This post takes a deep dive into ways professors can collaborate with their students in designing their courses topic, explaining the benefits to students and professors from giving students a greater role and offering guidance to professors inclined to invite their students to be collaborators in the design and teaching of their classes.

Why Involve Students at All?

The most significant benefits are student buy-in and motivation. Students who have a role in setting course design policies are more likely to buy in and support policies into which they have had input. For example, if students have worked with their professor to create principles for discussion and disagreement, they are more likely to help enforce those policies and implement, without objection, feedback if they have violated those policies. Similarly, if students have worked with the professor to construct consequences for late papers, they are more likely to turn their work in time or to accept those consequences. 

Studies suggest that students who have a role in setting course expectations will be more motivated. All people, including but not limited to students, are more motivated when they have a greater sense of autonomy. Likewise, students who feel trusted and empowered by their teachers are more willing to do the hard work necessary to learn.

Finally, it is much harder for students to object to policies they helped create, making it easier for their professors to enforce those policies.

When and When Not to Collaborate   

Not every facet of a course is properly the subject of student-professor collaboration. I do not collaborate with students in assigning grades, of course. I also take responsibility for making sure the most important topics in my courses are covered, for my attendance rules (which are governed by a faculty policy at my law school), and for how much of the class time I use (all of it!). 

However, there are many aspects of my courses into which I do invite student input. I invite my students to be collaborators in designing my course assessments, i.e., the number, relative weight, and form of my assessments; in establishing expectations for productive disagreement; in setting late paper consequences; in choosing some of the potential topics and sub-topics of the course; in providing feedback on new teaching methods and assignments; and in identifying possible teaching methods to use over the course of the semester.

A professor can both invite students to collaborate and set boundaries on the collaboration. When I ask for student input into the number and weight of assessments, I disclose my law school’s policies for such matters. When I invite student input into course topics and sub-topics, I start with the topics I feel I must cover and allow them to choose among the remaining topics I might cover. When I ask students for their input and requests regarding my teaching, I make it clear that I am not willing to make lecturing my primary method of instruction. I also let them know that, while I will try to use every technique for which a significant number of students ask, I am convinced that studies show that there is value in using a variety of different teaching techniques and am ultimately responsible for choosing the best teaching techniques to accomplish my course learning objectives. In short, student collaboration is not the same as student control.Given the benefits of student course design collaborations, it is worth a try.