Student Engagement,Accountability,and Empowerment

Abstract

This article describes an experiment in collaborative course design in a midlevel sociology course. Unlike most of the literature on collaborative teaching and learning, which often deals with collaboration among students, this article discusses collaboration between the instructor and students. The students in this course collaborated with the instructor in designing the course—choosing the readings and developing the assignments—from the first day of class. Student feedback on the experiment was overwhelmingly positive. Three major themes that emerged from the student feedback were (1) higher levels of student engagement, (2) a sense of personal accountability, and (3) student empowerment. While the results of the student feedback mostly point to positive experiences, collaboration between students and instructors does bring a high level of uncertainty and extra work for the instructor involved. The article ends with some further guidance for those considering collaborative learning in their classrooms.

Keywords

collaborative course design student engagement student empowerment critical pedagogy

As a critical, feminist sociologist, reflecting upon and constantly evaluating my own pedagogy is essential to my course design and syllabus construction. My pedagogy has always been shaped by critical pedagogical frameworks that generally seek to “challenge systems of domination, challenge social constructions of knowledge and power, generate consciousness and critical-thinking, and to promote social change (Chow et al. 2003:260). These are fundamental goals of all of my courses.

In recent years, however, I have begun to wonder whether I am doing enough to actively enable students to achieve those goals for themselves. Sweet (1998), in his discussion of “radical pedagogy” and its (lack of) application in sociology classrooms, captures my sentiments. My pedagogical practices have always given students the power to choose, or as Sweet (1998:104) puts it, “how to perform in a game once the rules of the game have already been predetermined by the teacher.” But, Sweet continues, “students lack . . . the power to shape and form the rules of the game itself . . . and are left out of this crucial component of course development” (Sweet 1998:104).¹ It was this desire to allow students to “shape and form the rules of the game itself” that pushed me to employ a collaborative approach to one of my courses.

This article describes the various steps involved in creating a collaborative course with students. I then discuss the results from student evaluations of the experience of collaboratively designing a course. I do not offer specifics of each assignment in this article, though these involved collaborative learning techniques of the more common kind—group projects, class-run blog, discussions led by students. Rather, my goal is to outline a general model for how one might initiate a collaborative course design—that is, involve students in designing the course from the start—and what students and instructors gain from the experience. This model can be used to develop any number of courses in sociology, though as discussed below, it is probably best manageable with class sizes of 20 or smaller and with students who have already taken at least one course in sociology or a related field. However, elements of collaborative course design may be replicated in larger lecture classes that have weekly “discussion sections” of smaller groups. I end with sharing my own perspective on this experience and discussing suggestions and possible challenges for those thinking of experimenting with collaborative course design.

The following principles commonly undergird collaborative teaching and learning: challenging the idea of students as learners only and professors as teachers only; challenging the passive student role by encouraging them to take an active part in the shaping of their education; changing the power dynamics in the classroom between teachers and students, so that power is not “wielded” by the professor but shared (to a greater or lesser degree) by everyone in the classroom; creating a classroom that values student knowledge and experience as opposed to the professor imparting knowledge, thereby also underscoring the social construction of knowledge (Blinne 2013; Braa and Callero 2006; Chow et al. 2003; Fobes and Kaufman 2008; Hess 2008; Hudd 2003; Sweet 1998). The most common type of collaboration that is discussed in sociology is collaboration between students (McDuff 2012; Pederson 2010; Strangfeld 2013), often under the name of collaborative learning groups (Rau and Heyl 1990), employing such techniques as students working on group projects together, discussing readings in groups, gathering data collaboratively, and choosing their research topic. Less often discussed is the collaboration between instructor and students to design syllabi and course assignments for example (Hess 2008; Hudd 2003; Sweet 1998). Although the two kinds of collaboration are very different (as highlighted in Sweet’s quote above), the distinction is often not made in the scholarly literature. One should note that multiple types of collaborative efforts can be incorporated into a course simultaneously, and they might include both types of collaboration (between students and between students and instructors).

The advantages of collaborative teaching and learning (again, broadly defined as encompassing many kinds of collaborative efforts) have been well established in the scholarship of teaching and learning. Previous research on collaborative classrooms reveals greater student participation (Brown, Iyobe, and Riley 2013; Chow et al. 2003; Cordner, Klein, and Baiocchi 2012;); increased sense of ownership and empowerment (Chow et al. 2003; Freire [1968] 1993, 1998; Haynes 2001; Hess 2008; Hudd 2003); higher levels of student engagement, interest, and effort (Cordner et al. 2012; McDuff 2012; Pederson 2010; Rau and Heyl 1990; Rinehart 1999); a shift from the model of students as passive recipients to students as active cocreators of their education (Chow et al. 2003; Fobes and Kaufman 2008; Hudd 2003; Sweet 1998); and a stronger and closer relationship between students and faculty (Cordner et al. 2012; Chow et al. 2003; Held and Rosenberg 1983; Mihans, Long, and Felten 2008).

