When work feels like play: Co-creating social psychology course materials with students

This chapter will explore how a new initiative, ‘Short-term Working Groups’ (SWGs), generated opportunities for students to co-create social psychology course assignments. Research positions often involve lengthy training investments and time commitments on the part of the students and faculty members. Within my role as an associate director for the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), I created the SWG model to help faculty include students in short-term projects with clear goals and mutual benefits for faculty and student partners. In this chapter, I will describe my SWG project for a new online social psychology course. Our cohort collaborated to build drafts of 15 ‘student-approved’ deep dive assignments mapped to each textbook chapter. My co-author will share reflections from the student perspective. The chapter will provide the information needed for faculty to engage in curriculum co-creation and a framework for CTLs to support this kind of initiative.