Fostering Partnerships: Lessons from a Collaborative Course Design Learning Community

As partnerships between educators and learners become more common in teaching and learning in higher education, partners find themselves considering how to foster effective collaborations. Qualitative data for this study were drawn from the experiences of educators and learners who were part of a university learning community in which they engaged in the collaborative course redesign process to collaboratively design a course. Results revealed key facilitators of partnership work, finding communication, relationships, and mutuality as essential to promoting partnership success. A new model is presented which expands these factors, offering more distinct characteristics of successful educator-learner partnerships. With these specific aspects in mind, partners are given the opportunity to reflect on how they will enter into their partnerships while feeling better equipped to navigate anticipated challenges.