Mihans et al. (2008:7) report, “[S]tudents on the course design team gained significant new disciplinary knowledge, developed what Hutchings (2005) calls their ‘pedagogical intelligence’ (‘an understanding about how learning happens, and a disposition and capacity to shape one’s own learning), and became more capable of and confident in expressing their own expertise in academic settings.” Rinehart (1999) and McDuff (2012) found higher levels of engagement and interest, and a shift from learning theory to theorizing in undergraduate theory courses that employed collaborative learning. Similarly, in a graduate-level qualitative methods course, codesigned and cotaught by two graduate students and a professor, Cordner et al. (2012) also report higher engagement on behalf of the students as well as sustained interest in the topics past the end of the semester. Hudd (2003:198) discovers that “few students fail or perform poorly in classes where they have been involved in constructing the assignment list.”

Most previous research also points to the gains for professors who engage in collaborative teaching. Held and Rosenberg (1983) discuss collaborative team teaching with undergraduates in an undergraduate writing course. They point to instructor self-awareness about the need for control and the importance of relinquishing some of it. Further, they report (1983:820), “We have found it lifts the burden of isolation that teaching imposes. . . . [H]aving another person there creates the need to discuss plans and results. The effect is to make us more conscious of practices that have become habitual and, perhaps, ineffective.” Mihans et al. summarize their gains as follows (2008:8): “We have learned the value of really listening to our students. We now teach all our courses somewhat differently because we are more attuned to student needs and expertise.” Chow et al. (2003:268) reveal that the experience was “liberating” for the instructors and that “the process of teaching and learning in our classroom became less rigid and more accessible. . . . [W]e developed personal knowledge that reached beyond our formal text. . . . [W]e were able to challenge tradition and take greater ownership of learning in our class.”

While the literature on collaborative teaching and learning is quite extensive and positive, one cannot help but note that some types of collaborative approaches do not seem to have taken off in sociology to the extent that one might expect. This observation is consistent with Sweet’s (1998) systematic study of radical pedagogy in Teaching Sociology articles from 1973 to 1996 and his observations over 10 years later that while “many sociology teachers ‘talk the talk’ of being radicals, far fewer of us ‘walk the walk’ (Sweet 2010:32). But here, one must make the distinction between different kinds of collaborative enterprises to get a more accurate picture. More specifically, searches for the terms collaborative learning, student-designed syllabi, and student-generated materials in more recent issues (from the past 10 years) of Teaching Sociology reveal that, while the literature on (and presumably application of) collaborative learning among students continues to flourish (most often in the form of active learning exercises), the literature on collaboration between students and teachers continues to lag.² When this kind of collaboration is discussed, it is often discussed in the context of graduate courses (Chow et al. 2003; Cordner et al. 2012). But most often, collaboration is applied in a more limited way in specialized courses, like research methods, statistics, or theory (Bickel 2010; McDuff 2012; Pederson 2010; Rinehart 1999; Strangfeld 2013), which often are so specific in their content that they may not feel translatable to a broader sociology course. These courses can also carry the assumption of being “difficult” or “dry,” so readers may be led to believe that collaborative teaching and learning is a “fix” for difficult courses rather an approach that is reflective of a particular epistemology and the resultant pedagogical practices that (should) accompany it. Hudd’s (2003) well-cited article and Haynes’s (2001) exercise in Sociology through Active Learning are relatively unusual in this field, where they use collaborative course design in an introductory sociology course and an unspecified course, respectively.

This second type of pedagogy—collaboration between instructor and students in course design—clearly stems from a desire to address the power imbalance between instructors and students in the classroom, to put instructors’ beliefs about the social construction of knowledge into practice by not imposing a predetermined syllabus on the students. These are desires and beliefs that critical, Marxist, feminist sociologists would be all too familiar with. Why, then, is this type of collaborative teaching and course design seemingly slow to catch on in sociology?

