Working as Partners : Course Development by a Student–Teacher Team

A first-year undergraduate course at Uppsala University has been redesigned in a process exploring differentlevels of student participation. In the first part of the project, the student voice was heard through interviewsfocusing on the role of the course in the degree program. In the second part, a student-teacher team wasformed to develop course curriculum and teaching material in partnership. Among the implemented changeswere new seminars focusing on conceptual understanding, redesign of all lectures to include active studentparticipation, and a change of the course literature. The redesigned course significantly increased studentsatisfaction compared to previous years. Important success factors were involvement of the studentorganization to promote the project, institutional support, early selection of concrete development tasks, andallowing team members to choose what they wanted to develop according to their own expertise.