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In the first blog of a two-part series, we explored how University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver) and University of New Mexico (UNM) demonstrated their commitment to partnering with students and communicating information and opportunities with transparency. With these foundations firmly in place at each respective institution, a culture of improvement with students began to take shape.

The foundations of coproduction (see Figure 1) help create effective and sustainable structures for deeper partnerships with student leaders. In this second part of the series, we will illustrate how the subsequent foundations of coproduction helped establish effective, sustainable programs and practices for improving the student experience at both CU Denver and UNM. These foundations of coproduction build upon each other to create a deep, sustainable practice of improvement.  Each of their stories provide key lessons for others who want to engage in coproduction to improve student experience.

1. Commit to partnering with students
2. Communicate information and opportunities with transparency
3. Consult students as experts
4. Cultivate shared language, approach, and agreements
5. Collaborate, centering on equal opportunities and power with faculty and students

Consult with students as experts

Students have rich and valuable perspectives to share about how to best support and engage other students. Universities often seek to build their capacity to truly listen to students and incorporate feedback about the support students need, but may not know how to create the systems that support this culture of partnership. When campuses elevate the voices of students, they can help inform priorities and build a practice of authentic coproduction.

University of Colorado Denver: Inclusive Excellence Interns

Drs. Laurel Hartley and Amanda Beyer-Purvis, inspired by the partnerships happening between students and faculty through the Learning Assistants (LA) program, saw an opportunity to encourage the power of student-led improvement within an entire department. In Fall 2020, they piloted a student-led program in the biology department, hiring five undergraduate students as Inclusive Excellence Interns. These students were tasked to improve the student experience in introductory biology and carried out their project with guidance from faculty advisors only when needed.

Interns initiated all meetings and determined when they wanted feedback, support, or advice. Together, the interns decided that creating a sense of community among incoming first-year students was the most meaningful way to help students find support, persist, and succeed in and beyond their introductory biology course. So, they developed a student-centered “Welcome to Biology” webpage that included resources and community forums for all intro biology students. The interns acted as moderators, answering questions, and providing community-building opportunities such as games, peer interactions, and community nights that developed a sense of community for students who were not experiencing the traditional peer connections on campus.

The interns found this to be a priority project because incoming first year students would be completely remote. Having a centralized Canvas (CU Denver’s student learning management platform) shell that served as an academic, social, and FAQ resource was something they considered key to improving equitable outcomes for first year remote learning.

“I think that’s the biggest thing that we worked on…was just creating this kind of network, this little hub for all students to feel included and be able to have a safe place to go and communicate with each other,” says Mike Swing, a fourth-year student who served as a LA and Inclusive Excellence Intern.

University of New Mexico: Supporting the Whole Student

Peer Learning Facilitators (PLFs) are assigned to classes of at least 50 students, with a focus on larger classes; the goal is to have at least one PLF for every 50 students, if possible. In addition to PLFs, UNM also offers virtual student learning support though Online Learning Assistants (OLAs) who, much like PLFs, work with both faculty and student, only fully remotely. In the last year UNM had 38 PLFs supporting 43 courses which included 2,700 students.

PLFs support equity in courses with large class sizes in a variety of ways. PLFs increase access to the instructional team both during and outside class time, assist instructors in using active learning strategies shown to positively impact success for diverse groups of students, and serve as “near-peer” mentors who normalize personal and academic challenges to encourage help-seeking behaviors. PLFs are key to boosting equitable learning outcomes for students in general education courses.

“I think PLFs assist with a lot more than just material; they encourage students to be confident and help with their self-efficacy,” says Nell Johnson, an alum of UNM and former OLA for Dr. Kimran Buckholz. “We definitely are an emotionally supportive component of the class which is super important for persistence in STEM classes.”

Dr. Buckholz adds: “I can confirm that [students] often say ‘I really appreciated being taught by someone who already took the class.’ It’s a very different experience than being taught by graduate TAs. We have the opportunity to bring in students who actually took the class and understand what the most difficult concepts are and the anxiety and stress that students go through. Graduate TAs and professors cannot understand this as meaningfully as PLFs can.”

Cultivate shared language, approach, and agreements

Cultivating partnership includes building capacity, developing a shared language and approach, and policies and agreements for working with students. Creating training opportunities and compensation for work is critical. Fair compensation for students’ time and expertise helps to ensure more equitable access to leadership opportunities and representation of student voices, since many students are balancing work and school requirements and are unable to volunteer for unpaid activities. This requires that universities allocate budgets and resources to building student leadership opportunities.

