Co-creating curriculum to support co-op: a case for engaging both partners and students

Co-creating curriculum is the subject of recent academic exploration with a tendency to focus on students as partners in unit design and industry consultation for program development (see for example, Bovill, 2014; Cook-Sather, Des-Ogugua, & Bahti, 2018; and Jones, 2010). In the context of work-integrated learning, we argue it is important to involve both partners and students in program and unit development to create content that is both relevant to the changing nature of work and engaging for students. Despite the importance of curriculum co-creation, time and other resource limitations can be a barrier to implementation. We build on an existing model of student engagement, the pedagogical partnership framework, by considering the role industry and community partners may play (Healey, Flint, & Harrington, 2014). We then explore the current practice and emerging plans to develop two professional practice units for a cooperative education program. Our aim is to identify and test sustainable mechanisms for engaging partners and students in curriculum co-creation. Industry partners offer feedback on topics and provide content for cases and role plays, while students contribute organically through learning and teaching activities designed to integrate their experiences in the workplace through classroom-based co-creation (Cook-Sather et al., 2018).