A student–staff partnership approach to course enhancement: Principles for enabling dialogue through repurposing subject-specific materials and metaphors

Mechanisms for listening and responding to students need to offer space for diverse voices and meaningful dialogue for greater student–staff partnership. This study explores the beneficial impacts and challenges of using creative pedagogical methods to support rich dialogue for module evaluation. A variety of evaluation activities were embedded throughout a postgraduate module, using creative materials and metaphorical reflective questions. Whilst there are logistical and perceptive barriers to adopting creative approaches, this paper demonstrates the beneficial impacts on both students’ and staffs’ experiences of learning and teaching, and the culture of partnership it develops. Deeper reflection and evaluation from students enabled inclusive student–staff dialogue. More nuanced and richer feedback allowed staff a responsive approach to module design, empowering the students and cultivating trusting student–staff relationships. Supporting the transferability of this practice across non-arts disciplines, principles for using discipline-specific materials and metaphors, for triggering reflection and evaluation are proposed.