss the multifaceted nature of their role, deepening their own and their student partners’ understanding of the work of teaching through dialogue.

3.3.3. Deepening Understanding of Learning

“What is happening here?” Through engaging in extra-classroom pedagogical partnerships, student partners “rethink learning and [their] learning experiences” (Fall 2022), find this work “rewarding for [their] own personal learning as a student” (Spring 2022), and learn about themselves as students and how they “can be a more active learner in the classroom” (Fall 2019). These student partner responses confirm what research has shown as well: that this work fosters personal learning-related capacities through developing metacognitive awareness in students (Cates et al. 2018) and inspires students’ deepened academic engagement in their own classes (Cates et al. 2018; Marcovici 2021).

“How or why are things as they are?” Because student partners are in the role of observer of classroom practice and dialogue partner with faculty, rather than the role of learner of course content being graded by faculty, they can focus on how learning works, what supports and hinders it, and how to affirm and further develop pedagogical approaches that foster it. Having the structure of the weekly meetings with faculty partners and cohorts of student partners gives these student partners both space and support in learning to name their own and others’ learning experiences, which in turn can inform the ways they understand, engage in, reflect on, and communicate about classroom learning not only within but also beyond their partnership work. Iterative and ongoing reflection pushes student partners to look at both the trees and the whole forest. Such understanding of learning encourages both student and faculty partners to think about education as a “more democratic creation of knowledge”, as one faculty partner put it, that can contribute to “improving class dynamics, inclusiveness, and re-articulating the classroom into a temporary space of belonging” (F16).

3.3.4. Summary and Implications of Findings from the “Think” Phase

We suggest that the benefits student partners derive from working in direct partnership with faculty—building confidence and a capacity to communicate; developing insight into and empathy for the complex work of teaching; and deepening understanding of how learning works—can be developed through working with experienced student partners who create liminal spaces dedicated to dialogue. Addressing the second part of our hypothesis—that conceptualizing a different way to scale up the benefits of pedagogical partnership could inform efforts at our own and other institutions to pursue social-justice goals in higher education—we argue that, while the benefits cannot be derived in precisely the same way—through direct partnership with faculty—they can be fostered through experienced SaLT student partners naming, encouraging, and supporting practice of the capacities that student–faculty partnership develops.

3.4. Findings from “Act” Phase

In the “Think” phase, we formulated three responses to the second part of our hypothesis: that conceptualizing a different way to scale up the benefits of pedagogical partnership could inform efforts at our own and other institutions to pursue social-justice goals in higher education. We conceptualized the following reasons for how and why student partners derive the benefits from pedagogical-partnership work that they do, which are as follows:

• Building confidence and a capacity to communicate is the result of having the time and space to reflect, develop and practice language, and be affirmed in these efforts.
• Developing insight into and empathy for the complex work of teaching is the result of getting glimpses into aspects or details of teachers’ lived experience that are usually invisible to students.
• Deepening understanding of how learning works is the result of having time to observe and analyze rather than be engaged in the learning process and to talk about what becomes apparent.

Guided by these conceptualizations, D. Nguyen has piloted the first step of a multi-step plan for experienced student partners to invite other students to consider and practice these benefits, drawing on their experiences not in a formal pedagogical partnership but rather in daily life as students and in structured forums for engaging with professional staff and faculty.

The plan we are developing and piloting enacts another form of partnership and opens the door to additional co-researcher opportunities for students. At Nguyen’s suggestion, we are working with a program on Haverford College’s campus called The John P. Chesick Scholars Program for First-Generation/Low-Income Students. The Chesick Scholars Program offers workshops, seminars, and other experiences designed for first-generation college students and/or students who come from low-income backgrounds. The goal of these offerings is “to provide practical guidance for students to achieve their personal, academic and professional goals as part of a supportive community of fellow students, staff and faculty” (https://www.haverford.edu/chesick-scholars-program, accessed on 16 May 2024).