For one, it is probably not as intimidating of an idea to think about students collaborating with each other than to think about instructors collaborating with students. Previous research reveals some of the fears that professors have going into a classroom without being able to control as much of the content and design as they usually do. Glenn (2003:36) writes, “I put too little trust in my students and refused to relinquish control, perhaps out of fear that the course, no longer fully my creation, would become something I did not anticipate or desire. Unpredictability was daunting and thus limiting.” Mihans et al. (2008:2) reveal similar fears: “We knew that we had to be truly willing to share power with the students and not simply give lip service to collaboration. Were we really willing to defer to the students when we disagreed—and should we?” Similarly, Rinehart (1999:217) writes, “[C]ollaborative learning involves redefining the role of the teacher. It involves a shift of some responsibility and a release of the illusion of control.” The uncertainty involved in undertaking such efforts acts as a deterrent to many. Further students may be resistant to taking on a more active role in the classroom, or they might oppose instructors’ “agendas”(Chow et al. 2003; Fobes and Kaufman 2008; Shor 1996).

There are also institutional constraints that put a limit to collaborative efforts. Sweet (1998) and Fobes and Kaufman (2008) discuss some of these in connection to radical and critical pedagogy, respectively, and given the overlap between collaborative learning (between students and teachers) and radical and critical pedagogy, these are worth mentioning here briefly, although I will return to some of these issues in the last section of this article. Among the most important deterrents discussed is the time commitment. Radical and critical pedagogy (and collaborative teaching and learning) requires a significant time commitment as the syllabus is in flux and so preparation for the class may have to happen anew each semester, instead of having it be set in place from semester to semester. Sweet (1998) argues that since teaching evaluations may be more polarized than in a traditional classroom, given the reliance on teaching evaluations in reappointment and tenure decisions, it is not surprising that such approaches are not practiced more often. Chow et al. (2003:271) sum it up well: “[F]or teachers, experimenting with an alternative pedagogy can be taxing, time-consuming, and anxiety-producing, because it involves risks, uncertainties, problem-solving, and frequent coordination.” For these reasons, instructors may, understandably, be hesitant to experiment with collaborative approaches.

Further, as stated above, the gap in the scholarship of teaching and learning on how to go about designing a collaborative course with students makes the task seem quite daunting and adds to the uncertainties involved. Hudd’s (2003) article comes closest to this endeavor but does not cover all aspects of course design. Bickel’s (2010) article detailing walking into class without a syllabus is a wonderful addition to this literature. However, once again, the class is an ethnography course, and the students did not get to choose the readings or the assignments for the course (they did, however, come up with a grading scheme, including an attendance policy, due dates, and the amount of reading to be done for each class). This article begins to address this gap by laying out one possible way to include students in course design from the first day of classes. My experiment with collaborative course design shows that students feel more engaged, accountable, and empowered by the experience.

An Experiment in Collaborative Course Design

I teach at a small, residential, liberal arts college with a strong emphasis on and support for innovative teaching. Although I had been thinking of experimenting with a collaborative syllabus and course for a while, unlike Hudd (2003), I had not wanted to do this for my introductory-level course. I believed (and continue to believe) that in order for it to be a truly collaborative course that engages students in designing all aspects of the course, including the readings, the students need to have taken at least an introductory course in sociology or a related field. However, I did start experimenting with giving up more and more control in the classroom via certain assignments in my courses first (Jafar 2014) before deciding to take the plunge. When I decided to develop a new midlevel seminar—Gender, Culture, and the Body—with the prerequisite of having taken Introduction to Sociology or an introductory-level course in the Gender and Women Studies department, I knew it was the ideal course for trying a collaborative syllabus and course design. The seminar met once a week for three hours for 13 sessions. A total of 18 students were enrolled: there were eight seniors, seven juniors, and three sophomores. Fifteen students were women. Six of the 18 students had taken a course with me before.

Pre-semester Preparation

My goal was to have the students develop the course readings and the assignments with me during the first couple of weeks of the semester. Prior to the semester starting, I developed a vast reading list of books and articles related to the general topic of the course. I then sorted these readings into themes. These were introduction to the study of the body; body image/aesthetics; hair; fat/fatness; body modification and tattoos; cosmetic surgery; female genital cutting/female genital cosmetic surgery; health, illness, and ability; colorism; and body and protest. For the first day of class, I posted all the articles onto the class website (sorted into their respective themes), and I brought roughly 25 books with me in person. I considered not providing a reading list at all but had two major concerns. My first concern was that not providing a comprehensive reading list would mean using several classes in the first few weeks to establish one as a class. As this was a weekly seminar, it would mean losing out on a significant amount of time in the semester. The second was my fear that people, and students especially, often associate studies of the body with body image concerns narrowly; thus the course would end up being limited in its focus.³ It is important to note that all together, the books and articles that I provided were somewhere between four to five times the amount that would be covered in a regular semester in one of my upper-level courses. So while I did provide an initial reading list, students had significant autonomy in developing the final reading list. Students were also encouraged to add their own readings (scholarly or otherwise) should they so choose.

