Students were actively involved as co-designers and co-assessors in our transformative writing coursework activity, inspired by the Student as Partners (SaP) approach. This approach promotes equal collaboration, allowing students to contribute to curriculum development, pedagogical decisions, and peer assessment. The coursework was converted from individual formative writing tasks into student-led team projects spanning six 100-minute sessions. Before each class, students engaged with video lessons and quizzes to grasp foundational academic writing skills and concepts. In-class sessions focused on skill reinforcement and task completion, facilitated through Etherpad, a collaborative editing software enabling real-time feedback and collaborative writing within teams.
Co-Designers: Initially, students were tasked with individual writing assignments based on provided sources on a given topic. Students received instruction on essay writing through structured workbooks and exercises during class. Following this, they individually crafted paragraphs to apply the newly acquired skills. However, a lack of intrinsic motivation emerged due to disinterest in the assigned topic. Our pedagogical intervention was therefore implemented to address this challenge. Students were organised into small groups and tasked with selecting topics aligned with their interests and finding reliable sources. To enhance engagement and preparation, we transformed the traditional workbook into interactive online activities and videos, which students completed before class. Over subsequent lessons, after a teacher-guided review and clarification of the video lessons, students collaborated on writing a 1000-word essay, each contributing a paragraph and collectively working on the introduction, conclusion and reference list via Etherpad.
Co-Assessors: Traditionally, teachers introduced students to a standard writing coursework rubric, which is often challenging to comprehend. However, our intervention makes students not merely recipients of a predefined rubric; instead, they actively engaged in the process of constructing it. Specifically, before the class session, students were equipped with resources and materials on discursive essay structures, fostering a deeper understanding of the components essential for effective writing. Drawing upon this pre-class knowledge, students were then tasked with creating their own rubric, guided by overarching criteria provided by the teacher. During this stage, students worked in groups. Each group deliberated on the key aspects of a successful discursive essay, negotiating and refining their criteria through discussion. Subsequently, these group-made rubrics were standardised across the class under the teacher's guidance. This standardisation process involved comparing and contrasting the various rubrics created by different groups, identifying commonalities, and distilling them into a cohesive framework. Once the rubric was finalised, students engaged in peer review, assessing other groups' work and providing constructive feedback.
The implementation of these activities significantly enhanced student engagement, empowerment, and deep learning, echoing findings by Bovil et al. (2016). Co-creation led to increased engagement across behavioural, emotional, and cognitive domains, with students actively involved in the writing process and peer interaction. Moreover, students demonstrated improved comprehension of marking descriptors, fostering a heightened sense of agency and responsibility for their academic progress. Most students interviewed expressed positive feelings towards the activity, citing empowerment, fun, and student collaboration as the main reasons. Furthermore, allowing students to reinterpret marking descriptors facilitates a feedback loop, enabling them to provide valuable input on their work about assessment criteria, thereby aiding in the refinement of assessment practices based on student perspectives. However, SaP requires training and adaptation from students and teachers, suggesting initiating such projects earlier in the semester. Addressing issues such as uneven participation in pre-class activities and group dynamics can also optimise similar activities for enhanced learning outcomes.
Bovil, C., Cook-Sather, A., Felten, P., Millard, L., & Moore-Cherry, N. (2016). Addressing potential challenges in co-creating learning and teaching: Overcoming resistance, navigating institutional norms and ensuring inclusivity in student–staff partnerships. Higher Education, 71(2), 195-208.