We are developing a three-part workshop series, the first segment of which was embedded in an existing Chesick Scholars Program forum in December of 2024—a dinner gathering—to ensure that as many Chesick Scholars as possible would benefit. In this one-hour workshop, Nguyen provided an overview of the pedagogical-partnership work in which he has been engaged with faculty and offered insights into what he and other student partners have developed from this work, specifically the kind of agency and empowerment they feel. Nguyen invited consideration of reimagining teacher–student and mentor–student relationships as respectful exchanges of perspective and experience (rather than one-way guiding relationships), and he discussed what is hard about this reimagining and what has helped him and other student partners get better at it.

Finally, Nguyen offered some sentence starters for Chesick Scholars—“As a student, it really helps me if professors do X because ….”; “As a student, I struggle when professor do X because ….”; “What ways should I approach doing X, Y, and Z?”; “I have been trying X, Y, and Z; is there another way that you would recommend I approach it?”; “I know we doing X practice to get to Y goal. Can you help me connect X to Y and think through some steps to get there?”—to develop language for engaging in an exchange with faculty about their learning. The workshop gave Chesick Scholars time to practice using these sentence starters with one another and to reflect on how to develop confidence to use them with others. As an “assignment” to bridge this session and the next one, Nguyen asked Chesick Scholars to notice the language people use in peer-educating spaces, as well as classrooms or office hours or other spaces where people are talking from different roles about learning, and bring their insights to the next workshop (or just draw on them in their daily lives as students if they do not continue with this pilot).

For session 2, we are planning to create opportunities for the Chesick Scholars in the pilot to meet one on one with staff who are in student-facing learning-support roles—lab instructors, deans, members of the academic support office and the writing center, and librarians—whom students often feel are more approachable than faculty. The goal of this session is to help Chesick Scholars learn how to access and learn from perspectives on college as derived from different roles, including their own. Session 3 will continue a focus on this benefit but will shift to one-on-one meetings with faculty in which Chesick Scholars can talk with faculty about how they plan deliberately (the intent and purpose of class structures and practices) and how students can develop metacognition and engage in their learning deliberately. This session will most closely resemble student–faculty partnerships supported in the SaLT program, and it will include faculty who have engaged in such partnerships, ensuring that they have some capacity that will contribute to an affirming experience for Chesick Scholars.

We will invite Chesick Scholars to join the second two segments not only as participants but also as co-creators of this pilot project and, if they are interested, as co-researchers helping us to track the ways that students grow as they take on these roles. All three sessions will emphasize the importance of empathy for others’ experiences in the college community, how to foster it, and how to express it.

4. Discussion

Persistent inequities of student experience in higher education and the specific ways in which access to student–faculty pedagogical-partnership work can be inequitable (Marquis et al. 2018; Mercer-Mapstone and Bovill 2020) prompted us to explore a different approach to scaling up the benefits of pedagogical-partnership work. Stringer and Aragón’s (2020) three-phase action-research model carried out through a students-as-co-researchers process is allowing us to dig into student and faculty perspectives on the benefits students derive from engaging in pedagogical-partnership work and to think about how we might extend these benefits to more students. The benefits we identified from student and faculty feedback can be fostered, we propose, through inviting students who are not engaged in formal student–faculty partnerships into forums designed and facilitated by experienced SaLT student partners.

Our conceptualization of an inclusive, student-led approach to scaling up the benefits of pedagogical partnership for social justice in higher education addresses in several ways the first theme from our findings presented in Section 3.2.1 and Section 3.3.1—building confidence and a capacity to communicate—through creating the time and space to reflect, develop and practice language, and be affirmed in these efforts. The first session of the three-part workshop that Nguyen facilitated invited participating students to reflect on Nguyen’s description of pedagogical-partnership work and the insights he and other student partners have developed through it, specifically the kind of agency and empowerment they feel. Nguyen also invited participating students to bring these insights to bear on their own teacher–student and mentor–student relationships, re-conceptualizing those as respectful exchanges of perspective and experience (rather than one-way guiding relationships). Nguyen also supported student participants in developing and practicing language to use in such reconceptualized relationships, using sentence starters and practicing in the low-stakes space of the informal dinner meeting. Finally, the “assignment” Nguyen gave the students to bridge this session and the next one will encourage the Chesick Scholars to notice the language people use across roles in peer-educating spaces as well as classrooms or office hours.

