Students and faculty exchange ideas on what works in teaching and learning

OU Student Congress and the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) recently organized "Students as Partners: Student-Faculty Roundtables on What Works," focused on direct, small-group dialogue by bringing together 15 student leaders and 25 faculty and staff from across campus. Participants spent an hour moving through three 20-minute rounds, ensuring that faculty heard from a variety of student perspectives on the current classroom experience.

After coordinating an annual student-centered event for the past four years, CETL Associate Director Christina Moore and OU Student Congress' Lance Markowitz knew they wanted to bring more students into the conversation. ¨Over the last few years, I have worked incredibly hard to increase classroom engagement by elevating student voices in the learning process, through questionnaires, one-on-one meetings, panels and the creation of the Pedagogical Partnership Program," said Markowitz. "While this was our first time using the roundtable format, the modality allowed for smaller group sizes, which made the conversations far more dynamic and collaborative."

The discussions centered on AI in the classroom, grading and assessment, active learning, group work and inclusive teaching. Leading the discussion on AI, Xavier Iriarte, graduate assistant on graduate student success, found it enlightening to hear very different faculty perspectives in real time. "The conversation greatly expanded my perspective about artificial intelligence-reinforcing some of my worries about it while also highlighting its positive applications and exploring the undeniable reality of their presence in the academic and professional world."

In the concluding whole-group discussion, faculty and students shared their main takeaways and hopes for the future.

"I understand professors might be worried we are going to pile on the complaints at an event like this," shared undergrad and Pedagogical Partner student leader Dominique Hormillosa, generating laughs among students and faculty alike, "but conversations like this allow students like me to better understand and appreciate the hard work of teaching and all that you do for your students."

Faculty and students alike felt they could have kept discussing with their groups for hours, and that these conversations were key to navigating complex issues together, including AI. "For us as a university and a society to face today's issues and opportunities, we must be able to have good faith, curiosity-driven conversations with each other," said Iriarte. "Events like these offer an invaluable opportunity to exercise a muscle that is only going to become more important by the day."

"We will definitely do this again," said Moore. "For all the workshops and services we offer, conversations like this generate a unique learning opportunity and sense of purpose central to engaged teaching and learning."