Community-Student-Faculty Partnership: A Model for Learning via Deep Engagement with the Community

Students benefit from engaging with community partners as part of higher education experiential learning opportunities. As part of one project in the Master of Engineering Design Program's Design Thinking course at McMaster University, students were introduced to several volunteer hospital Patient and Family Advisors (PFAs) who spend several hours per week with the design teams sharing stories about their experiences as patients and/or family members of patients at the hospital. Over the five-week period their interviews with the PFAs help the students frame a specific design challenge, identify design opportunities, test, and get feedback on their ideas. The success of this learning experience within the Design Thinking course can be attributed to the collaborative partnership between hospital PFAs and McMaster students as facilitated by the course instructors. The community-student-faculty partnership model provides students an opportunity to learn about healthcare challenges from the patient - rather than professional - perspective, which also involves mentorship by the PFAs as they help students understand their experience as the primary participants within the healthcare system. Concomitantly, the depth of engagement provides PFAs the opportunity to see the richness of progression of dialogue between the students and "real patients"throughout the students' design process, resulting in inspirational proposals to address their health-related challenges and an appreciation of the students' human-centred design competencies. This collaborative teaching approach supports course learning objectives for students to adopt a human-centred mindset, iterate on prototypes, and learn through feedback. In addition to adding value to students' learning, the project promotes patient-centred healthcare through meaningful involvement of PFAs.