University of Denver Colorado

The five students recruited as Inclusive Excellent Interns had previously served as Learning Assistants which helped build upon their previous teaching training and experience. Still, to prepare for this new role, students participated in a free Coursera course on inclusive leadership to encourage their voice and agency to lead as students. The course emphasized that people can lead from any place, helping students find their lever of power from any position.

Given the impact Learning Assistants and Inclusive Excellent Interns have on the learning environment, CU Denver ensures these roles are accessible to many students. For example, the LA role is a paid position. LAs are funded by the university’s budget, not by tuition or fees, at the Denver minimum wage of approximately $16/hour for 9 hours/week. CU Denver hires 80-100 LAs per semester to facilitate learning in lecture and lab courses in biology, chemistry, math, and physics. Inclusive Excellence interns worked on average five hours per week and earned $16/hr. Funding was provided through HHMI (Howard Hughes Medical Institute).

Additionally, all CU Denver LAs take a 2-credit course to prepare them for the leadership positions and offers a place to learn from other LAs. CU Denver pays all or part of the tuition for the training course, because “paying people a good wage is important,” says Dr. Laurel Hartley. “This way, there isn’t a barrier to participation.”

Investing in student leadership is crucial to positioning students as equal partners in driving improvement efforts. Beck Harrott, an alum of CU Denver, former LA, and current medical student saw the LA role directly influence the class structure. “I helped initiate a pilot with a professor where we introduced concept maps to a physiology course. The integration was slow; we wanted to be sure we were adding content that helped clarify concepts student often struggled with. When classes moved to fully remote, we transitioned the concepts maps online. Given the positive feedback we received from students and the need to adapt to online learning, we decided to bring the concepts maps to a general biology course and implemented them immediately. Though it was difficult to restructure traditional lecture courses, the improvement we saw in student grades told us our efforts made an impact.”

University of New Mexico

To prepare students for the leadership and teaching required for their role, all PLFs enroll in a 3-credit EDPY (Educational Psychology) class called “Facilitating College Learning.” This class, led by Dr. Carolyn Hushman, is a co-learning space, a place to learn and share experiences among other students navigating similar challenges and successes. Specifically, students study learning theories in education and gain practical strategies they can immediately use in their courses. Taken together, this seminar is designed to build a community of practice where students and faculty are both learners and teachers.

PLFs are paid for hours spent in class and for time supporting students outside of class. They typically work around 10 hours per week at $12/hr. PLF salaries are paid through university fees.

PLFs report the experience enhancing their communication skills and helping them see the student community more positively. They also report the EDPY course being instrumental to their success. To support students in this role, they also received a once-a-week training with all PLFs about topics including networking, communal group work and professional development, e.g., resume/CV presentations.

Lyndsey Englemann, student and current PLF at UNM, used the knowledge and training she received to influence the classroom learning environment, and felt comfortable taking this initiative with the support of her faculty lead. “Once I received an email from a student who was going to class but didn’t understand the material. They felt comfortable enough to tell me they were too afraid to ask questions in class. I knew this wasn’t a unique experience, and I wanted to find a way to help more students. So, I spoke to my faculty lead and recommended we reserve time at the beginning of class to share challenges and successes. We agreed this would give students time to reflect on their experiences and normalize not understanding the course content on the first try.

Collaborate, centering on equal opportunities and power between faculty and students

Authentic collaboration distributes leadership in a way that creates equal opportunities for students to lead and sustain authentic partnerships. This requires evaluating hierarchies and power dynamics and creating opportunities where imbalances of power are minimized. This way, all collaborators have equal opportunity to engage in the improvement process.

University of Colorado Denver

Faculty understood they needed new models for the faculty-student relationship to build authentic partnership with students.  To truly engage in the coproduction process, Dr. Hartley wanted “LAs that can say what needs to be said and talk as colleagues with faculty. [We have to] set up an environment where we can listen to the LAs and give them agency to do what they need to do.”

One of the ways faculty and students built this collaborative environment is through weekly one-on-one meetings to prepare for in-class instruction. Mike Swing explains: “We’re able to meet with our faculty every week and have important discussions about what went well, and what didn’t. We’re able to debrief every single week and have conversations that are meaningful with our students about what’s going well, that’s really crucial for us and the role we play in student learning.”

