Collaboration and Co-Design as Connecting Across Difference
Daniela Gachago & Nicola Pallitt
Kean University, 2nd of October 2026
Who we are
Assoc. Prof Daniela Gachago
Centre for Innovation in Learning & Teaching
University of Cape Town
Dr Nicola Pallitt
Centre for Higher Education, Research, Teaching and Learning (CHERTL)
Rhodes University
AGENDA
How I feel about collaboration is…
4
ACTIVITY · 3 MIN
Type your answer in the chat, but don’t press Enter until we say go!
Collaborations in HE
What the literature says…
Co-teaching is conceptualised as two or more educators teaching together, sharing responsibility for student learning, and learning from one another in the process (Murphy and Martin, 2015)
“We see co-teaching and co-research as teaching and research that connects educators and learners across different institutions and different contexts, be it across South Africa, Africa or the world” (Gachago et al, 2023)
Why should we?
Challenges (Amundsen et al., 2019):
https://vernonpress.com/book/1767
Our collaborative journey
Where did our collaboration start?
Daniela Gachago, Maha Bali and Nicola Pallitt
What brought us together
How we are different:
languages, religions, backgrounds, networks, institutional position, etc
How we are similar:
In the moment:
Seven years of working together
2019
Nicola introduces Daniela and Maha
2020
No Size Fits All, Networked Learning Conference
2021
Networked learning community definition; Springer chapter
2022
Compassionate Learning Design chapters
2023
Equity-oriented learning design (PDSE); Changing from Within (JAID)
2025
CLD as liberating praxis, JLDHE special issue
2026
CLD and AI literacies, Routledge handbook (forthcoming)
Full references at the end of the deck.
How we work, and what keeps us going
How we work
What keeps us going
What we love and what we struggle with…
Love
Daniela: access to networks and opportunities, a reality check across contexts, changed perspectives
Nicola: publishing with established scholars; research-informed support for my approaches; our model in workshops and SaP work
Both: sharing emotional labour; a home for our values when our own departments don’t share them
Struggle
Daniela: shifting priorities, different concerns, workloads
Nicola: implementing our work in practice; collaboration inside my own institution is harder
How we handle it: authorship follows who is willing and available to invest more time
What keeps us going…
The values we design with are the values we collaborate with.
Participation
Who gets to take part, and how?
In our partnership
Authorship is negotiated by who has the time and energy to invest. We share writing and speaking opportunities.
Justice
How do power and positionality shape us?
In our partnership
Different countries, institutions, resources, languages and religions. We name these differences rather than ignore them.
Care
How do we look after each other?
In our partnership
Sharing emotional labour, WhatsApp check-ins, trust and vulnerability, flexibility when workloads shift.
Praxis
What do we do with it?
In our partnership
Our model is used in workshops, students-as-partners work and a learning design course.
Your turn: similar and different
ACTIVITY · 5 MIN
Think of one person you collaborate with, or would like to.
≠
One way you are different
Language, discipline, institution, position, background, networks…
=
One way you are similar
Values, roles, frustrations, theories, ways of working…
Which of the two (ways you are similar or different) made the collaboration richer? Share in the chat.
Power in Collaborations
Power in Collaborations
Sources of power and Authority in Collaborations
Influence Power
Expert Power
Lived Experience Power
Titled / Positional Power
Procedural Power
Agenda-setting power
Gatekeeping Power
Relational Power
Power in Collaborations
Power Over
Power to
Power With
Power Within
Power in
The ability to control decisions, resources, rules, or other people.
The capacity to act, decide, create or make change happen.
Shared power built through collaboration, trust, dialogue, and collective problem-solving.
A sense of confidence, dignity, self-worth, and voice.
Power located within relationships, groups, and systems.
Good partnership does not erase power differences - they make them visible, discussable, and more equitable
PARTNERSHIPS ARE NEVER POWER NEUTRAL
Partnerships are shaped by who has authority, whose knowledge is recognised, who sets the agenda, and who can influence outcomes.
