Designing for Social Justice Partnerships: Co-creating across difference

Course description

This free 6-week online short course aims to promote approaches to design that welcome learner participation in the whole process of teaching and learning, starting with involving learners and other stakeholders in the co-design, facilitation, and research of teaching, learning, and assessment. It will explore the potential of including learner voice in the design, creation and quality assurance of courses, course content, informal and extra-curricular activities, or research activities, as a powerful remedy for injustice where previously marginalised and silenced voices can be heard. The course will discuss opportunities and challenges of co-design approaches, such as increased responsiveness to student needs, but also tensions between more participatory and co-creative approaches with institutional requirements and limited access to resources. Unpacking equity-oriented learning design approaches will help participants navigate power differentials in these contexts.

Target group

This course is aimed at a range of participants, including academic and professional staff and students in higher education across the three participating institutions (CPUT, UWC, UCT) interested in ‘co-creating across difference’ and for social justice. These interventions could be part of formal or informal teaching and learning, research, admin, student support, or other extracurricular activities, such as student leadership activities.

We will select a max. number of 50 participants (5-7 partner teams per institution) for the first iteration of the course (April - May 2024. Staff have to register with at least one student to form a student-staff partner team. Link to the registration form

By the project's end, participants can apply to join the Designing for Social Justice Partnership (DSJP) project and continue to implement and evaluate their co-designed interventions.

Learning outcomes

By the end of this short course participants should be able to:

1. Advocate for the potential for co-creation in learning design
2. Select a model of Student-Staff Partnerships (SSPs) appropriate for their context
3. Select a theoretical approach to SSPs framed by a concern for social justice appropriate to their context
4. Co-create/Co-design a SSP intervention for their context
5. Apply ethical practices in relation to SSPs and/or address ethical issues/dilemmas/tensions when designing for SSPs in their contexts
6. Apply skills to design, implement/facilitate and evaluate co-creation projects and processes in contexts of inequality
7. Recognise interpersonal dynamics, including those of privilege, power and intersectional identity, and integrate this recognition into interactions with others.

Mode of Instruction/Delivery:

• Online
• Learning platform: Moodle (hosted by CPUT) for access to course materials
• Weekly two-hour online webinars on Wednesdays from 16:00-18:00
• Independent co-design time in student-staff partnerships
• Institutional face-to-face workshops (optional)
• Total time commitment: app 25 hours for the short course

Benefits of Participating:

• Exposure to global models of Student/Staff Partnerships (SSPs) with a focus on the Global South
• Understanding different theoretical approaches to SSPs in the context of social justice
• Support in co-creating and co-designing SSPs/interventions
• Exploration of ethical issues when designing for SSPs in unequal contexts
• Development of facilitation skills for designing, implementing, and evaluating co-creation projects in contexts of inequality
• Potential engagement in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL) projects on DSJP interventions
• Potential inclusion in the Designing for Social Justice Partnership (DSJP) Programme collaborative project

Course dates

Link to the registration form (deadline for registration: 20th March 2024).