HomeBlogStudent-Faculty Partnership What Does it Mean to Partner with Students? An Introductionby Ella Negley, Olivia Guarino, and Sabrina L. PerkinsOctober 6, 2026 Share: Section NavigationSkip section navigationIn this sectionBlog Home AI and Engaged Learning Assessment of Learning Capstone Experiences CEL News CEL Retrospectives CEL Reviews Collaborative Projects and Assignments Community-Based Learning Data Literacy Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity ePortfolio Feedback First-Year Experiences Global Learning Health Sciences High Impact Practices Immersive Learning Internships Learning Communities Mentoring Relationships Online Education Place-Based Learning Professional and Continuing Education Publishing SoTL Reflection and Metacognition Relationships Residential Learning Communities Service-Learning Signature Work Student Leadership Student-Faculty Partnership Studying EL Supporting Neurodivergent and Physically Disabled Students Undergraduate Research Work-Integrated Learning Writing Transfer in and beyond the University Style Guide for Posts to the Center for Engaged Learning Blog In higher education, meaningful learning is based in supportive relationships, having courage to develop together, and contributing to a sense of shared growth. We the authors recently engaged in student-faculty partnerships in a lifespan development course focused on systemic racism in the United States. Student-faculty partnerships centered on teaching and learning in higher education are conceptualized in different ways in various contexts, but for our purposes we refer to framing used by Cook-Sather, Bovill, and Felten (2014), which emphasizes the process of students and faculty working together in investigating pedagogical phenomena, making decisions, implementing changes, and analyzing classroom or curricular outcomes in collaborative ways. At the center of this work, according to those scholars, are core principles of respect, reciprocity, and shared responsibility for learning, which enable students and faculty to operate together as colleagues. This is a three-part series of reflections on those experiences. This first post will introduce each of us and our roles. The second will explain the course format, pedagogical principles and values, and reflect on some challenges we faced. Our final post will share collective reflections on a central learning goal of the course regarding systemic racism across the lifespan. Throughout these posts, we will use our names to highlight our individual perspectives and first-person plural pronouns to highlight our collective reflections as partners. Introductions First, we introduce ourselves and our roles (please also see Figure 1). Figure 1. Venn diagram to illustrate the differences in students’ roles as pedagogical partners, teaching and learning apprentices, and researchers (Adapted from Bunnell et al. 2025). Ella Negley – I am a rising junior at Elon, majoring in Mathematical Statistics. I was a part of Elon’s inaugural cohort of students in our Pedagogical Partnership Program (EP3) with faculty. This was an extracurricular opportunity for me (i.e., not course credit), similar to prior students who have participated in pedagogical partnerships in the past (Cook-Sather, Bahti, and Ntem 2019). My goal in participating was to see “the behind the scenes” of pedagogical decisions, apply some of my problem-solving techniques I’ve learned as a math major, and the ways I have been personally inspired by teachers in the past. I was paired with Dr. Perkins because the program intentionally aimed to maximize content-area differences between her course and my own developing areas of expertise (Luschen et al. 2026). I attended class weekly and usually sat in front of the room, acting as a data collector. I would not participate or focus on psychology material but would simply make ethnographic observations about student behaviors and interactions with Dr. Perkins, Olivia (the Teaching and Learning Apprentice in the course, or TLA), or the lecture material. My goal was to provide insight into Perkins’ pedagogy and teaching practices. Olivia Guarino – I recently graduated with a B.A. in Psychology from Elon University, and am interested in pursuing graduate study in psychology. I served as a TLA and earned course credit. My goal was to gain firsthand experience with teaching methods designed to promote a positive, inclusive, and motivating learning space and explore college teaching and mentoring (these goals are also reported by other student pedagogical partners in prior research, see Cook-Sather, Bahti, and Ntem 2019). As a TLA, I aimed to serve as an accessible and approachable resource for students’ success both inside and outside the classroom. I assisted students during class activities, facilitated