The First Two Weeks of the Course

For the sake of providing some structure that would guide us through what was sure to be a chaotic first couple of weeks—since I had no syllabus—I had to come prepared with certain ideas in mind as to how the readings could be chosen. Having used student co-leaders for class discussion successfully in the past in other courses, I decided that each week’s discussion would be co-led by two students and with me in a facilitating role. This component—the only one stipulated by me before the semester started—helped determine how the task of choosing the readings for the course will be carried out, as I will discuss shortly. Our first task on the first day, after I introduced them to the idea of collaborative course design (and why I thought it was important), was to determine whether the themes I had laid out sufficiently represented the students’ interests. As a class, the students took turns discussing their goals for the course and what topics or themes drew them to the class. The themes I had chosen were broad enough to encompass the students’ interests, and they did not elect to add anything more to the list.

Next, we determined which pair(s) of students would present on which week (some themes required two weeks to cover). We did this by going over the themes, showing and discussing the possible articles (up on the course website) and the books I had brought for each theme, and giving a brief description of that theme. I took down names of students who were interested in that theme. If more than two students were interested in a theme, I took down all the names and returned to that theme later. By the time we had gone through all the themes, there were only a couple of themes that had more than two students. At this point, students had already started negotiating or rethinking their choices and were willing to move to another week. The one week where this was not the case was body image/aesthetics, where four students were really interested in the theme. Given the vast literature in this subfield, we decided that we would do two weeks on that theme (instead of two weeks on health/illness/ability) by adding a couple of readings from the health/illness section. Since I was already familiar with the literature, I knew this switch could be easily made.

Once the pairs and their respective themes were chosen, I handed out the books for that theme to them. Their homework for the first week was to meet with their partner and decide on three or four articles and/or book chapters that they wanted the whole class to read for “their” week. They also had to come prepared with a rationale for why they chose the readings they did. I encouraged them to be mindful of diverse perspectives in their readings and to pay attention to issues of intersectionality. Readings that focus on masculinity or use a transnational lens are especially hard to come by in the literature on the body, so I encouraged students to balance their reading choices as much as possible by making sure not to omit these perspectives from their weeks, although I did not enforce any particular reading.⁴

Our last task for the first day of the seminar was to come to an agreement about the course assignments. The only assignment stipulated by me was leading class discussion, as previously mentioned. Like Hudd (2003:197), I asked the students to think about types (and variety), quantity, timing, and weighting of assignments (including the weighting of leading class discussions, which had not been predetermined by me). After some initial discussion, and only at the students’ request, I discussed examples of assignments that I have used successfully in other courses, and students added their perspectives regarding new assignments or tweaking what I have used in the past. In the end, the students decided on four types of assignments: maintaining a student-run class blog for weekly posts and comments on the readings as well as for posting relevant news stories, videos, and other materials; keeping a body “log” (journal) where they would record all comments and practices regarding bodies that they come across during the day; writing an analytical paper using the body log as data; and engaging the campus community through a group project. The students decided how much each assignment would count toward their final grade and when it would be due. They also decided not to have a grade for attendance or an attendance policy. I added these to our syllabus, which we called, as Hudd (2003) did, “Under Construction.”

Being cognizant of the fact that for some students, utilizing the first two class meetings of a weekly seminar to design the syllabus may be seen as wasting valuable class time (Hess 2008; Hudd 2003), I had assigned introductory background readings related to the themes of the course for the second class meeting. The students also had to bring back their decisions on which readings they had chosen with their partner and why. After our second meeting (where the students did indeed bring back the readings they had chosen), our syllabus was complete. However, unlike Hudd (2003), I gave students the freedom to tweak assignments as the semester went on, if we felt it necessary as a class. This was an important component of collaboration if the students were to take their roles as cocreators of the class seriously and if they were to continue to think actively about their responsibilities throughout the semester instead of just during the first two weeks of the course. Blinne (2013:41) notes, “Opening up opportunities for the syllabus to perform as a living, negotiated document allows learners to explore their educational identities by taking a more active role in establishing the ideological and discursive environment of the class.” The students did exercise their right to tweak some assignments, but it mostly involved changing due dates or relative weights of the assignments. The one substantive change after the first few meetings was that the students decided to keep the body log personal and not have it be graded (though I would still grade the analytical paper that resulted from the body log).5

