Active Student Participation
'Active student participation' (ASP) can be interpreted differently depending on the context and it is therefore difficult to capture the full meaning in one simple definition. It can be linked to concepts such as democracy, participation and engagement; activating teaching methods and inclusion; partnerships between teachers and students, co-creation and collaboration, as well as to improving the quality of teaching. As such, there are a variety of ways to work with active student participation.
Different definitions of Active student participation
- ''Students that support, empower, and challenge each other’s learning, as well as students as co-creators in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of higher education'' (Barrineau, Engström & Schnaas 2019:27)
- "It involves people from similar social groupings who are not professional teachers helping each other to learn and learning themselves by so doing" (Topping 2005:631)
- It could also mean that students in a mutually respectful partnership with the teacher, for example, (further)develop a course or create assignments or other course material, often for a course that they themselves have already gone ("students as partners", see Cook-Sather 2014 and Healy 2014).
Feel free to wach the introduction film on active student participation embedded below!
Video description: video that exemplifies what Active student participation can look like on campus.
Students and teachers have different roles in Higher education, but can work together to make education better and more exciting.
Active student participation can take various forms, one commonality these forms share is that students take a more active role in their education, often through partnerships with teachers. This can occur through a student or teacher's initiative.
Other ways of talking about Active student participation
Even thought we call it "Active student participation" at Uppsala University, internationally there is a broad spectrum of initiatives with different names. Check out a few of these examples in the list below:
- Students as partners
- Students as change agents
- Students as Learners and Teachers
- Students as co-creators
Engage with more international examples, or watch an interview with Alison Cook-Sather from Bryn Mawr College in the USA.
