Student-Led Teaching

Themes from the Roundtable Discussion

The following is an interpretation by members of BEL+T of what was expressed during the conversation, grouped into the following themes:

• Supportive Learning Environments
  • At the foundational level of the curriculum, it is important to ‘model’ certain practices to students. This includes teachers showing their own vulnerability and authenticity, as a way of inviting students to feel confident sharing their ideas or points of confusion.
  • As in any learning environment, teachers must ensure that challenges being presented to students are accompanied by sufficient support to mitigate unwarranted stress and anxiety. Above all, student-led teaching should be fun for students!
  • It was noted that student-led teaching comes with inherent risk—or at least perceived risk. However, by distributing some ‘risk’ amongst students themselves, it can build their sense of responsibility and ability. It can also deepen their learning, so long as they feel relatively ‘safe’ and confident to step into roles traditionally held by teaching staff.

  For more information on supportive learning environments, please click here.

• Power Dynamics and Teacher-Student Roles
  • A point was raised around ethics and responsibility when it comes to ‘knowledge transfer’. If students expect staff to provide a certain level of expertise, how much of this must be retained within a student-led teaching approach?
  • Another point was around studio pedagogy and its traditional emphasis on one-to-one exchanges between staff and students. These exchanges contain embedded power dynamics, and it is unclear how student-led approaches might play out at this scale.
  • The importance of acknowledging that university environments cannot be facsimiles of professional environments was noted. The power dynamics and motivations are different, meaning these factors must be accounted for in any student-led teaching approach.
  • There was some debate about the appropriate ‘distance’ between staff and students—that becoming too close might lead to new challenges but that an overly hierarchical relationship was outdated and problematic, as well.
• Student Agency and Voice
  • Staff need to be open to criticism and feedback from students, and ultimately ensure that ongoing subject development is informed by student voices.
  • At the postgraduate level, there is an opportunity for students to see the reading list not as mandatory but as a starting point that is open to criticism. One way of making the reading list seem more ‘open’ and less canonical is to apply a rotating theme and invite students to suggest their own additions based on their individual interests and/or emerging knowledge in the area.
• Assessment Strategies
  • Peer feedback or peer assessment was proposed as a powerful strategy, especially as a way of students to engage more directly with marking rubrics. However, several acknowledged that it comes with a suite of administrative challenges as well as ‘quality assurance’ concerns.
  • Self-feedback or self-assessment is ultimately more challenging but an essential skill for employability.

  To learn more about Assessment Strategies, please visit the Assessment + Feedback page of the BEL+T website.