Partnership, co-creation, transformation

Abstract

This case study discusses how the experience of co-creating a project in English language teacher education opened opportunities for transformative learning in a student-staff partnership between a teacher-researcher (TR) and two student assistants (SAs) at an Austrian university. The project was not a designated students as partners (SaP) initiative in which students are seen as equal contributors; however, it was implicitly designated as a learning opportunity for students by the university, albeit without any clear guidelines for implementation. This lack of direction allowed a model of student-staff co-creation to evolve organically. Data for this case study were collected in a retrospective reflection session. Through data coding and analysis, contextual factors that facilitated transformative learning for both the SAs and the TR were identified. These factors can now be taken into consideration by the TR in future project work with SAs and may also be of interest to staff working in similar contexts.