Abstract
This article examines the work of creating collaborative learning partnerships that fully include students with intellectual disabilities. The article reviews the scholarship of partnership as a starting point in discussing learning environments that support students with significant intellectual disabilities—a group that has only recently been encouraged to enroll in colleges and universities. The authors—a faculty member and two former undergraduate mentors in the University Studies program at Portland State University—offer reflections on their time partnering as facilitators of courses that include students with intellectual disabilities. They then analyze those reflections in relation to the scholarship of partnership and special education. The article presents evidence that the partnership approach to learning is more fully realized through intentional investment in universal design for learning principles and extended support networks invested in collaboration and interpersonal relationship. These approaches effectively bring students with disabilities into the center of educational environments and maintain their agency in shaping their learning communities.
Highlights
In preparation for our second meeting we reviewed each other’s written reflections and considered them in light of the existing scholarship on Students as Partners that deals with inclusion
As we examined our individual reflections in relation to each other and considered the implications of our observations, we developed general observations to share with others who want to create inclusive learning spaces that can serve students with disabilities
We found in our classes the membership, sense of shared influence, fulfillment of needs, and emotional connection that Healy et al (2014) present as the defining elements of a successful learning community based on partnership
Summary
We explore here how theories of partnership apply to our experience working with students with intellectual disabilities, and we account for the gaps in the existing scholarship on partnership that does not adequately address that experience. We reflect on what we have learned from the partnerships that have helped us to serve our students with intellectual disabilities. We consider how our partnerships have broadened our understanding of collaborative learning in general
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