Co-creation in learning and teaching: The case for a whole-class approach in higher education

There is a wide range of activity in the higher education sector labelled 'students as partners' and ‘co-creation in learning and teaching’. Several frameworks have been proposed to map and categorise existing partnership and co-creation roles, activities, research and practice. In this paper, I synthesise some of these frameworks to illustrate how the predominant focus in the international literature has been on partnership projects that select small groups of often already super-engaged or privileged students to participate. In contrast, co-creation in learning and teaching, embedded within the curriculum and involving a whole class of students, has been largely overlooked. I explore the potential of co-creating learning and teaching with a whole class of students (including face-to-face, blended and online settings, and including lectures, tutorials, laboratories and other methods of teaching), in other words, it is co-creation integral to students' programmes and courses of study. I argue that whole-class approaches to co-creation may be inherently more inclusive of students than other approaches to co-creation and that this approach both relies upon, and contributes towards, building positive relationships between staff and students, and between students and students. I explore some of the challenges of whole class co-creation in learning and teaching and I also argue that the benefits suggest this is currently an under-utilised and researched approach internationally.