group discussions, answered questions, and prompted students to engage in open dialogue regarding course concepts. Outside of the classroom, I held regular office hours where students could seek individualized academic support on course concepts, discuss assignments, and receive feedback in a low-stakes environment that was crucial for fostering student engagement, confidence, and success. Sabrina Perkins – I am a developmental psychologist who has studied and taught development for over 15 years. This past spring was the thirteenth semester I have taught this course. While it has evolved dramatically over time, recently my focus has centered on teaching towards our university’s Advancing Equity Requirement (AER). Our university is a Predominately White Institution (PWI), and the student population is rather wealthy, which underscores why requiring at least one course in the core curriculum with a focus on race and racism is even more important. As faculty, I have engaged in multiple types of student partnerships in the past (including working with student scholars and research mentees) and was excited for the opportunity to partner with students in my teaching. So much research exists on the mutual benefit of students and faculty and staff building strong relationships (e.g., Felten and Lambert 2020). To me, partnering with students seemed like a wonderful opportunity to recognize, honor, and learn from students’ personal experiences in ways I may be more distanced from as a faculty member. I wanted to focus on how students responded to and experienced learning about structural racism, related to our AER. The opportunity to collaborate with a Pedagogical Partner and TLA seemed like the perfect fit. How Did We Work Independently, in Pairs, and All Together? Ella Negley – Our university program followed a common procedure for our student partnership, in which I was trained to complete weekly classroom observations, and met afterwards with Dr. Perkins to reflect and debrief (Cook-Sather, Bahti, and Ntem 2019). Figure 2 shows an example of how I mapped students’ verbal contributions during each class period, which were paired with written observation notes as the time progressed. Figure 2. Examples of diagrams Ella created showing where in the space students sat (circles), how they paired themselves for small discussions (lines), and how many times they contributed to larger class discussions (concentric circles). This technique provides visual feedback to the instructor showing student engagement during class. (A) Shows a class period in which many students spoke at least once but made few verbal contributions overall. (B) Shows a class session later in the course which was characterized by high student engagement; one student in the fourth row, right side participated numerous times, and several other students on the left side also made several contributions. Viewers may notice a pattern of certain students who were seemingly more inclined to contribute to broader discussions on specific sides of the room. Diagrams such as these may inform instructor decisions to move students around (for specific discussions or the whole class period), or intentionally elicit more contributions from quieter areas of the room. Olivia Guarino – We three collaborated regularly throughout the semester. As student-partners, Ella and I met weekly with Dr. Perkins one-on-one. Ella and Dr. Perkins discussed observations about student engagement and participation, which is a common approach described in prior research on student partnerships (Cook-Sather, Bahti, and Ntem 2019). Following these meetings, Dr. Perkins and I would tailor assignments and teaching plans to comments and concerns raised by Ella. For example, if Ella noticed lack of engagement regarding a specific topic or activity, we would modify the upcoming lecture to group discussions in which students were free to find a space that felt comfortable and prompted to follow guiding questions or complete an activity. Sabrina Perkins – As a faculty member, I felt a sense of responsibility to treat both student partners as equals and intentionally chose to meet with them in a tone/location that felt collaborative. I attempted to convey respect for their ideas and listened or responded thoughtfully to their feedback (while trying to minimize any initial defensiveness I may have felt). While we encountered some mutual frustrations when aspects of our planned pedagogy did not work as planned, I made an effort to only share my perspective from a place of thoughtfulness, strength, and clear-headedness, rather than simply venting with no clear goal in mind. My specific responsibilities with Ella involved reading her formal observations, considering her feedback, and adjusting my course with the goal of improvement, and