Our Story
Five years ago, our University took the view that the curriculum needed to better prepare students for a changed world of work, and to live in a more complex and challenging society. We realised we needed to transform the way we created curriculum to include staff, students, industry, and community as partners. That’s the essence of 21C.
Meet Dr Tai Peseta
I’m a Higher Education researcher and teacher who is passionate and optimistic about universities – and what they do in and for the world – despite their beleaguered state. I’ve been involved in the 21C Project since the very beginning and have watched its commitment to partnership flourish. It’s been a real treat!
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 today, is to try as best we can to design our partnership work around students’ lives.
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’s the start of it all.
"It is important we engage with students as partners because they are a huge source of knowledge, expertise and experience.”
— SAP researcher Lucy Mercer-Mapstone
2017 - Future of Work and Curriculum Disruption Forums
Always looking to consult more students, the 21C SAPs hosted two co-creation forums in late 2018, discussing our 21C Accelerator Unit #WeAreTheUniversity: students co-creating change. The forums encompassed presentations, education, discussion and reflection based on the fact students are not only experts of their own experience but are uniquely positioned to be agents of change. We also benefited from having our colleagues Richard Martino, John McGuire and Ashvin Parameswaran from the Student Experience Office in the co-creation forum with us.
The students in attendance learned about the main achievements of the SAPs and gained an insight into the complexity of building a unit with multiple agendas and purposes. Beyond the pride of seeing Marisse, a fellow 21C SAP 'pitch' the unit to them, we were also interested in how our peers might guide us on Learning Guide content such as unit aims, outcomes, the delivery and assessment methods. We spent a long time talking about assessment because we know that's generally what the experience of units are to most students. Unsurprisingly, we got great new ideas that made our unit easier to understand, more practical and more logical.
Curriculum MakerSpaces
After the Future of Work and Curriculum Disruption Forums, Simon Barrie wanted to fund the 21C team to further the vision. The result: The Curriculum Makerspaces. There were six of these and they ran from 16th of March 2018 to 31th January 2019.
The Six Curriculum MakerSpaces
The six Curriculum MakerSpaces that took place in 2018-2019 supported the development and build of over 60 new curriculum elements that will be on offer to students over the next two years in the form of Curiosity Pods, Accelerator Units and Advantage Sub-majors. Each Flagship Curriculum Project included staff, external partners and had to include students too as curriculum partners. Along with our central work as 21C SAPs, all these students on individual projects added their expertise and experiences of being a contemporary student to decision-making about design, activities and the sorts of activities that would engage students. Not only that, we came to learn about the politics, machinations and processes behind curriculum-making at our university. We don't see this part of the university very often and we were fascinated by it.
Curriculum MakerSpace Gallery
The Pitch
The Pitch was the name given to Curriculum MakerSpace 4 in which all Flagship Projects were invited to present for 3 minutes, using only 2 slides, to a curious and eager university community keen to learn about the new and innovative curricula being built.
The Pitch (MakerSpace 4)
Again, as 21C SAPS, we were enthusiastic about The Pitch. We were excited to see how the projects had been progressing since March. Some of us were involved in the student-only judging panel and our very own 21C SAP Marisse presented the work we had done on the Accelerator Unit #WeAreTheUniversity in front of a large crowd. She was nervous; we were nervous too!
WSU Staff (Jacki Montgomery) proposing a unit of study.
One of our SCPs pitched an idea for a Unit of Study
Another one of our SCPs (Brooke) pitching alongside a staff member
The winning group.
There was a large audience.
Have you ever seen a student do this?
We participated in the audience and listened
Huge congratulations to our colleagues in The College who took out the People's Choice Award.
The Curriculum Challenges
Do the curriculum challenges connect to the makerspaces??
We Launched Our Curriculum Challenges
Launched in October, these challenges would include 4 teams of 4 students and champions by 2 teaching staff as they create 2 minors and 5 C-Pods
The Curriculum Challenges
2020
Rethinking Partnership in the Age of a Pandemic
2020 started with promise as we recruited 16 new student curriculum partners to work on our Curriculum Challenges, and then the pandemic hit. During the lockdown period we had to pause our curriculum challenge work and to go with that, online university and online work really forced us to rethink how we could contribute as student partners to the university.
What we made in 2020
From units of study to videos that had an impact at the university, a pandemic couldn’t stop us from making a difference at the university.
“Behind the Black Screen of Zoom”
Staff throughout the university community we’re asking us about the student experience in online university. 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.
21C Student Partners on the importance of academic honesty, integrity and ignoring the temptations of contract cheating. This video addresses the issues surrounding contract cheating at universities and ways to help support students who may be struggling.
We launched our own subject “We Are The University: Students Co-Creating Change.”
About one year after being pitched and approved, the We are the University: Co-Creating Change Unit was run for the first time during the Spring session of 2020
Yam Jams - The resulting artefacts
2021
A Big Year for us at Western within and beyond.
2021 was an incredible year for us…
What we did in 2021
From units of study to videos that had an impact at the university, a pandemic couldn’t stop us from making a difference at the university.
We re-launched our curriculum challenges.
A year after being put on hold, we officially re-launched the Curriculums challenges. 10 transdisciplinary minors and 25 C-Pods co-created over 5 groups of student partners, each group championed by 1 or 2 teachers
We hosted the National SAP Roundtable 2021
This was the year we were chosen to to host the annual Students As Partners Roundtable. This was an entirely virtual event (by necessity) but that did not stop us from ensuring that everyone had as good an online conferencing expereince we could possibly deliver, and more!
We co-created our own Curiosity Pods
We created a curiosity pod that allows students the skills to work in partnership and potentially trains them for Partnership X-Change Hub. This C-Pod is made to stand on it own but is also made to fit into the larger unit, We Are The University.
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
2022
Our final act.
This year we recruited 8 new SCPs. This year we continue our WATU unit and SAP Curiosity Pod while we launch our #PartnerUp Program to equip WSU staff with the skills to partner with students. This is also the year we launched our 10 new minors and started work on 5 more!
What People Are Saying
2022 Curriculum Challanges - Co-Creating 5 New Minors
The PX Hub - Doing Partnership at scale.
#PartnerUp
The future?