University of New Mexico

The majority of instructors (84%) report not being able to use strategies for active learning that are essential for student engagement during class without the support of the PLFs. The PLF is important in lowering the student-to-instructor ratios, increasing the opportunity for more students to receive personalized instruction and feedback in the classroom.

“I think the biggest difference here at UNM is that our PLFs are part of that instructional team, that they are meeting with the instructor of the course. It’s an opportunity for them to say, ‘yeah, I struggled with this unit, can I ask you a few questions before I go out there and try to help others,’” Dr. Hushman shares. ”It’s a partnership between the instructor as well as the PLF student. And I’m not aware of other programs on campus that are bringing the instructor to the table in quite the same way.”

“Learning assistants are like equalizers, because they’re in the middle and help break down power dynamics,” said Nell Johnson. “We learn from students what professors might not see happening in the classroom, and we can then go to professors and say what we heard from students. We work with professors to make sure changes are made based on what students say they need.”

Ready to Coproduce More Equitable Outcomes?

Learn more about how to create opportunities for coproduction in your context with a free resource, Foundations for Authentic Coproduction from Shift—an SEP learning partner. It lays out a framework for coproduction that goes over the five foundations mentioned here, including tips and tools for each foundation.

Authentic coproduction with students, when done with intention, prioritizes their voices and experiences. This means learning from and connecting with a diverse array of students. Shift’s free video resource Building a Culture of Empathy & Capacity for Change goes more into how to do this.

The SEP has a catalog of learning from university and learning partners in its SEP Resource Hub. These resources are designed primarily for campus leadership, administrators, and staff to utilize innovative, evidence-based practices in their daily work, including ways to engage faculty to improve student experience in the classroom.

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Authors:

Shift:

• Theresa Todd, Improvement Advisor
• Karen Zeribi, Founder and Chief Visionary

University of Colorado Denver:

• Beckston Harrott, Alum, Department of Biology
• Mike Swing, Student, Department of Biology
• Amanda Beyer-Purvis, Former Project Manager, Office of Inclusive Excellence in STEM
• Laurel Hartley, Associate Professor, Integrative Biology

University of New Mexico:

• Avery Bachman-Rhodes, Alum, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program
• Lyndsey Engelmann, Student, Department of Biology
• Nell Johnson, Alum, Department of English Language and Literature
• Kimran Buckholz, Principal Lecturer III, Department of Biology
• Carolyn Hushman, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology
• Sushilla Knottenbelt, Principal Lecturer III, Department of Chemistry

The authors wish to thank the following for their contributions to this blog series: Shay Bluemer-Miroite, Director of Programs at Shift for her insights and suggestions; Gaby España and Sara Veltkamp of Minerva Strategies, for facilitating author interviews and their significant input shaping the content.

Universities are where students learn, grow, build relationships, and tackle both academic and personal challenges. To be successful, students must be supported by their institutions through accessible learning and leadership opportunities, responsive systems, and inclusive policies. Ultimately, students must feel like they belong and can thrive both academically and personally.

A sense of belonging is crucial. It affects retention and academic achievement, especially for students from structurally disadvantaged or historically underrepresented groups. Given the importance of the student experience on long-term success, universities can benefit from implementing a culture of improvement where students are not only listened to but partnered with to implement effective systemic change.

The Student Experience Project (SEP) aims to improve the student experience for and with students through coproduction. Coproduction is a term used in systems improvement with the following key tenets: Everyone within a system is interconnected and has a role to play in improving it; those most affected by a system are often best positioned to redesign or improve it, and; the greatest opportunity for more equitable outcomes is when those affected by the system (e.g., students) combine efforts with those who have professional expertise (e.g., faculty) (see Figure 1).

Developing authentic coproduction at higher education institutions includes creating opportunities for students to build agency and leadership as equal partners with faculty and others charged to serve students.

The SEP, a collaborative effort between six university partners[1] and seven national learning partners[2], worked to integrate student voice, experience, and perspective within the national network and at each participating university. Examples include surveys, focus groups, and student panels. All universities also participated in a student co-led initiative,  We Belong in College. This social media campaign—in partnership with GetSchooled—gathered students’ rich contributions about why they belonged in college and shared their unique insights. These combined efforts to elevate student voice played an essential role in motivating and directing the efforts of the SEP.