Results

At the end of the semester, students filled out two evaluations. The response rate for both instruments was 100 percent. One was a 12-item standardized all-campus evaluation (ACE) instrument used at my institution. I will present the quantitative results of the ACE where applicable (see Reflections section for the lack of suitability of a standardized instrument for evaluating this course). In addition, I developed my own open-ended evaluation for this course, supplemental student feedback (SSF), which asked students to comment specifically on collaborative course design (see appendix). The majority of the analysis below draws from a content analysis of the SSF questionnaire that I administered. I coded the student feedback for words (or similar words) that occurred commonly in the evaluations, then clustered them into categories. The comments in the proceeding sections draw upon all 18 students in the course.

The categories that clearly emerged from the content analysis of the SSF were (1) deeper engagement, (2) personal accountability, and (3) student empowerment.

Deeper Engagement

The most prominent theme in the SSF was that of deeper engagement with, and interest in, the material, often accompanied by a sense of relevance of the material. This is a very consistent theme in the literature on collaborative learning (Blinne 2013; Cordner et. al 2012; Hudd 2003; Mihans et al. 2008) My course was no exception—if anything, it seems that this theme was even more prominent than in previous experiments, as this one involved students in every aspect of course design from the first day.

Every single one of the 18 students mentioned a deeper engagement with the course material in the SSF. Representative samples of student comments include the following:

“I think its important to keep the students interested and engaged in the class and this class, the way it was designed and taught, successfully kept me engaged the entire semester.”

“This course made me feel engaged in a significant way throughout the semester. Especially as a senior, I am grateful for a course that made me think the way this one did.”

“Overall, I think that student engagement in our own learning is so important and meaningful; it’s easier to work hard when you’re passionate about what you’re learning about.”

“I think that by allowing the students to design the course, it gave the students a sense of responsibility for their education as well as set the tone for the class’ engagement and passion.”

The theme of engagement was also captured in references to student “interest” in the course material and assignments. The words interest/interests, interested, and interesting also appear repeatedly—32 times across 14 out of 18 student comments—in conjunction with an assessment of the course in the SSF. Student interest was also often mentioned in combination with a view of the material as “relevant.” Relevance was often reported as a direct result of the students having picked out the readings themselves. For example, typical student comments include the following:

“Having students choose the readings was great because it ensured that the topic would be relevant and interesting to our classmates.”

“Choosing the readings was great because there are always really dry readings that just don’t connect with me and don’t interest me at all.”

“I think by having the students choose the readings; it created a sense of accountability and created a deeper interest in the materials.”

“By choosing the topic that we wanted and then what readings we wanted to go over ensured that there was truly a level of interest and engagement on the part of the leaders. This also though extended to the class—because the readings were chosen by our peers, it felt like they were more relevant.”

The idea of relevance extended beyond the readings to the assignments as well, which the students also played a role in developing. As one student remarked, “I really enjoyed being able to design the assignments, it allowed me as well as the class to work on assignments that we are interested in, rather than busy work. Each assignment, even the body log paper, was something that we had shown an interest in.”

Two items from the ACE are also relevant to the theme of engagement. One item on the ACE asks, “On average, how much time did you spend preparing for this course per week outside of the scheduled class and/or lab times?” The response categories are under three hours, four to six hours, seven to nine hours, and 10 or more hours. Ten students (55.56 percent) chose four to six hours, six students (33.33 percent) chose seven to nine hours, and only two (11.11 percent) chose under three hours. A second item asks, “As a result of this course you either mastered a considerable body of material or developed intellectually and/or artistically in a significant way.” The response categories to this item range from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Fourteen students (77.78 percent) chose strongly agree, three chose somewhat agree (16.67 percent), and one (5.56 percent) chose neither agree nor disagree. While these items do not specifically ask about engagement, they reveal that the students invested considerable time doing the work for this course and that their own perceptions of their learning and intellectual growth were quite positive.

Personal Accountability

As previous research on this topic has shown, and some of the comments above hint at, students feel a greater sense of responsibility toward the material when they have a larger role in the designing of the course (Hudd 2003). I had expected to see this theme in the comments that the students made in the SSF. Indeed, I had sensed it to some degree in my students during the semester when I had to miss one class meeting and the students decided to meet by themselves (there was not a single student absent that day, even though they knew ahead of time that I would not be present). However, I underestimated just how prominent a theme this would be. Twelve of the 18 students explicitly used the language of accountability, responsibility, or personal motivation and drive, or expressed more willingness to do the work, at least once in their comments.