The second and third workshops that will enact our conceptualization of an inclusive, student-led approach to scaling up the benefits of pedagogical-partnership work for social justice in higher education to addresses the second theme from our findings presented in Section 3.2.2 and Section 3.3.2 above: developing insight into and empathy for the complex work of teaching. It will do so through affording students glimpses into aspects or details of teachers’ lived experience that are usually invisible to students, first through meeting one on one with staff who are in student-facing learning-support roles—lab instructors, deans, members of the academic support office and the writing center, and librarians—whom students often feel are more approachable than faculty and then to meeting one on one with faculty in which Chesick Scholars can talk with faculty about how they plan deliberately (the intent and purpose of class structures and practices). Like semester-long, extra-classroom, student–faculty pedagogical partnerships, but not so intensive, these sessions will allow participating students to develop insight into and empathy for the complex work of teaching though getting glimpses into aspects or details of teachers’ lived experience that are usually invisible to students.

All three of the workshop sessions will allow us to test our conceptualization of an inclusive, student-led approach to scaling up the benefits of pedagogical partnership for social justice in higher education, addressing the third theme from our findings presented in Section 3.2.3 and Section 3.3.3 above. Having time to step back, outside of class time, and observe and analyze rather than be engaged in the learning process, and to talk about what becomes apparent, will deepen participating students’ metacognitive awareness.

Through constant teaching and learning with and from their peers, upperclassmen, staff, or faculty, and engagement in a variety of academic roles, such as tutors, TAs, researchers, and more, students develop a unique set of tools that support them in achieving success. However, by bringing attention to the skills and capacities gained by SaLT student partners and by demystifying the mindset that SaLT student partners develop through pedagogical-partnership work, we are able to provide developing students with a framework that accelerates the rate at which they build these understandings. Most importantly, sharing of these perspectives minimizes the struggle and harm students can experience, especially those from historically marginalized communities, during their academic and professional development by bypassing many stages in the trial-and-error process to develop strong skills for success.

The majority (25) of the 32 Chesick Scholars who participated in the first one of our three-part workshop series were first-year students, and the rest were second-year students—critical points of intervention for promoting equity in higher education. The transition into higher education is difficult for many but especially for students from under-represented groups, as those students are likely to be living independently for the first time. They may require particular support in developing skills in time management, confidence, and communication, but they might not have the opportunity to properly practice and develop those skills. Nguyen found that the students participating in the workshop brought an energy that can only be described as an openness to learning. They were attentive while everyone was sharing experiences and perspectives, and they were eager to participate in the interactive and collaborative portions of the session. When asked to think about their current academic struggles, how they’re navigating those, and where they are finding support, the students showed a deep trust with one another, allowing each other to be honest and vulnerable. Later on, when asked to imagine their ideal learning environments, the students described scenes where they are in comfortable spaces, such as in nature, the park, or cities, and surrounded by friends. As an outsider watching them interact and learn together, Nguyen noted that the very traits that they described, whether conscious or unconscious, were already present during the workshop itself; the students were sharing a meal with their friends and were in community with those that come from similar backgrounds. It was clear to Nguyen that the students are capable of dreaming new possibilities in learning and possess the skills necessary to engage with metacognitive practices when prompted. However, this session provided a new space for the students to engage with and accelerate the development of these capacities.

Although we are only at the beginning of the pilot portion of our three-phase action research project, the first session suggested to Nguyen that the approach is promising. We are excited to see how the Chesick Scholars will continue to engage with the structures we create to develop the skills fostered by pedagogical partnership.

5. Conclusions

We offer this preliminary discussion of our action-research project as a model of both practice and research that can contribute to efforts to promote equity and inclusion in higher education guided by premises such as conceptualizing differences as resources, considering the particular strengths and needs students bring, and designing learning environments and approaches that support all students so that they can succeed and thrive. This particular project strives toward social justice in its conceptualization, enactment, and ongoing development, particularly in including student partners with marginalized identities as co-researchers and participants. In that sense it also responds to calls to increase representation and equity in partnership work (Bindra et al. 2018). We hope that partnership program directors, faculty partners, and student partners at other colleges and universities with pedagogical-partnership programs will build on our example to develop similar or alternative approaches to scaling up the benefits of pedagogical partnership.