Two SEP university partners—University of New Mexico (UNM) and University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver)—explored the power of student leadership even further. Student leaders worked with their teams to help plan, implement, study, and act upon new strategies for improving both the student and instructor experience. At both institutions, faculty and students partnered to improve the student experience in large, introductory STEM courses. Research shows that it is within these courses—often during their first year—that students face incredible challenges with belonging, building a growth mindset, and knowing how to get the support they need for academic success.

These universities demonstrate the foundations of coproduction; all necessary elements for building authentic partnerships with students. Shift, SEP Learning Partner and expert in systems improvement, include five foundations of coproduction applied to higher education (Figure 2):

1. Commit to partnering with students
2. Communicate information and opportunities with transparency
3. Consult students as experts
4. Cultivate shared language, approach, and agreements
5. Collaborate centered on equal opportunities and power with faculty and students

Shift’s five foundations of coproduction build upon each other to create an authentic practice of organizational improvement. In this first of a two-part series, we explore how CU Denver and UNM demonstrated their commitment to partnering with students and communicating information and opportunities with transparency. While both excelled, they engaged in these foundations differently based on the differences in their programs. With these foundations firmly in place at each respective institution, a culture of improvement began to take shape.

In the second part of this series, we illustrate how the subsequent foundations of coproduction helped establish effective, sustainable programs and practices for improving the student experience at both CU Denver and UNM. Each of their stories provide key lessons for others who want to engage in coproduction to improve student experience.

Commit to partnering with students

For authentic coproduction to occur within institutions of higher education, faculty and campus leadership must first commit to partnering with students and elevating the value of their diverse, unique perspectives.

At the core of SEP is a commitment to transforming the college student experience and creating equitable learning environments through innovative, evidence-based practices to increase degree attainment. Both participating universities support efforts that realize this mission through their peer-support initiatives.

University of Colorado Denver: Learning Assistants

Since 2012, undergraduate Learning Assistants (LAs) at CU Denver have supported students as they navigate STEM courses. Among the goals of the LA program is to join faculty as part of the instruction team. LAs engage with students inside and outside the classroom and meet weekly with the instructor to make lesson plans.

This commitment to partnership is inherent in the way faculty value student input and leadership. “Without students, what really would a university be? Not having student agency and input through back-and-forth conversations, it just doesn’t make sense,” says Dr. Laurel Hartley, STEM lead for the SEP team and co-director of the Learning Assistant program.  “I wouldn’t be able to operate in or understand a university where we didn’t talk with students and bring them into what it means to learn and what it means to shape the environment that [they’re] in.”

University of New Mexico: Peer Learning Facilitators

Peer Learning Facilitators (PLFs) are undergraduate students who are invited to join instructional teams in courses where they have previously been successful due to their help-seeking behaviors. Help-seeking behaviors include asking questions during and after class and attending student drop-in hours.

The PLF program was first introduced in 2010 through a grant-funded initiative and was later terminated when the funding ended. Dr. Sushilla Knottenbelt, a faculty lead of the UNM SEP team, advocated for its return and in Fall 2020, the program restarted with its first cohort, including Dr. Knottenbelt, along with Dr. Carolyn Hushman and Dr. Kimran Buckholz—among other faculty and instructors.

For the dedicated faculty who advocated for the return of the PLF program, a commitment to student-faculty partnership was too important to retire. This partnership was important not only for students, but for faculty, too.

“It’s a win-win strategy,” says Dr. Kimran Buckholz. “I hope that I never have to teach without PLFs. They are an amazing team of collaborators.”

Communicate information and opportunities with transparency

To ensure equitable outcomes through coproduction, communication must be multifaceted and inclusive to build authentic relationships with those most affected by a system. This includes sharing accessible information, creating space for questions, detailing priorities, and listening. This means co-creating a vision of successful partnership that engages new champions.

University of Colorado Denver

The Learning Assistant program works to improve not only student achievement, but also student relationships and sense of belonging. “LAs are a big part of the inclusivity mission,” says Dr. Laurel Hartley. “This is important in large first-year classes where faculty can’t get to know everyone—the Learning Assistants help bring insight to the faculty members.”