“In a way, I felt a certain accountability and obligation to make this class important because I had a hand in designing it.”

“I think that allowing students to design a course leads the students to have a stronger personal desire to do well in the course because they are required to live up to the standards that they designed for themselves.”

“Designing the course at the beginning of the year made my education more meaningful by imposing responsibility. Each year, when I am asked in course evaluations if the course encouraged me to take responsibility for my education, I always think, “Sure, I guess.” This time around, I understood more deeply what that meant.”

“I felt like I was responsible for my own studies and that everything I was learning was truly mine for the taking. . . . It is a great way to think about the importance of taking responsibility of one’s own education and to actively learn as opposed to being passive.”

“I absolutely feel that this method of allowing students to design the course with the professor added meaning and a new level of responsibility to our education. We couldn’t slack off because we agreed from the start on what was an appropriate amount of work and what we owed to each other for each class. We really did work with mutual respect and understanding.”

The theme of accountability was also prominent in one of the ACE evaluation items. The item in the ACE asks, “The instructor taught in a way that helped you take responsibility for your own learning.” Fifteen out of 18 students strongly agreed, one agreed, and two neither agreed nor disagreed. Both the SSF and ACE results show that students feel an intrinsic motivation and desire to do well in the course that is “theirs.”

Student Empowerment

Student empowerment is an explicit goal of collaborative learning (Brown et al. 2013, Haynes 2001; Hess 2008; Hudd 2003) as teachers voluntarily relinquish control in favor of student autonomy and independence. While reviewing the literature, I was surprised that although student empowerment was often listed as a goal, it was seldom mentioned in the results or student comments of these articles (notable exceptions are Bickel 2010; Chow et al. 2003; Kapitulik 2010). This is a surprising oversight for sociologists, since, as Hudd (2003: 200) asserts, “the exercise provides an important opportunity to reinforce the sociological concepts of inequality and power and the extent to which . . . structural arrangements constrain behavior.”

Twelve out of 18 student comments in the SSF touch upon empowerment, control, autonomy/independence, or agency. Allowing students to take ownership of all aspects of the syllabus gave them a greater sense of control over their education along with a sense of independence and power:

“I think this student-designed course was definitely meaningful. It gave me a whole new perspective on what being in control of my own education is like.”

“I had no idea we would be participating in its design, and from day one, I felt more in control of my education than I have in previous classes. . . . Having control over the assignments was also beneficial, as it reminded me that, as students, we should be able to have say in how we go about planning our courses.”

“I did enjoy having the freedom and ability to contribute to designing the course. It felt really empowering to be able to influence my own education in that way, since normally the professor just presents you with decisions that have already been made.”

“A lot of the times college professors infantilize us adult college students by referring us to “children” or “kids.” When Professor Jafar allowed us to help design the course, she fought against the mainstream and gave us more agency vis-à-vis our education.”

“Being able to work directly with a professor designing the course added a great sense of mutual respect, which is something that is sorely lacking in many realms of education. It felt nice to know that a faculty member would be actively listening to my comments and suggestions, and thus inspired more confidence in me as a student.”

“Surprisingly, I really enjoyed self-designing this course. I usually like structures in classes, but this gave us independence and freedom to focus on subjects that we were most interested in.”

One of the themes that I have not discussed here separately, but that runs across all the themes mentioned, is students experiencing the class as meaningful. Eleven out of 18 students used the word meaning or meaningful specifically to describe their experience. However, it occurred most often in conjunction with one or more of the three themes discussed above. This suggests that engagement, personal accountability, and empowerment define and create a meaningful experience for students.

Reflections

On the basis of the student evaluations, our exercise in collaborative learning was a success. However, this success story does not come without some words of caution and things to consider for those who are interested in a more collaborative classroom.

