Content area
Full text
ABSTRACT
Co-inquiry represents a distinctive relational model for partnering with students in SoTL that focuses on the process of seeking itself, and in particular, the importance of shared questions. We use case studies from two institutions to illustrate co-inquiry in action and highlight the importance of shared questions in changing the faculty-student dynamic in ways that foster deep learning. Clarifying the nature of co-inquiry around shared questions represents a valuable way to effectively strengthen and enrich learning not only for students, but also for everyone involved in SoTL partnerships with students. The programs described here illustrate how co-inquiry can work as a form of institutional SoTL, providing valuable and authentic opportunities to incorporate student voices-and shared questions-in effecting institutional change.
KEYWORDS
SoTL, partnership with students, co-inquiry, institutional SoTL
It is important that students bring a certain ragamufßn, barefoot, irreverence to their studies; they are not here to worship what we know, but to question it.
Jacob Bronowski, "The Ascent of Man"
Be patient toward all that lies unsolved in your heart, and try to love the questions themselves.
Rainer Maria Rilke, "Letters to a Young Poet"
The last decade has seen an increased desire within the SoTL community to collaborate with students in a rich array of ways. Healey, Flint, and Harrington (2014, and in this issue) provide a valuable conceptual model delineating multiple forms of student-faculty partnerships. Their model describes four distinct but interrelated partnership categories:
1) Learning, teaching, and assessment
2) Subject-based research and inquiry
3) Scholarship of teaching and learning, and
4) Curricular design and pedagogic consultancy
Healey, Flint, and Harrington (2014) also highlight the need to better understand the relational dynamics involved within each category, noting that work in each area "often focus on the activities undertaken rather than on the decision-making processes involved" (p. 3).
Some authors have emphasized that faculty-student partnerships are a "principle of good practice" (Felten, 2013) and perhaps even serve as a threshold concept for educational development (Werder, Thibou, & Kaufer, 2012). Others describe how to engage students as partners in the study of teaching and learning (Werder & Otis, 2010; Healey, Flint, & Harrington, 2014; Cook-Sather, Bovill, & Felten, 2014). Yet, no explicit conceptual framework that we are aware of exists for understanding the critical...