Learning together: a transdisciplinary approach to student–staff partnerships in higher education

ABSTRACT

Partnership in higher education has gained prominence over recent decades, but recent studies have identified a lack of research exploring how partnership practices unfold in specific disciplinary contexts. This article explores how a transdisciplinary approach can be used to better understand and facilitate student–staff partnerships where staff and students have diverse disciplinary backgrounds and knowledge. We present a case study of the Bachelor of Creative Intelligence and Innovation at the University of Technology Sydney, focusing on the adaptation of our curriculum co-creation processes by drawing on multiple knowledge types through a reflexive process of mutual learning. We conclude that explicit consideration of these principles, which are common to both transdisciplinary and partnership frameworks, have the potential to enhance consideration of diverse perspectives and the roles played by worldviews, norms and values when building student–staff partnerships around curriculum co-creation.

KEYWORDS:

• Transdisciplinary
• students as partners
• agency
• mutual learning
• reflexivity

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Alex Baumber http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8560-8661

Giedre Kligyte http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1422-2504

Mieke van der Bijl-Brouwer http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5617-5155

Susanne Pratt http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4148-5337