Co-Creating Learning and Teaching: Towards Relational Pedagogy in Higher Education

Co-creation of learning and teaching, where students and staff collaborate to design curricula or elements of curricula, is an important pedagogical idea within higher education, key to meaningful learner engagement and building positive student-staff relationships. Drawing on literature from schools’ education, and using a range of examples from universities worldwide, this book highlights the benefits of classroom-level, relational, dialogic pedagogy and co-creation. It includes a focus on the classroom as the site of co-creation, examples of practice and practical guidance, and a unique perspective in bringing together the concept of co-creation with relational pedagogy within higher education learning and teaching.

Critical Practice in Higher Education provides a scholarly and practical entry point for academics into key areas of higher education practice. Each book in the series explores an individual topic in depth, providing an overview in relation to current thinking and practice, informed by recent research. The series will be of interest to those engaged in the study of higher education, those involved in leading learning and teaching or working in academic development, and individuals seeking to explore particular topics of professional interest. Through critical engagement, this series aims to promote an expanded notion of being an academic - connecting research, teaching, scholarship, community engagement and leadership - while developing confidence and authority.

Catherine Bovill is Senior Lecturer in Student Engagement at the Institute for Academic Development, University of Edinburgh and Visiting Fellow at the University of Winchester. At the University of Edinburgh she leads a range of strategic student engagement initiatives with a view to supporting culture change towards more engaged forms of learning and teaching. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and Fellow of the Staff and Educational Development Association. Catherine is an editorial board member for Teaching in Higher Education and has been an editor and advisor on a range of other international journals. She has published and presented internationally on student engagement, students as partners and student-staff co-creation of curricula. She has also contributed to several international and UK change programmes focused on students as partners in curriculum design.

Joy Jarvis is currently Professor of Educational Practice at the University of Hertfordshire and a UK National Teaching Fellow. She has experience in a wide range of education contexts and works to create effective learning experiences for students and colleagues. She is particularly interested in the professional learning of those engaged in educational practice in higher education settings and has undertaken a range of projects, working with colleagues locally, nationally and internationally, to develop practice in teaching and leadership of teaching. Joy works with doctoral students exploring aspects of educational practice and encourages them to be adventurous in their methodological approaches and to share their findings in a range of contexts to enable practice change.

Karen Smith leads collaborative research and development in the School of Education, at the University of Hertfordshire, where she engages in externally funded research and evaluation and supports teachers to develop scholarly approaches to their practice through engagement in practitioner research. Karen’s research interests are centred around how higher education policies and practices impact on those who work and study within the university system. She is a Trustee of the Society for Research in Higher Education, co-convenes the Higher Education Policy Network and contributes to their professional development sessions with a workshop on publishing learning and teaching research. Karen was recognised as a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in August 2017.