![\"Engaging](\"http:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/files\/2016\/06\/1118434587-201x300.jpg\")
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Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching: A Guide for\u00a0Faculty,\u00a0<\/em>By Alison Cook-Sather, Catherine Bovill, Peter Felten. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2014.<\/strong><\/p>\n Reviewed by:\u00a0<\/b>Tom Davidson<\/em>,\u00a0BSc\u00a0Web Science (Computer Science)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n The rather weighty tome Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching<\/em> arrived on my desk almost 3 weeks ago now. It was clear to me from the beginning of this book that it is not a book written to entertain. It is a summary of research, and a proposal for best teaching practice, and while there is nothing wrong with this, from a student point of view, it did take a while to get into! I must pause here and point out the second half of the title\u00a0“Guide For\u00a0Faculty<\/em>“, as this book is not\u00a0actually\u00a0designed to be read by students, but rather by those who would be entering into partnership\u00a0alongside\u00a0the students (more on this later). The book is systematic from the beginning, making it clear to the reader exactly why they need to be reading this book, exactly what will be in the book, and what the reader will do\u00a0afterwards. This clear structure is ported over to individual chapters, and then to subsections of these chapters. This makes it incredibly easy to use the book as a point of reference. I believe the intention of the authors was to make this a book required to read from cover to cover only once, or possibly never, but one you can then refer back to easily. An example of this are two separate sections answering questions that you, the reader and prospective implementer of partnership, may be asked by other members of your faculty. Asked a tricky question? Not a problem, the book’s got you covered. While this rigidity was at times a little repetitive, the authors noted this and I believe the benefits outweigh the losses.<\/p>\n The book also points out an idea we have discussed at length, and that is the change from students as eager learners to consumers. This is explained by Cook-Sather and Co as the “Customer service vs Relationship” models of education. They recognise student-created learning as bucking the trend, and a shift to more active learning as opposed to instructional. To document this change, the book uses a lot (and I mean A LOT) of case studies. There is a massive amount, and more than I could ever hope to mention here. One of particular interest is the “Students as Creators and Change Agents” at Exeter University, which first caught my attention as it shared the same name as our project. This project involved students of all levels conducting research into teaching practice and then presenting this to teachers, who would decide if they would implement any changes, involving students in the possible change process. This to me, and of course everyone has different opinions, seemed to involve the teachers as a passive entity: they are not the ones recognising the need for change in their courses, instead relying on students to come to them, which I believe could perhaps\u00a0subconsciously limit the true impact any change could have.<\/p>\n But there lies the beauty of this book in my opinion. It’s key strength is the wealth of case studies and examples of practice, each from different disciplines, each implemented differently, and each, crucially, showing us all how much we can learn from one another. These case studies are bought to us by authors all from different backgrounds (Peter Felten having worked on projects similar to ours, but Alison Cook-Sather on very different ones as an example) which only adds to the range of viewpoints.<\/p>\n According to my notes, it wasn’t until page 143 that I felt the section the book had being crying out for arrived. For this marked the start of the chapter entitled “Practical Strategies for Developing Student-Faculty Partnerships”. This is the section that I believe should be most important to those members of faculty who might be reading this book, as it contains a synthesis of the examples and case studies referred to earlier into how best to establish a partnership, and to ensure it remains deep-rooted into the culture of the campus it has been implemented within. This chapter is sure to be a valuable and incredibly practical resources for teachers who are interested in implementing their own partnerships.<\/p>\n Unfortunately, as I suspected when I first took on this task, the book does have some limitations. I was struck as I read the ‘Assessment” section of the book, and how student-created learning can be built into this, by the lack of emphasis on technology across the book as a whole. To talk about how rapidly the landscape of higher education is changing, but to not mention the role technology has played in this is perhaps somewhat neglecting it’s importance. However most disappointing from my point of view was the lack of exploration of the idea that technology can be used most effectively in learning when students are involved in it’s implementation from the beginning, to avoid technological methods being viewed as simply an “add-on”. The other area slightly glossed over was the role of secondary education (and US equivalent). On the very last page, the book goes a bit over the top in my opinion, quoting Margret Mead “never doubt that a thoughtful group of committed citizens can change the world.” \u00a0While I am not arguing against this, I am perhaps suggesting that more needs to be done, particularly around the area of ensuring students are taught to expect this method of partnership from the earliest days of their education, not simply to have it thrust upon them when they enter the diverse world of Higher Education. This to me does not seem to be an idea explored in the book.<\/p>\n As I write this, I realise that these are not actually criticisms of the book as I expected them to be. For the lack of inclusion of these two example points does not lesson the quality of the work of these three authors, it simply shows that there are more dimensions to be covered, more areas to be explored and more potential to be unearthed in student created learning.\u00a0Engaging Students as Partners in Learning<\/em> never claimed to be a bible for the practice, but merely a starting point in hopefully what will become many books, each exploring and documenting different implementations of the concept of student created learning, refining what has come before using the advice provided in this book.<\/p>\n Rather than tell you all to rush out and buy this book, because realistically that is never going to happen, I ask you instead to think a little bit more about student created learning, and your view on it. Let me know any questions you have, and I’ll see if either this book or I can answer them…as I frantically scrabble for the chapter on “Frequently asked Questions”! As final thought though, while areas for expansion is on my mind, I am wondering how, on a learning philosophy based on partnership, or on “Respect, Reciprocity and Shared Responsibility”, an entire book can be written just on one side of the partnership, the faculty? Is this the correct approach? Surely books on student-created learning should be written for both the students and the academics, to promote the equality of the concept? That’s something I’ll leave you to debate…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching: A Guide for\u00a0Faculty,\u00a0By Alison Cook-Sather, Catherine Bovill, Peter Felten. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2014. Reviewed by:\u00a0Tom Davidson,\u00a0BSc\u00a0Web Science (Computer Science)\u00a0 The rather weighty tome Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching arrived on my desk almost 3 weeks ago now. It was clear to me from the beginning of this book that …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98440,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[84196,1030549,1030531],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-general-interest","category-sacaca-project","column","threecol"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98440"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":420,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions\/420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.soton.ac.uk\/bscbusinessmanagement\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}