Desirable difficulties and student-faculty partnership

ABSTRACT

This paper describes a student-faculty partnership that took place in a context of curricular co-creation. Through qualitative analysis of reflections written by both instructors and students, the authors track participants’ perceptions throughout the course of a curriculum design module. This process is characterised by the emergence of ownership and resilience in students, which coincided with an increase in frequency of themes that signalled student frustration and instructor vulnerability. Implications of these findings for student and faculty development are discussed in several different contexts of student-faculty partnerships.

KEYWORDS:

• Desirable difficulties
• student-faculty partnership
• curricular co-creation
• self-authorship
• vulnerability
• student empowerment

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

KinHo Chan

KinHo Chan joined Fulbright University Vietnam as founding faculty after 16 years at Hartwick College. His research focuses on learning and memory.

Pamela Stacey

Pamela Stacey serves as founding faculty and Learning Support Director at Fulbright University Vietnam. Her research focuses on academic writing development.