Greater engagement in and responsibility for learning: what happens when students cross the threshold of student–faculty partnership

Abstract

The importance of student engagement in higher education is increasingly recognised. As a result, questions have arisen regarding how best to inspire and support students in taking greater interest in and more active responsibility for their learning. Student–faculty partnerships that position students as consultants in explorations of pedagogical practice inspire and support engagement and responsibility that carry over from those partnerships into students' classroom participation. However, such partnership constitutes for many students a ‘threshold concept’. Because partnering with faculty in analyses and revisions of teaching and learning both requires and inspires students to redefine their roles, responsibilities and sense of themselves, student–faculty partnership proves troublesome, transformative, discursive, irreversible and integrative. In a case study of one partnership programme at a liberal arts institution in the Northeastern USA, we discuss how crossing the threshold constituted by student–faculty partnership in pedagogical exploration fosters in students greater engagement in, and responsibility for, learning. Implications for higher education include the potential of reconceptualising our classrooms as more democratic spaces and the work of teaching and learning as more of a shared responsibility.

Keywords:

• engagement
• higher education
• responsibility
• student–faculty partnership
• threshold concept

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the student consultants who participated in the threshold concept seminar during the Spring-2013 semester and offered critical feedback on drafts of this article: Sophia Abbot, Roselyn Appenteng, Hayley Burke, Sarah Jenness, Amanda Kennedy, Huipu Li, Esteniolle Maitre, Samyuktha Natarajan, Esther Chiang, Rebecca Payne-Passmore, Xinyi Shen and Shuning Yan. Thanks, too, to Cathy Bovill for providing feedback on the revision.