New issue (5.2) of the International Journal for Students as Partners published!

Read issue 5.2 here: https://mulpress.mcmaster.ca/ijsap/issue/view/449

The International Journal for Students as Partners (IJSaP) is a journal operating from the MacPherson Institute at McMaster University. It is focused on students as partners in learning and teaching in higher education. This may involve students working with a wide variety of potential partners (referred to as staff) including academic staff/faculty, professional staff, other students, and other stakeholders (including librarians, alumni, industry, and the community).

The practice of engaging with students as partners is ultimately about sharing power and responsibility through relational and dialogic processes. Partnership approaches include students and staff as active collaborators in initiatives where those involved have co-responsibility for the development, practice, analysis, affirmation, and revision of practices related to learning and teaching.

About this issue

Published in November 2021, this issue asks readers to consider a range of questions and topics related to students as partners. Some of these include: inclusion in a virtual classroom, partnership in the design of learning, cultivating student agency through partnership, diversification within students as partners; and the shifting dynamics of the relationship between student and faculty partners.

This issue includes a new section called “Voices from the Field”. This section aims to push beyond traditional boundaries and norms in academic publishing and invites authors to contribute to a collective piece about diversifying students as partners participants and practices. “Voices from the Field” provides a low-barrier way for contributors to get involved in publication. Rather than going through the traditional steps of submission, review, and revision, authors and editors worked collaboratively to produce a final collective manuscript, which is creative, engaging, and accessible for readers.

Check out some quotes from this issue:

“We found that students with intellectual disabilities could better shape the direction of our learning when we moved away from traditional classroom habits and communication methods—for example, through artistic expression, or through community-based learning experiences that took us into the world outside the classroom” Fisher et al., “Agency through partnership in neurodiverse college learning communities”

“It seems likely, given the experiences of our projects, that partnership is an effective route to gain more nuanced insight into study habits relating to the use of lecture capture and, more broadly, use of learning technology. We have exposed underreported areas within the current lecture capture literature, such as students’ use of lecture recordings in collaborative settings and their use of active learning strategies, as reported by Evans and Luke (2020)” Luke, “Students as partners in digital education: Exploring lecture capture in higher education through partnership between students and learning technologists”

“… when carefully and intentionally designed, student partnerships enhance the outcomes and collaborative practices of all involved and transcend students, faculty, and staff working together.” Carpenter et al., “Reframing the narrative on summer school: How student partnership led to meaningful change”

Learn more about the The International Journal for Students as Partners (IJSaP) here.