THE LEARNING PARTNERSHIPS MODEL FOR STUDENT OGANIZATIONS
Adapted from Baxter Magolda, 2011
What is the Learning Partnerships Model?
The Learning Partnerships Model is a framework that practitioners can use
to promote self-authorship in student leaders. It is based on three assumptions
(which provide a challenge to students' assumptions about the way the world works)
and uses three principles (which offer support to help students learn). It claims to
help students develop an internal belief system, an internal identity/sense of self, and
a capacity for mutual, interdependent relationships (Baxter Magolda, 2011).
Three assumptions:
Knowledge is complex and socially constructed
One’s identity plays a central role in crafting knowledge claims
Knowledge is mutually constructed via the sharing of expertise and authority
Three principles:
Validate student leaders capacity to know
Situate learning in student leaders experiences
Define learning as mutually constructing meaning
Results: An internal belief system, an internal identity/sense of self,
and a capacity for mutual, interdependent relationships
How do I implement the Learning Partnerships Model?
The Learning Partnerships Model is based on three principles and three
assumptions. Below is a summary of how the LPM was implemented in an academic
advising program, and these same principles can be applied in your one-on-one
meetings with student leaders as well.
An Example of a Program based on the LPM
The STEP program [an academic advising program focusing on retention of students
who were struggling academically] provided regular one-on-one sessions with a
professional advisor. Session frequency varied by student and was based on student
needs, with most students attending formal sessions every three weeks. The STEP
curriculum was flexible in that it could be tailored to individual student needs, and it
included topics such as goal setting, time management, study skills, and career
exploration. In addition to teaching students specific academic success skills, advisors
also can purposefully work on helping students develop skills for how they made
sense of situations, made planful decisions, understood themselves, and balanced
competing expectations of them from important others (e.g., organization, parents,
peers). The following subsections describe how STEP functioned as a learning
partnership. (This plan can be adapted towards developing partnership between
organization advisors and student leaders).
Validating Students' Capacity to Know
STEP was designed with the assumption that knowledge is complex and socially
constructed —assumption one of Baxter Magolda's (2001) three key assumptions of the
LPM. Consequently there is not a suggestion that there was a formula for success.
Instead advisors should approach students as important authorities. They should solicit
students' ideas, rather than telling students how to modify their behaviors. By inviting
students to construct their own plans for success, and by taking their contributions
seriously, advisors can work to validate students' capacity to know.
Situate Learning in Students' Experiences
In addition to helping student leaders see themselves as capable learners, STEP
was predicated on the notion that the self is central to knowledge construction—
students' identities are important influences on how knowledge can and should
be constructed and to what ends. Meetings should be planned around student
leaders needs and focused on helping students identify who they were, who they
wanted to be, and how to make plans based on these goals. Advisors should help
students integrate identity goals and knowledge construction.
Define Learning as Mutually Constructing Meaning
As students work on individualized plans for success, and run into obstacles, the
advisors should coach them but never tell them what to do. Advisors can
demonstrate their expertise while also coaxing them to notice their own authority
through their invitations to explore motivations behind their behaviors, making
plans for future obstacles, considering how to transfer their skills into other
situations, and reminders to incorporate particular behaviors, and reflections on
progress. Through this work advisors can help student leaders see that they shared
authority and expertise and that learning is about mutually constructing meaning.
What can they expect along the way?
Student leaders will likely move through a set of stages on the way to selfauthorship. Advisors may notice their views regarding authority, themselves, and
others changing.
Self-Authorship
Becoming self-authored requires transformational learning that helps students
"learn to negotiate and act on [their] own purposes, values, feelings, and
meanings rather than those [they] have uncritically assimilated from others"
(Mezirow 2000, 8).
Self-authorship encompasses and integrates three dimensions of
development:
• epistemological, intrapersonal, and interpersonal (Kegan, 1994).
• The epistemological dimension of development refers to how people use
assumptions about the nature, limits, and certainty of knowledge to decide what
to believe (Kitchener, 1983; Perry, 1970).
• How people use assumptions about knowledge to craft beliefs is closely related to
how they construct their identities, or the intrapersonal developmental
dimension (Abes, Jones & McEwen, 2007; King & Baxter Magolda, 1996).