Beck Harrott, an alum of CU Denver, former LA, and current medical student points out that “the role is not a ‘one shoe fits all’ model.”  LAs helped with classes in a variety of ways—in and outside of the classroom—and are given a lot of flexibility to help students, which he found helpful. While working as an LA, Beck recounts one time where a student in the process of a gender transition mentioned they didn’t feel comfortable working in a group.

Beck, understanding that his role required advocating for his peers and building a culture where all students feel included, felt comfortable sharing this with the course instructor.  “[B]eing able to just like say, ‘Hey, I know you really want these small groups, but I don’t think this person is going to be able to learn or even show up to class if they’re forced to be in a group.’ Listening to me, the professor was able to make accommodations. And none of the other students really knew or it wasn’t a big deal. But being able to slide that in there was super helpful.”

University of New Mexico

PLFs are recruited in many ways—recommendations can come from faculty, instructors, and teaching assistants; from other PLFs; and from appeals to students through student organizations and campus communication channels. The only criterion for prospective PLFs is that they must have demonstrated academic success in the course they want to support (typically “B” or better).

Dr. Buckholz’s PLFs are a daily presence in her classes. She reminds students to attend PLF help sessions and integrates PLFs as mentors and leaders into her active learning activities in lecture. Students are inspired to become PLFs and reach out to Dr. Buckholz to join her team. Each semester, Dr. Buckholz also solicits recommendations from her current team of PLFs. “One of the things I’ve struggled with is our team is female-biased and it’s hard to recruit males and non-binary students, although our team has included all of these students over the years.” Dr. Buckholz maintains an on-going list of potential PLFs to reach out to—those who she knows or have been recommended by current PLFs. “I make efforts to reach out to a variety of students, both by gender and ethnicity.”

These efforts must be transparent, so students are aware of the opportunities available to them and that their expertise is essential and desired by faculty. It establishes students as important partners in transforming the student experience. Avery Bachman-Rhodes, a former PLF and current employee at UNM, recalls the impact of having a faculty member recognize her potential and personally seek her out for a leadership role. “I was ecstatic to be invited by Dr. Buckholz to apply as a PLF. I felt recognized as having the potential to be an effective part of creating a productive and inclusive learning environment for my peers.”

Read how UNM and CU Denver continued their commitment to establishing effective, sustainable improvement with students in the second blog post in this series on Authentic Coproduction in Action.

Ready to Coproduce More Equitable Outcomes?

Learn more about how to create opportunities for coproduction in your context with a free resource, Foundations for Authentic Coproduction from Shift—an SEP learning partner. It lays out a framework for coproduction that goes over the five foundations mentioned here, including tips and tools for each foundation.

Authentic coproduction with students, when done with intention, prioritizes their voices and experiences. This means learning from and connecting with a diverse array of students. Shift’s free video resource Building a Culture of Empathy & Capacity for Change goes more into how to do this.

The SEP has a catalog of learning from university and learning partners in its SEP Resource Hub. These resources are designed primarily for campus leadership, administrators, and staff to utilize innovative, evidence-based practices in their daily work, including ways to engage faculty to improve student experience in the classroom.

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Authors:

Shift:

• Theresa Todd, Improvement Advisor
• Karen Zeribi, Founder and Chief Visionary

University of Colorado Denver:

• Beckston Harrott, Alum, Department of Biology
• Mike Swing, Student, Department of Biology
• Amanda Beyer-Purvis, Former Project Manager, Office of Inclusive Excellence in STEM
• Laurel Hartley, Associate Professor, Integrative Biology

University of New Mexico:

• Avery Bachman-Rhodes, Alum, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program
• Lyndsey Engelmann, Student, Department of Biology
• Nell Johnson, Alum, Department of English Language and Literature
• Kimran Buckholz, Principal Lecturer III, Department of Biology
• Carolyn Hushman, Associate Professor of Educational Psychology
• Sushilla Knottenbelt, Principal Lecturer III, Department of Chemistry

The authors wish to thank the following for their contributions to this blog series: Shay Bluemer-Miroite, Director of Programs at Shift for her insights and suggestions; Gaby España and Sara Veltkamp of Minerva Strategies, for facilitating author interviews and their significant input shaping the content.

[1] University of Toledo, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, University of Colorado Denver, Portland State University, University of New Mexico, Colorado State University

[2] Shift, Association of Public Land Grant Universities, Coalition of Urban Serving Universities, College Transition Collaborative, PERTS, EducationCounsel, funded by the Raikes Foundation