Pedagogical Partnership

The Sherrerd Center for Teaching and Learning and the Wurtele Center for Leadership offer the Pedagogical Partnerships Program during the spring semesters. We support faculty and staff teachers who work in close collaboration with student partners to strengthen pedagogy and enhance the course experience. This is a great opportunity to harness student feedback and partnership to meaningfully address some of the challenges we’re experiencing in our classrooms as we work toward a “new normal” of liberal arts teaching. It is also a chance to think deeply about equitable and inclusive course design, explore new pedagogical approaches, or incorporate new course content. We seek to support faculty and staff teachers working in partnership with students as pedagogical partners in their classes, particularly those students who will be actively engaged with students in the course. Faculty members interested in pursuing a student pedagogical partnership should identify a specific driving question, problem, or experiment they would like to pursue with the help of a student partner.

Faculty partner expectations:

• Mentor student partners and help facilitate their reflection as they explore pedagogical practices

• Participate in a program kick-off lunch meeting 

• Meet with your student partner once a week and approve their time in Workday

• Potentially join an optional mid-semester faculty partner check-in lunch

• Complete a final evaluation at the end of the semester

Student partner expectations:

• Participate in a program kick-off lunch meeting 

• Meet with your faculty partner once a week

• Attend class and/or work together with your faculty partner on your pedagogical partnership project

• Attend four pedagogical leadership workshops with the Wurtele Center (lunch provided) 

• To prepare for one of the Wurtele Center workshops, read a chapter of your choosing from Josh Eyler’s How Humans Learn (available as an e-book from Neilson) and share your insights with your faculty partner

• Dedicate six hours a week to partnership work (this includes attending class sessions and workshops with the Wurtele Center)

• Complete a final evaluation at the end of the semester

In the past, faculty have worked with student partners to: 

• Make class discussions more equitable and engaged through mapping and observation of student-to-student and student-to-faculty interactions

• Develop new teaching resources that introduce complex technical tools to students

• Reimagine the framing and sequence of assignments to best prepare students for a final project

• Model best practices within the discipline by co-facilitating course projects and activities

• Scaffold and fine-tune collaborative learning techniques, including informal group work and longer-term group projects

The Sherrerd Center pays the student partners an hourly wage for their time (up to 6 hours per week), which faculty partners will approve in Workday.

If a pedagogical partner might be a good fit for a course you plan to teach, please fill out the Google interest form or reach out to sherrerdcenter@smith.edu with questions. Priority for partnerships will be given to those who apply by the mid-December deadline and to those who are new to the program and/or have greater need for support; however applications submitted later will be accepted until all partnerships are filled.

Questions

Please email sherredcenter@smith.edu with questions and/or ideas and inquiries.

Spring 2023 Partnerships

Past Partners