Students as Patners in Enhancing Digital Teaching and Learning

Authentic student-staff partnerships, whereby “students are directly involved as change agents and partners within the system” (Collins et al 2016 p. 16) are essential to student engagement in Higher Education (Cooke-Sather & Luz, 2014, USI 2018). Cook-Sather, Bovill & Felton, (2014, pp. 6-7) define effective student-staff partnership as "a collaborative, reciprocal process through which all participants have the same opportunity to contribute equally, although not necessarily in the same ways, to curricular or pedagogical conceptualisation, decision making, implementation, investigation, or analysis". This presentation, delivered by students and staff, will describe lessons learned so far from a partnership initiated at Maynooth University as part of the IUA Enhancing Digital Teaching and Learning (EDTL) project. We will also share some of the resources and supports that have been developed so far, including a Student Digital Skills resource, ‘created by students for students’, student-led staff workshops and a video resource for staff outlining the findings of an institutional survey of student experiences of learning and teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. Several student-driven social media campaigns have also been initiated, aimed at supporting students in the context of the rapid pivot to online learning due to COVID-19; promoting student engagement with Business News & Information; and promoting academic integrity.