How do we identify and break down barriers to effective and genuine partnership working in Higher Education?

Activity: Talk or presentation typesOral presentation

Description

Students as Partners (SaP) is a growing theory of learning and education that is gaining traction with many teachers and students in higher education. At its heart is the idea that students are not merely passive consumers to whom it is the teacher’s job to impart knowledge, but rather agents of their own learning.

Some studies have shown that students, when working as partners with educators, can co-create ideas and knowledge that can be applied not only to enhance their own education, but to improve current teaching/learning methods overall. Similarly, Clinical Legal Education is a progressive educational ideology and pedagogy that engages students beyond the traditional didactic teaching models, and encourages them to apply knowledge to real life situations. At Strathclyde Law Clinic, students work together on real cases in pairs, and work closely with their supervisor. This tends to result in students and staff becoming more like colleagues than teacher and student. However, despite the personal and professional benefits, there remain barriers to participation. These can be practical barriers but also emotional barriers.

The concept of partnership reshapes what has been traditionally an unequal relationship between staff and students. Bovill, Cook-Sather and Felten have defined true student-faculty partnership as a “reciprocal process whereby all participants have the opportunity to contribute equally, although not necessarily in the same ways, to the learning process” (2014).

This lightening talk will share some of the findings from a literature review, and will discuss power dynamics as a barrier to participation for both staff and students, and explore the potential overlap between barriers to participation in SaP with those in Clinical Legal Education
Period24 Jul 2024
Held atEuropean Network of Clinical Legal Education
Degree of RecognitionInternational