Our Story
It just starts with a decision. In 2017. To invite students into the space of curriculum co-creation, and to see what we might achieve together.
Meet Dr Tai Peseta
I’m a Higher Education researcher and teacher who is passionate and optimistic about universities – what they do in and for the world (and what their potential is) – despite their beleaguered state. Currently, I’m the Academic Lead of the 21C project stream called Transforming Curriculum. I’ve been involved in the 21C Project since the very beginning and established our Student-Staff Partnership strategy. It’s been a treat watching it grow, and the students who are 21C’s partners take the initiative to shape what’s possible.
In 2017, we hired our first group of SCPs.
They came from all walks of life. We had students in first year, students about to graduate, mature-aged students who had owned businesses before returning to study; students who were studying to be teachers, medical scientists, and social workers, and some students who didn’t know precisely where they were headed. It's a diversity that has always been at the heart of 21C’s approach to Student-Staff partnership, and it has been a strength of our approach to curriculum co-creation. Our main goal then, and still today, is to try as best we can to design our partnership work around students’ lives.
"It is important we engage with students as partners because they are a huge source of knowledge, expertise and experience.”
— Student-Staff Partnership researcher Dr Lucy Mercer-Mapstone
Curriculum Co-creation
Our inaugural cohort of SCPs had a very focused task. It was to support the University community start a set of conversations about the kinds of curricula it should be making to support their futures. That was the start of it all. We did it because we decided to.
Take a look at the range of initiatives the SCPs have participated in, shaped, and led.
Future of Work and Curriculum Disruption Forums
The 21C SCPs collaborated with staff on designing a suite of four forums. We started slowly and increased our involvement to a presentation. Baby steps led to bigger steps.
Patterns of Change in the Future of Work for Greater Western Sydney
Professional Learning in Changing Contexts
The Future of Public Service and Work: Shaping the Future while Delivering Today
Social Justice and the Future of Work and Curriculum Disruption
The Curriculum MakerSpaces
The six Curriculum MakerSpaces took place in 2018-2019 and supported members of the university community who were awarded funds for a Flagship Curriculum Project. Each Project was co-developed with SCPs. These two strategies saw the start of Minors and Curiosity Pods in their raw form.
The Curriculum Challenges
The Curriculum Challenges launched in late 2019 and aimed to future-proof existing degrees with simpler and more flexible pathways, attractive study choices, and the capacity to rapidly develop and deploy new curriculum elements to complement in-degree learning. This marks the start of serious co-creation with SCPs.
Watch the video on the side to learn more.
2020 - A Challenging Year
2020 started with promise. We recruited 16 new SCPs to work on the Curriculum Challenges. Then the pandemic hit. During the lockdown period, we had to pause our Curriculum Challenge work and support the University pivot its learning and teaching online. We had to rethink how we could contribute as Student Partners. It was definitely a challenge.
What we made in 2020.
We kept going and supported the University as best we knew: developing a set of resources and materials to help teachers understand what students were going through.
“Behind the Black Screen of Zoom”.
Staff were asking us about the student experience of being online. We created this video to help them understand what it felt like to be the students “behind the black screen of Zoom”.
We made a video on contract cheating.
We produced this video with staff keen on our perspectives of academic honesty and integrity, and how students are dealing with the temptations of contract cheating.
We launched our own subject - HUMN 3018: We Are The University: Students Co-Creating Change.
Building on roughly two years of work, we launched the subject HUMN 3108, which was run for the first time during the Spring session of 2020. It’s still going.
2021
A Big Year for us at Western within and beyond.
What we did in 2021.
We re-launched the Curriculum Challenges.
A year after being put on hold, we officially re-launched and got to work co-creating 10 new transdisciplinary Challenge Minors and 20 or so Curiosity Pods. Each of the SCPs chose a Challenge team (in pairs), and we worked with a group of 10+ staff and external partners for a whole year.
We hosted the 2021 National Students as Partners Roundtable.
We won the bid to host the annual Students as Partners Roundtable. COVID was still making us all nervous and so by necessity, it was an entirely online event. We developed the program, invited the keynotes, co-created Hacks and Research Clinics, and developed all the event communications and marketing. It was a big deal for us. 400+ delegates. Online on MS teams. In dialogue about Student-Staff Partnership.
We co-created our own Curiosity Pod - for students.
We created a Curiosity Pod that invites students to develop a Partnership Mindset. The C-Pod is made to stand on its own, but it’s also associated with the subject HUMN 3018.
We published an academic paper together.
In 2021 we also finished writing and published Dancing with power in ‘We are the university: Students co-creating change’. This piece of academic literature explores the power dynamics of student-staff partnership and the student’s relationshiop to the university as a whole. This is written in relation to the WATU elective unit
We developed a Partnership professional learning program - for staff.
Alongside the Partnership Mindset for students, based on our curriculum co-creation experiences, we recognised that staff needed a bit of support to. We made #partnerUP (available from Sept 2022).
2022 - Our final act.
This year we recruited 8 new SCPs. This year, we also continue to teach the HUMN 3108 subject, our Curiosity Pod, and we launch #partnerUP. The last two of these are fundamental to our new initiative, the Partnership XChange Hub. And, we also get started on 5 new 21C transdisciplinary Challenge Minors, and another 15 Curiosity Pods. It’s our last year formally working together. But we take the Partnership Mindset with us everywhere!!!