Pedagogical Partners: Designing Teaching & Learning Experiences that Foster Inclusion and Equity by Elevating Student Perspectives

Abstract

This paper describes the 2023 pilot of a Pedagogical Partners project situated within the Centre for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL) at University College Cork (UCC).  This project was intentionally designed to elevate and amplify student voices across diverse identities and perspectives with the goal of improving inclusive learning experiences and equity-minded teaching practices in higher education. Building on the literature on pedagogical partnerships and inclusive, equity-minded teaching, we share experience-informed insights from this pilot project at UCC.  In this HEA/Path 4 funded initiative, undergraduate students selected for their rich array of intersectional identities were partnered with teaching staff interested in exploring how to make their teaching approaches more inclusive. The opportunity to focus on inclusive teaching practices informed by student observation, voice and Universal Design principles has proven to be highly generative and yielded enhanced learning experiences for all involved. Our explicitly equity-minded approach contributes to a growing focus of pedagogical partnership work, research and literature in recent years. As expected in any emergent practice, the supporting research for pedagogical partnerships focusing on inclusion and equity is sparse and there is need to add to this limited extant research. We respond by offering this exploratory case study and describing the design, structure, training and support strategies implemented in our pilot of this Pedagogical Partnership Project. It is our hope that sharing our experience will help others to pursue their own pedagogical partnerships aimed at elevating student voice to inform and enact inclusive educational approaches that enhance learning for all students.