Learning From the Pandemic: The Impacts of Moving Student-Staff Partnerships Online

Madeleine-Marie Judd,Anna Richards,Christy Collis,Beata Batorowicz,Julia Groening,Naima Crisp,Brooke Szucs,Franciele Spinelli,Dino Willox

doi:10.5204/ssj.1774

Madeleine-Marie Judd, Anna Richards + Show 7 more

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https://doi.org/10.5204/ssj.1774

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Abstract

While numerous studies on the impacts of COVID-19 on university learning and teaching are now emerging, there has been less critical attention focused on the impact of the shift to online engagement on student-staff partnership (SSP) practices. This article analyses the experiences and perceptions of students and staff from an Australian university as they shifted their partnership practices online during the pandemic. It provides valuable insights into the specific positive and negative impacts of online SSP for students and staff, foregrounding both groups’ perceptions of the accessibility and communication aspects of online SSP. The study’s findings lead to the recommendation of a blended approach and will be of use as SSP programs recalibrate for a post-COVID context.

Highlights

Over the past 15 years, student-staff partnership (SSP) has been increasingly recognised as a transformational ethos and way of working within higher education (Bovill, 2019; Cook-Sather et al, 2014; Dollinger & Vanderlelie, 2019; Healey et al, 2016; Kek et al, 2017; Matthews et al, 2018)
A greater number of student quotes were positive compared to staff quotes, with the authors noting in their analyses that Staff Partner sentiment was overall less emotive and more descriptive than Student Partners
The impacts of COVID on university programs has been profound: it has presented significant challenges, and opened up opportunities for experimenting with alternative modes of practice. Partnership programs, such as the one that is the focus of this article, have had to recalibrate in order to retain the transformational value of SSP in a radically changing university environment

Summary

Introduction

Over the past 15 years, student-staff partnership (SSP) has been increasingly recognised as a transformational ethos and way of working within higher education (Bovill, 2019; Cook-Sather et al, 2014; Dollinger & Vanderlelie, 2019; Healey et al, 2016; Kek et al, 2017; Matthews et al, 2018). While there are various definitions of SSP, it has a consistent core ethos: SSP seeks to break down existing power imbalances within higher education and create meaningful spaces for dialogue between students and staff (Matthews et al, 2018; Peseta & Bell, 2020) This ethos provides a transformational space that fosters mutual learning between students and staff, requiring university communities to rethink and critique previously held assumptions on whose knowledge matters in curriculum design and overall decision-making in higher education

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