Pedagogical partnership in higher education institutions: expediency and capabilities

The article deals with the issues related to pedagogical partnership in higher education institutions. The author analyses its essence, the reason for its popularity in a number of recent publications and educational directives. The article attempts: 1) to trace the origin of «pedagogical partnership» in Ukraine’s higher education pedagogy; 2) to analyse its advantages and pitfalls; 3) to specify the way partnership is implemented at Ukraine’s higher education institutions. The observations of classroom partnership are being shared. Based on the idea of education as an active process, learning is carried out jointly with the learners, not for them, the development of students’ ability to cooperate is one of the integral tasks of higher education, declared in a number of domestic and international educational agendas (National Qualifications Framework, 21st Century Skills). Although the popularity of pedagogical partnership rose at the beginning of the 21st century, its understanding and practice have been taking place throughout the entire history of the world pedagogy. The Socratic teaching method, mentor-student interaction in Sparta, the experience of the Cossack-Dzhura (a student-squire, who assisted a foreman in Zaporiz’ka Sich in the ХVI – XVIII centuries) patronage in Ukraine Sich, the interaction between a teacher and students embodied by renowned educators (Y. Korchak, P. Freire, J. Dewey, A. Makarenko, V. Sukhomlynskyi, V. Kilpatrick, J. Piaget, et al.) are only some well-known examples of pedagogical partnership implemented at different times. In domestic pedagogy, the roots of the "pedagogical partnership" trace back to 1960s. Then, it was used as the term “pedagogical cooperation”, relating mainly to schooling. Its idea was grounded on humanistic psychology principles (K. Rogers, G. Allport, L. Vygotsky, V. Myasishchev) – on comprehending students’ unique personality, viewing them as active acquirers of knowledge. With globalisation changes, Ukraine's accession to the Bologna Process, education goals and pedagogical terminology have been synchronised to some extent. The former term «pedagogical cooperation» has transformed into «pedagogical partnership», extrapolating into higher education domain. Its new interpretation focusses on learning as an ongoing process, on teacher-and-students’ personal and professional mastering, their mutual responsibility for shaping learning. The analysis of publications enables us to assert that “pedagogical partnership” is used interchangeably with a number of other concepts (cooperative, active, interactive learning). That leads to blurred understanding of its very form (pedagogical partnership is defined as interaction, relations, learning technology, method). Despite a long list of arguments in favour of pedagogical partnership mentioned in current publications, the researchers don’t conceal the risks and prime reasons for teacher-students cooperation failures. Among them there are these: different mindsets of a teacher and a learner which become apparent over time; teacher’/students’ discomfort/anxiety caused by dynamic in class changes; manifestation of dominance in the group, alienation of passive students, etc.; a strong impact of the pedagogical tradition (the problem of students’ initiative trust is sometimes caused by the resistant attitude of teachers themselves, who consider partnership to be abstract, radical, time-consuming in terms of class preparation, unproductive learning approach from the viewpoint of ensuring the quality of education. Ukrainian universities, similarly to overseas universities, implement diverse partnership-based practices. Traditionally pedagogical partnership is widely employed in classes and during extracurricular activities; faculty supervise the process of students’ term paper writing; students, on the other hand, are engaged as feedback providers (for example, in various types of questionnaires) to ensure the quality of education. What differs Ukrainian universities from their American and EU counterparts is the instructional-based approach to partnership, this approach being opposed to the administrative command-based approach in Ukrainian institutions of higher education. It is vividly illustrated by “group supervisor’s/tutor’s” management and course enrollment: in Ukraine, students are grouped into streams (not according to a particular course or a lecturer), group supervisor’s duties are aimed at managing one of these streams. Since the beginning of war in Ukraine, university life has certainly undergone significant changes, which has reflected either on learning and teachers-students attitudes. The situation determined the urgency to search and apply such an approach, which would help everyone adapt to learning in new wartime realities. In terms of classroom partnership, our observations confirmed that there is nothing like joint activities and communication that induce students’ interest in learning and cooperation. Practicing partnership can be more effective if it is stimulated by interesting contents and activities. In classroom settings, pedagogical partnership is best achieved via interactive methods (in European and British publications, the concepts of interactive, cooperative and active learning often coincide). Crafting projects, mutual learning, role playing, workshops, case studies, gamification, quizzes are, probably, the most known and widespread at universities. Under conditions of military actions in Ukraine, students reflect on Ukrainian culture and mentality and learning English has turned out to be very relevant, contributing to the uniting of group values. To sum up, undertaking pedagogical partnership is not an easy task. To make it work, one must gain corresponding knowledge and experience. Our further focus will cover the issues of "pedagogical partnership anatomy" through the perspectives of students, the ways to avoid/overcome students’ rivalry and academic boredom as the phenomena leading to negative consequences, in particular, in the framework of classroom partnership.