Students as Partners Spring 2024 Projects
In spring 2024, ASSETT launched its inaugural Students as Partners program. This initiative partnered an equity-minded undergraduate student with a babyÖ±²¥app member who sought to improve their teaching and their student’s learning. Through this one-semester partnership, pairs worked together to incorporate the student perspective into a course, assignment, or project design. Each pair determined how frequently they met and what the expectations were for each meeting. They also met as a large cohort throughout the semester where each student partner presented the curricula they developed for this initiative. As you peruse through this page, you’ll likely notice the nature of each project differs from its objectives and outcomes. The Students as Partners framework encourages each project to have its own personality, objectives, and outcomes - with the goal of the final product being more student-focused.
Project: MCDB 1150 Course Map Project
Project Description
Goal: By the end of the semester, the team will develop an activity for the first two units of class.
Overview: We will create a holistic activity encompassing as many learning objectives as possible. The activity is intended to be an in-progress document that students complete as they progress further in the course. In addition to providing a student-made summary of what is essential and some sample questions, the document will also incorporate drawings and diagrams (two methods of learning that students unfortunately undervalue). This document aims to give the students a tool that helps put some of the teachings in their own hands. It's intended to be flexible so that each student can personalize it to their learning style, and the students will be rewarded participation points just for completing the activity.
Project Leads
Junior
Molecular Cellular & Developmental Biology & Biochemistry
Teaching Professor of Distinction
Molecular Cellular & Developmental Biology
Project: GEOG 2053 Mapping a Changing World - Course Redesign
Project Description
Goal: Showcase how geography and, specifically GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and mapping, are used in a variety of fields/jobs, thereby highlighting the relevance of the materials and skills presented, while allowing critical assessment of the real-world implications and applications of the information. The overall goal is to increase student engagement at the course level and for the geography program; and to expand enrollment in the course.
Overview: To achieve the goal of increasing student engagement, we plan to review and update the course materials, add more/improved in-class activities, and have students utilize a variety of technology platforms (i.e., ArcGIS Online, Survey123). We will also add/adjust course topics to be more relevant to the concerns of our students so they will be more engaged with the materials and with others in the class.
Project Leads
Junior
Philosophy
Teaching Associate Professor
Geography
Project: Redesigning Creative Assignment
Project Description
Goals: We had three goals for this project:
- Find the balance between creative projects and projects that develop class-relevant skills
- Find a way to frame creative projects that do not intimidate students
- Find a way to balance the guidance a rubric provides without constraining student creativity
Overview: We will be tackling the creative assignment presented for the introductory Roman history course. The goal is to refine or redesign the assignment in a way that both stimulates student creativity and engagement without sacrificing the process of teaching meaningful skills. This should neither be an assignment the student rushes to finish and forgets nor simply a fun project that fails to connect back to class. It may require research or analysis, but should not have the structure and prompt of a traditional essay.
We are focusing on the ideas of skills of research, source analysis, and source synthesis. We are also determining if those skills are best taught through one project that challenges all three or a project that teaches students to refine these skills one at a time. It should be friendly to both history majors who will need to extensively develop these skills and to those who will never take a history course again, but will be able to apply the fundamental skills they learned in class.
The focus of this project is treating those in an introductory course as is they have the capacity and capability for engaging in complex topics and not dismissing them as too inexperienced for anything larger than a short essay or exam.
Project Leads
Junior
History & Classics
Teaching Associate Professor/Senior Instructor
Stories and Societies Program Director
Project: Creative Climate Communication Co-creation of Course Development
Project Description
Goal: We had two goals for this semester: 1. To make continuous improvements and incorporate a student’s perspective through a syllabus review, assignment revisions, and real-time reflections that can be implemented this and in the following semesters. 2. To incorporate diverse perspectives on the Climate Comedy show. This is a new activity this semester and we are assessing how this show could be expanded for next year and supported through the curriculum design.
Description: Beth and I are co-collaborating on adding and expanding activities and information for the entire class, specifically the Sustainable Fashion and Climate Comedy portions. Sarah is actively participating in the class while the collaboration is taking place and there are weekly meetings assessing current experiences in the class and planning for the upcoming assignments. Sarah is also adding her research on the class's topics as well as from her own experience and partnerships in environmental activism and organizing. We are collaborating to hold the big picture questions and questioning the assumptions upon which all other student outcomes are being made. We partake in reflection and conversation by gathering together after class in the messiness and the emerging beauty of what was just implemented. This allows us to continually assess how things landed and the unexpected experiences and opportunities.
Project Leads
Senior
Environmental Design
Professor
Theatre and Dance