Student Discomfort

I underestimated how attached students are to structure and how overwhelmed they would be on the first day. Had I understood this fear better, I would have spent more time on the first day, and perhaps even the first couple of weeks, assuaging their fears. This finding is consistent with previous research on critical pedagogy. Bickel (2010:97) writes that students find comfort “in being told what to do, what to write about, and how to write about it. Under such conditions, students discover a formulaic way to achieve desired grades.” Instructors interested in employing critical pedagogy and collaborative course design must prepare themselves for discomfort on their students’ parts. In my course, 4 out of 18 students in the SSF explicitly mentioned being “confused,” “overwhelmed,” or “scared” on the first day of class about the idea of collaboratively designing a course. It is likely that this number was underreported since every single student recommended this method (collaborative course design) by the end of the semester. Thus, it is possible that their initial concerns and fears had been laid to rest by the time I administered the SSF and it did not capture the level of anxiety students may have felt initially. Sample comments from students include the following:

“At the beginning, the idea of a student-designed course was frightening. On the first day of class when we were trying to decide topics, figure out assignments, and decide how much assignments would could towards our grades I was very overwhelmed. Although it was overwhelming to figure this out with this many students, I still think it was very productive and that we came up with an amazing course.”

“It was a little bit overwhelming and challenging to design our own assignments because I’ve never done that before and am so used to simply taking direction.”

“Designing the course was stressful for me personally, just because I do really like structure.”

In the ACE evaluation, 9 out of 18 strongly agreed and another 4 somewhat agreed that “the course requirements were clearly stated either on the syllabus or in class by the instructor.” Two students neither agreed nor disagreed, while 3 somewhat disagreed on this item. This item represents the largest number (3 out 18 students) of students choosing somewhat disagree as a response to any of the 12 items on the ACE. While this is not a large number, taken in context with the qualitative statements made by students, and previous research on critical pedagogy, it points to the dynamic nature of the syllabus and the concern it causes for some students.

Limits of Standardized Questionnaires

I believe the results of the above item in the ACE (which is a standardized questionnaire across the campus) also reveal the limits of standardized questionnaires for evaluating collaborative or innovative teaching. As some of my students confessed afterward, they felt that the questions on the ACE did not “apply” to this course. This, then, should serve as a word of caution to instructors thinking about pursuing collaborative course design. Most standardized evaluation instruments presume a certain style of pedagogy and professor–student interaction. This can make it difficult for students to figure out how to answer particular questions, and instructor scores may come out different than in their usual courses (see Sweet 1998). As Mauksch (1986:46) pointed out, standardized evaluations of teaching that rely on “measurable universalistic and replicable criteria” may lack the ability to capture key components of critical pedagogy. If the institution relies heavily on student evaluations for reappointment, promotion, and/or tenure, instructors should plan on supplementing the standardized questionnaire with their own instruments that better capture the class dynamics and are more appropriate for this pedagogical style.

Classroom Dynamics and Size

Designing a course with students requires patience. Sometimes, students have very different ideas for what they would like to do and how to do it, and the instructor needs to be able to facilitate consensus by posing questions to students that help them clarify their thinking and bridge gaps. Given this, it may be easier to try collaborative course design with students who have a similar background in terms of their previous course work. I found it helpful that all the students in my class had already taken an introductory-level course in either sociology or gender and women’s studies. Advanced undergraduate courses and graduate seminars where students already have a solid background in sociology would certainly make collaborative course design easier. The wealth of literature on collaborative teaching and learning and its application in methods and theory courses also suggests that more specialized courses might be easier to design collaboratively. My own experience suggests that it may be less stressful to teach such a course in one’s area of specialty (rather than a broad introductory course covering many topics) since the instructor is well aware of the current research in the field and thus can more easily accommodate student interests without having to become an “expert” on that topic in a short span of time.

Although I did not experience any problems with classroom management, previous research does point to this as a potential problem in collaborative classrooms (Kapitulik 2010; Sweet 1998). Chow et al. (2003:265) also disclose that in their own experiment, “the intersection of gender, race, and nationality, tended to silence some students.” Thus instructors need to be mindful that all voices are heard equally in their classrooms.

Control and Student Resistance

For those considering experimenting with collaborative course design, it helps to know that collaboration does not mean giving up control all together. While I gave up a significant amount of control, I also retained some. For example, I was responsible for student grades in this class. While that may contradict the principles behind collaborative course design and critical pedagogy (see Fobes and Kaufman 2008), I decided not to push for peer grading (the students did not ask for it) since I already had many things in flux. I also retained my role as professor in other aspects of the course, such as developing the comprehensive reading list or prodding the students when I felt their selections were insufficient or neglected a critical voice. I also facilitated discussion when there were more than two students interested in a particular theme for co-leading discussion. This is a collaborative classroom, not a student-run classroom, and professors need to retain part of their role and bring their knowledge and expertise to this collaborative relationship. As Fobes and Kaufman (2008:28) point out, “the goal is not to abdicate our responsibilities or to deny and conceal our knowledge but to create a genuine space for students to contribute to the curriculum.”

