Students as Partners in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This essay reflects upon lessons learning from engaging students as partners in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL). The project described here aimed to engage undergraduate students in SoTL research-based learning using the case study teaching method. Student partners were actively involved in synthesis of original case studies for teaching undergraduate biology, publishing and presenting this work to the public, and designing a research study to assess the effectiveness of case study teaching. Although largely successful, a number of challenges involving communication issues, time constraints, and project management were encountered. Based on the lessons learned from working through these challenges, tips are provided here that may be useful for in a variety of educational and research scenarios.