SaLT Student Consultant

Steps in the Pedagogical Partnership Process

As a student consultant, you bring your own individual perspective as a student based on lived experiences and the intersections of various dimensions of identity. You bring skills to engage in thoughtful, respectful discussion supported by your experience of having spent year(s) in the Bryn Mawr and Haverford culture. You draw on all of these experiences and skills to inform your intentional co-creation of a pedagogical partnership with a faculty member.

You just received the email from the SaLT program director assigning you a faculty partner...what happens next?

Guidelines for Semester-long Student and Faculty Partnerships 2025-2026.docx

STEP 1: (RE)READ THE FULL GUIDELINES

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These guidelines are very detailed. You will want to work through them at different times and in different ways throughout your time as a SaLT student consultant. They might seem abstract and overwhelming at first, but they are designed to help you make the most of pedagogical partnership work.

SaLT Email Template

STEP 2: MAKE CONTACT

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In the SaLT Program, it is typically the student consultant who makes contact with their faculty partner. It may seem intimidating to cold email a professor you have not met, but they will be anticipating communication, and it is an essential first step in building a successful partnership based on clear and consistent communication.

SaLT First Meeting Outline

STEP 3: FIRST MEETING

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By now, your faculty partner will have responded to your email, and you will have set up a time to meet either in person or virtually. In preparation for your first meeting, outline the points you hope to discuss during the meeting, keeping in mind that your faculty partner might or might not have specific areas of pedagogical focus in mind for the partnership.

SaLT Notetaking Examples

STEP 4: WEEKLY OBSERVATION AND NOTE-TAKING

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Once you and your faculty partner have established a schedule and an initial approach or focus for your work together, you are set to begin observing one session of the course per week. There are many different ways to take notes when you observe (described in detail in the guidelines). Decide together what works best for you and your faculty partner.

SaLT Meeting Approach

STEP 5: WEEKLY MEETINGS WITH FACULTY PARTNER

Click the document for potential approaches towards sharing an observation

The weekly meeting with your faculty partner is an important part of the SaLT process. It gives you both a chance to share observations, questions, ideas, and potential areas of growth. Many student consultants find it most effective to use language that recognizes, affirms and is oriented towards reflection and curiosity rather than identifying "problems" and telling faculty how to fix those, which is not the goal of pedagogical partnership.

SaLT Mid-Semester Feedback

STEP 6: MID-SEMESTER FEEDBACK

Click the document for examples and guidelines on mid-semester feedback

During a SaLT partnership, it can often be helpful to gather feedback from students enrolled in the faculty partner's course, if the faculty member is open to it. It is important to have a conversation with your faculty partner about their expectations and preferences surrounding feedback as well as potential areas of focus for feedback.

Example: Annotated List

STEP 7: THE END OF SEMESTER ANNOTATED LIST AND LETTER

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Over the course of the semester, you and your faculty partner have discussed teaching and learning and grown together and respectively. To close out your work, you will create two final documents to share with your faculty partner: (1) an annotated list that represents all of the significant themes, practices, and pedagogical revisions of the past semester and (2) a letter in which you thank your faculty partner for the work of the semester and outline the ways it has helped you grow as a teacher, learner, and person.

In addition to the steps above, you will participate in weekly meetings of small cohorts of SaLT student consultants, facilitated by the director of the SaLT program and designed to support your work. See this resource for a sample outline of weekly topics.