What is co-creation?

What is co-creation? 

Co-creation is a process of student engagement that encourages students and staff members to move away from curriculum as delivery to curriculum as the joint making of meaning. Both staff and students have a voice and a stake. 

Working with students, being open to ideas and views, enables shared goals and a shared understanding that teaching and learning is a joint endeavour.

Co-creation challenges the traditional approaches to learning and teaching In order to engage in co-creation, we need to reframe our perspectives:

• make no assumptions about the student experience, ask them instead
• be open to add more lived experience that is genuinely reflective of students’ needs
• consider nuanced experiences: avoid implicit biases by welcoming a wide range of contributions from diverse backgrounds (and sectors) which bring different perspectives
• work to make it meaningful and iterative – students’ voice should not be a ‘tick the box’ performative exercise

From student voice to student action

Universities traditionally engage with students by listening to the ‘student voice’: through course evaluations and ‘listen’ to ‘respond’ accordingly. The aim is to move beyond seeing student perspectives as a source of data and promote ‘student action’ - give students the opportunity to explore areas that they believe to be significant, to recommend solutions and to bring about the required changes (Bovill et al, 2016).

Different mindset: disrupting hierarchies and repositioning students and staff

With co-creation there is a change in the dynamic with students no longer being perceived as passive consumers but as active participants. 

Co-creation is ultimately about a different mindset that re-positions students and staff as active collaborators in the diverse processes of teaching and learning – empowering students to be actively engaged in, and share the responsibility for their own education (Cook-Sather, Bovill & Felten 2014).

Both students and staff have different but equally valuable expertise to contribute to the process of teaching and learning (Cook-Sather, Bovill & Felten 2014; Mercer-Mapstone & Marie 2019, p.7). Students’ diverse profiles, backgrounds and experiences complement academics’ views, knowledge and expertise of the learning content and institutional context.

Collaboration and reciprocity

Staff and students work collaboratively with one another to create solutions that meet the needs and expectations of both partners and co-creation happens within the intersection of the two spheres. 

This collaboration becomes a reciprocal process through which participants can contribute, although not necessarily in the same ways. Actions are negotiated and both partners tend to become much more aware of their identity and role and, at the same time, much more accountable because responsibilities are shared, and change is a common endeavour (Bovill et al 2014).

Types of co-creation projects

• Co-creation of the curriculum (usually taking place before a course or programme begins)
• Co-creation in the curriculum (usually involving negotiation of elements of a course or programme while it unfolds)
• Other co-creation focuses on extracurricular or university-wide initiatives

Some examples involve selecting one or just a few students, while others involve a whole class. There are also co-creation projects (usually extracurricular) where students are paid for their involvement, and others (usually involving all students in a class) where students receive the usual course credit at the end of the course. 

Areas of focus

• Learning design and development
  • Learning, teaching & assessment
  • Curriculum design and pedagogic consultancy
• Researching and Inquiring
  • Subject-based research and inquiry
  • Scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) 

Values

Staff and students developing co-creation projects should consider a set of values that will guide their relationship as partners: authenticity, honesty, inclusivity, reciprocity, empowerment, trust, courage, plurality and responsibility.

For more detail, please check the Framework for student engagement through partnership (Healey and Healey 2019, HEA 2015).

Participatory learning communities and pedagogic literacy

Co-creation enables the development of students’ own ‘pedagogic literacy’ and their understanding of curriculum and assessment is a necessary condition. Students become more aware of the teaching contexts and learning becomes more authentic and relevant. 

Transformation and change

Co-creation can be deeply transformative: it can change students and what they want to achieve at university and beyond. Johansson & Felten (2014, p. 929) have identified four factors of student transformation:

1. disruption of previous ways of working
2. reflection on experiences
3. new forms of action
4. integration of new perspectives and ways of working

Student outcomes in the form of transformation and development can include: 

• developing positive relationships and community engagement and enjoyment
• taking risks and overcoming challenges
• academic achievement and retention

References