acknowledging and valuing her contributions. My responsibilities with Olivia were similar, but also involved helping her develop and practice pedagogical skills in preparation for graduate school. While I viewed myself as a parter with both students, I was conscientious of the fact that I had a supervisory role with Olivia, insofar as I would assign her a grade at the end of the term. At the start of this partnership, Olivia and I had known each other for multiple years, and I think our positive rapport with each other was developed enough that she felt comfortable sharing her honest contributions in our dynamic with Ella. However, power dynamics in TLA and student partnerships such as these are important for consideration (Cook-Sather, Bahti, and Ntem 2019). Olivia Guarino – To enrich our collaboration and enhance opportunities for our collective learning and growth, we decided to engage with scholarly research pertaining to our shared interests and goals. This approach has also been described in the literature on student-faculty pedagogical partnerships, as it elicits evidence-gathering behaviors, and supports opportunities for students to provide their own recommendations and insights (Cook-Sather, Bahti, and Ntem 2019). Topics we explored included how to support students’ engagement, helping students minimize digital distractions in ways that support their autonomy and self-regulation, using principles of feminist pedagogy in designing and supporting students in assignments, and applying theories of college students’ development in racialized contexts. Because we each read from our own different backgrounds, we benefited from hearing each other’s perspectives, questions, and comments, and worked together to find ways to implement what we had learned. In the next blog post, we explore how pedagogical values and learning goals in our student-faculty partnership actually played out in the classroom. References Bunnell, Sarah, Jen Uno, James Holsinger, and Norma Rodriguez (2025, December). “Faculty Orientation to the Elon Pedagogical Partnership Program.” PowerPoint slides. Cook-Sather, Alison, Melanie Bahti, and Anita Ntem. 2019. Pedagogical Partnerships: A How-To Guide for Faculty, Students, and Academic Developers in Higher Education. Elon, NC: Elon University Center for Engaged Learning. https://doi.org/10.36284/celelon.oa1. Cook-Sather, Alison, Cathy Bovill, and Peter Felten. 2014. Engaging Students as Partners in Learning and Teaching: A Guide for Faculty. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Felten, Peter, and Leo M. Lambert. 2020. Relationship-Rich Education: How Human Connections Drive Success in College. John Hopkins University Press. Luschen, Kristen, Sarah Bunnell, Riley Caldwell-O’Keefe, and Eugene Lee. 2026. “A Dyadic Analysis of Pedagogical Partnerships: Exploring Alignment and Misalignment in Students-As-Partners Relationships”. International Journal for Students as Partners 10 (1):70-91. https://doi.org/10.15173/ijsap.v10i1.6783. Cook-Sather, Alison, Melanie Bahti, and Anita Ntem. 2019. Pedagogical Partnerships: A How-To Guide for Faculty, Students, and Academic Developers in Higher Education. Elon, NC: Elon University Center for Engaged Learning. https://doi.org/10.36284/celelon.oa1. About the Authors Ella Negley is a rising Junior studying Mathematical Statistics B.S. and Data Analytics A.B. at Elon University. Ella recently completed a research assistantship at the Learning Research Development Center at the University of Pittsburgh, focusing on a scoping review of the provision process in providing feedback. After graduation, Ella plans to continue studying mathematics with a financial scope at the master’s level. Olivia Guarino is a recent graduate from Elon University with a B.A. in Psychology. She is currently seeking research opportunities before she plans to pursue graduate study in Clinical Psychology where she hopes to combine her passion for psychology and student-centered teaching. Sabrina Perkins is an Associate Professor of Psychology at Elon University and served as a seminar leader for CEL’s 2023-2025 research seminar on Mentoring Meaningful Learning Experiences. She has several publications and presentations on teaching and mentoring in higher education and has received awards for teaching excellence. This post is part of their series, Shared voices, shared learning: Student-faculty teaching partnerships in a course on systemic racism and lifespan development How to Cite This Post Negley, Ella, Olivia Guarino, and Sabrina L. Perkins. 2026. “What Does it Mean to Partner with Students? An Introduction.” Center for Engaged Learning (blog), Elon University. October 6, 2026. https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/what-does-it-mean-to-partner-with-students-an-introduction.