In fact, my experience revealed that students are very hesitant to take control of their education. For example, they did not choose to add any themes to the ones I had selected for the course, they turned to me for examples of assignments before making final decisions on the ones for the course (and did not stray very far from the kinds of assignments I use in other courses), and it was only after I asked them whether they wanted to keep their body log private that they decided to tweak the syllabus to make that change. The one place where they did actively incorporate new content was the student-run class blog, where they posted stories, videos, and online articles almost on a daily basis. The hesitance to take control is not surprising given the experiences of others who have used collaborative course design in their classrooms. Chow et al. (2003:270) discuss the socialization of students via the “hidden curriculum” into passive consumers of knowledge, so they may resist a reimagining of their roles as active cocreators, or worse, their parents might see it as a waste of money to not be lectured by a professor. Kapitulik (2010:142) also points to this resistance on the part of students in his classrooms when he reveals a conversation with a student who insisted “that our efforts at establishing a classroom where there is shared, democratic responsibility, is not feasible. She told us that democracy is not possible in the classroom because someone was needed to make sure the ‘major points’ of the articles are touched upon.” Student resistance and hesitance about collaboration reflect their long-standing socialization within the educational system. This socialization needs to be actively countered and these habits “un-learned” (Jafar 2015) in order for classrooms to become truly collaborative.

Time-intensive Teaching

Working collaboratively, as has been discussed in previous literature in this field, is time-consuming (Chow et al. 2003; Cordner et al. 2012; Fobes and Kaufman 2008; Hess 2008; Mauksch 1986; Mihans et al. 2008; Sweet 1998). Students may design very intensive assignments that require detailed feedback; instructors have to spend a considerable amount of time developing an up-to-date and complete reading list that the students choose their readings from; instructors can not have “lecture notes” prepared before the start of the semester. All this adds to the time commitment for such courses. Those interested in this method might wish to keep a running reflection on this course or an annotated syllabus that helps document the effort involved in this kind of pedagogy. This may be helpful not just personally but professionally, as some institutions may be very appreciative of these efforts and recognize the labor involved, while others may need more convincing. Because of the time-consuming nature of this kind of teaching, it is also useful to remember that one need not jump into a collaboratively designed course at once. Instead, instructors may try getting their feet wet by introducing elements of collaborative course design in particular segments of a course. This will allow them to gauge the success of each technique while also getting a better understanding of how much extra time such collaboration requires. My personal experience perhaps proved to be smoother and not as daunting in terms of extra time required as I already incorporate many elements of collaborative teaching and learning into my courses.

Given the above concerns, is it worth it for instructors to undertake collaborative course design? Judging from student feedback, it absolutely is. Every single one of the 18 students recommended this type of course design in the SSF. In the words of one student,

I would definitely recommend this method [collaborative course design] for other courses, especially in a department like Sociology. I do, however, think this could be an effective tool in other departments that are seen as less subjective as well, like the sciences. It is a concrete way to expand our minds by inviting in a multiplicity of thoughts and experiences.

Another student wrote, “I would most definitely recommend this teaching/learning style to other courses . . . as it speaks more directly to [the] purpose of a college education.”

From my own perspective, the experience of collaborative learning is also absolutely worth it. The relationships and classroom atmosphere that my students and I cultivated throughout the semester were based on a level of comfort that I have experienced only in senior seminars in which I have students who have taken prior courses with me and whom I have known since their first semester in college. This is especially significant given that I began the semester with only six students who had taken a prior course with me. One student put the matter succinctly (SSF): “This method of teaching this course allowed for a very trusting classroom environment filled with learning, laughter, and intensity.” I could not agree more.

Footnotes

Appendix

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank the editor, Stephen Sweet, and the anonymous reviewers for providing helpful feedback on an earlier draft of this article.

Editor’s Note

Reviewers for this manuscript were, in alphabetical order, Catherine Fobes, Peter Kaufman, Daphne Pedersen, and Jennifer Strangfeld.

Notes

Author Biography

Afshan Jafar is an associate professor of sociology at Connecticut College. Her research and teaching interests include gender, globalization, bodies/embodiments, and Islam. She is the author of Women’s NGOs in Pakistan (2011) and coeditor (with Erynn Masi de Casanova) of Bodies without Borders (2013) and Global Beauty, Local Bodies (2013). She was the winner of the 2014 Helen Mulvey Award for Teaching (Connecticut College) and the 2015 SWS Feminist Activism Award.

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