The Students as Partners Program (SaPP) provides funding for undergraduate students to partner with instructors, librarians and teaching support staff on course design projects.
Fully funded by Teaching and Learning Services (TLS), SaPP offers students paid hands-on work experience and provides a meaningful opportunity to develop important academic and transferable skills. Partnering with students to develop the teaching and learning environment also helps to foster student-centered learning. The program seeks to engage students in different projects and activities, including, but not limited to:
- Co-designing and contributing to the development of curriculum
- Researching, sourcing and organizing course materials, media, and appropriate learning resources
- Helping design course materials, such as assessments, Brightspace sites and multimedia tools
- Formatting and preparing assessments
- Incorporating educational technologies, whether online or face-to-face
- Enhancing the use and understanding of assessment criteria
- Working on a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) project
Get a glimpse into the world of hands-on learning – hear from past participants. You can also learn more about engaging students as partners in the literature samples below.
Eligibility
All faculty, instructors, contract instructors, librarians and teaching support staff working on relevant teaching projects are eligible to participate in the Students as Partners Program.
The program is restricted to part-time or full-time undergraduate students enrolled and continuing in a Carleton program. Students must remain in good academic standing throughout the duration of the program and must not be completing a co-op work term simultaneously. Students can only participate in one SaPP or I-CUREUS project per term.
Due to funding limitations, there is a limit of one student per staff member and one student per project. In the event that a project requires an additional student partner, please discuss with us before applying.
Please note: The projects funded through SaPP are not meant to resemble a teaching assistant or simply to alleviate instructor/librarian/teaching support staff workload. The work must be completed prior to the beginning of the course.
Funding
TLS will fund the student via a one-time bursary payment of up to $2096 (akin to 130 hours of work at $15.50 + 4% vacation pay). The work should be completed within one academic term.
Selection Criteria
Faculty members, instructors, contract instructors, librarians and teaching support staff, along with a student partner, should jointly complete the online application form below. Proposals will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
- The strength of the partnership between the instructor/librarian/teaching support staff member and the student (is the student considered as collaborator and partner?)
- The scope and appropriateness of the project/initiative being proposed
- The opportunities for learning by both the instructor/librarian/teaching support staff member and student
- How the partners intend to communicate their work (via events organized by TLS, blog posts, social media, reports, etc.)
A committee chaired by the Associate Vice-President (Teaching and Learning) will review proposals and make selections based on above criteria.
Sharing Your Work
The funded SaPP projects will not be considered complete until students share their experience with the teaching community. There are multiple ways that students can meet this requirement, including:
- Sharing at the Students as Partners Showcase
- Submitting a SoTL output for publication
- Writing a blog post
- Sharing on social media
If you have another idea for reporting on the partnership, please contact us for approval.
Applying for the Program
Instructors, librarians and teaching support staff members interested in this program are encouraged to identify an undergraduate student they can collaborate with. This may be a student who has successfully completed a course they’ve taught, a student they’ve worked with before or a student who has expressed interest in collaborating with them. TLS will not vet or select student partners.
If you are a student interested in participating in SaPP, speak with your professors to discuss your interest and options, or see your department’s administrators, chair or dean for further information.
Both partners are responsible for reviewing the Acknowledgment of Understanding and jointly completing the online application form.
Once the student partner has been selected, the standard of work should be established in partnership between the staff member and the student to outline the responsibilities and scope of the collaboration.
For more information, please see our FAQ below or email tls@carleton.ca.
Applications for Summer 2023 are now open!