Allocating reading material is a strategy that can promote co-production, peer-to-peer learning and alleviate workload for students in a seminar setting. The idea is to allocate a proportion of the articles or research papers from a week’s reading list; then create small groups (3-4) and divide the reading responsibilities equally between the different members of each group. At this stage, invite each member to provide a condensed series of notes for each of the readings they’ve been assigned to be brought in for the subsequent seminar. In the next seminar, you invite the groups to go through their notes and engage in a peer-to-peer learning exercise. This helps build on class integration, interpersonal skills and access to a wider range of reading material for class discussion.

A negotiated curriculum allows students to choose (within set parameters) the content of a module. By empowering students to choose topics that they find the most urgent, important, or interesting, the practice of a negotiated curriculum enhances student engagement, active learning, and inclusivity.

The use of electronic devices can be disruptive in any learning environment, despite their utility to some students (i.e., note taking, vocabulary support of ESL etc.). However, non-essential use of personal devices (e.g., mobile phones, social media monitoring) in class, can be especially counterproductive- disturbing not only the student, but their learning environment ‘neighbours’ and ultimately, their instructors. This pedagogy involves requesting ‘radio silence’ -except for emergency or pre-arranged academic reasons, gives a theory-driven rationale for the request, and also facilitates student choice in response to the request.

This approach is for use in anticipation of a short to medium term project in which students are to work together in a team. It affords the team the opportunity to identify and agree to a set of ground rules in the form of a social contract which they will all respect in order to facilitate optimal teamworking and consideration of one another’s wellbeing.