• Self- authored persons have the ability to explore, reflect on, and internally
choose enduring values to form their identities rather than doing so by simply
assimilating expectations of external others (Kegan, 1994). They then use this
internal identity to interpret and guide their experiences and actions. This internal
identity that is not overly dependent on others is a crucial aspect of standing up
for one’s own beliefs (an aspect of cognitive maturity). Similarly, it is a crucial
aspect of mature relationships (the interpersonal dimension) that require respect
for both self and other.
Dimension
External Formulas
Crossroads
Self-authorship
Epistemological
(How do I know what I know?)
View knowledge as certain or partially
certain, yielding reliance on authority as
source of knowledge; lack of internal
basis for evaluating knowledge claims
results in externally defined beliefs
View knowledge as contextual; develop an
internal belief system via constructing,
evaluating, & interpreting judgments in
light of available evidence and frames of
reference
Intrapersonal
(How do I understand myself?)
Lack of awareness of own values and
social identity, lack of coordination of
components of identity, and need for
others’ approval combine to yield an
externally defined identity that is
susceptible to changing external
pressures
Dependent relations with similar others
are source of identity and needed
affirmation; frame participation in
relationships as doing what will gain
others’ approval
Evolving awareness & acceptance of
uncertainty & multiple perspectives;
shift from accepting authority’s
knowledge claims to personal processes
for adopting knowledge claims;
recognize need to take responsibility for
choosing beliefs
Evolving awareness of own values and
sense of identity distinct from external
others’ perceptions; tension between
emerging internal values and external
pressures prompts self-exploration;
recognize need to take responsibility for
crafting own identity
Evolving awareness of limitations of
dependent relationships; recognize
need to bring own identity into
constructing independent relationships;
struggle to reconstruct of extract self
from dependent relationships
Interpersonal
(How do I understand others?)
Choose own values & identity in crafting
an internally generated sense of self that
regulates interpretation of experience and
choices
Capacity to engage in authentic,
interdependent relationships with diverse
others in which self is not overshadowed
by need for others’ approval, mutually
negotiating relational needs; genuinely
taking others’ perspectives into account
without being consumed by them
Baxter Magolda, 2011
How does the Guided Reflection Process fit into the
Learning Partnerships Model?
Advisors can use the principles of the Learning Partnerships Model in the
implementation of the Guided Reflection Process (a form of experiential education, is a collaborative
teaching and learning strategy designed to promote academic enhancement, personal growth, and civic engagement. Students
render meaningful service in community settings that provide experiences related to academic material. Through guided
reflection, students examine their experiences critically, thus enhancing the quality of both their learning and their service).
By connecting with student leaders and helping them to create their own goals and
paths, advisors allow students leaders to be “authors of their own experiences” and
develop their own values and identity. Research has shown that the Learning
Partnerships Model does move students on a path to self-authorship. While the
Guided Reflection Process is not always easier than telling students directly what to
do, it does help them grow and develop. It allows students to learn how to take
others’ perspectives into account while still listening to their own inner voice. Our
ultimate goal as professionals is the growth and development of students, and
through this process we can help them prepare for the world they will experience
when they leave college.
Unfortunately, most traditional-age college students have not yet developed
these capacities, both because many enter college having been socialized to
uncritically accept knowledge from authorities (including well-intentioned
advice), and because many influential people in students' lives are inclined
to simply offer such knowledge.
Summary
The existence of peer groups and organizations is insufficient to ensure a sense of
belonging. Helping students select groups that match their values yet challenge them to
think differently can yield supportive environments in which to grow. Educators advising
student organizations, class project groups, or residential units can guide leaders to use
the process for articulating, analyzing, and refining perspectives.
Supportive advisors respect and help students articulate their feelings and thoughts
about their experiences, encourage reflection on the meaning of their experiences, and
assist students in making their own interpretations of how to view themselves and
relationships in light of their experiences. The key to support in developmentally
effective experiences is to respect students’ current meaning making, encourage
reflection and interpretation, and assist them in making their own sense of experiences
(Baxter Magolda, 2004; King et al., 2009).