Breakout: a power audit
BREAKOUT · 10 MIN
In groups of 3–4, think about one partnership you are part of.
1
Who sets the agenda? Who decides when the work is “done”?
2
Which kinds of power do you bring: positional, expert, lived experience, relational? Which do you lack?
3
What power difference is present but never named?
Report back: one person shares an insight from their group
Compassionate Learning Design
As a response: Compassionate Learning Design
PARTICIPATION:
The desire to increase level of participation of learners
JUSTICE:
An understanding of power and history and how that affects our ability to participate: our positionality and intersectionality and how they influence our critical pedagogy
CARE:
A recognition of importance of affect and how that impacts on learning: humanising, care and trauma-informed pedagogies
PRAXIS:
The aforementioned dimensions resulting in a commitment to act, to take responsibility and move towards more socially just learning design
https://www.cput.ac.za/dsjp
Partnership and Co-Creation
Partnership and co-creation need each other. Partnership asks how we build relationships, trust shared power. Co-creation asks whether we are actually designing, deciding, learning and transforming together.
PARTNERSHIP
The relationship
The ethical, emotional and political conditions for working together
Built through trust, respect, courage, humility, inclusivity, equity and care
Concerned with how people relate, share power and stay accountable.
Creates the conditions for meaningful collaboration across difference
CO-CREATION
The shared practice
The collaborative process of making, designing and learning together.
Includes shared curriculum design, knowledge production, reflection and decision-making.
Concerned with what people actually produce together
Tests whether partnership is real in place
Partnership
Creates the conditions
Co-creation
Co-creation
Enacts shared power
Stronger partnership
Why the Partnership vs Co-creation distinction matters
Co-creation without partnership can become extractive, tokenistic or consultative
Partnership without co-creation can remain symbolic rather than transformative
DJSP collective, 2026
Where does your collaboration sit?
ACTIVITY · 5 MIN
Symbolic 2
Trust and good intentions, but design and decisions stay with a few.
Transformative 4
Shared power and shared decision making. Both the work and the people change.
Transactional 1
Working alongside rather than together. Relationships are thin.
Extractive / Tokenistic 3
Ideas, stories or labour extracted without real power, recognition or care.
CO-CREATION the shared practice: are we actually designing and deciding together?
PARTNERSHIP the relationship
low
high
high
Stamp where one of your collaborations sits now, and where you would like it to be.
DJSP collective, 2026
One small commitment
CLOSING · 3 MIN
PRAXIS
“reflection and action upon the world in order to transform it”
Paulo Freire (1970, p. 51)
What is one small thing you will do differently in a partnership next week?
Share it in the chat. Small is good: one conversation, one question, one invitation.
“Growing the world we want is like the slow tending of a garden, transforming the plants by fostering relationships, trust, skills, community accountability, and healing. It requires cultivating new habits internally, seeding restorative ways of being together interpersonally, uprooting practices of inequality institutionally, and planting alternative possibilities structurally.”
(Ruha Benjamin, 2022, p. 54)
Thank you!
Maha Bali bali@aucegypt.edu @bali_maha
Daniela Gachago daniela.gachago@uct.ac.za @dgachago17
Nicola Pallitt n.pallitt@ru.ac.za @nicolapallitt
Our writings on Networked Learning Design
Pallitt, N., Gachago, D. & Bali, M. 2021. No Size Fits All: Design Considerations for Networked Professional Development in Higher Education. In Nina Bonderup Dohn, Jens Jørgen Hansen, Stig Børsen Hansen, Thomas Ryberg & Maarten de Laat (Eds): Conceptualizing and Innovating Education and Work with Networked Learning. Cham: Springer. 53-71. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-85241-2_4
Networked Learning Editorial Collective (NLEC): Gourlay, L.; Rodríguez-Illera, J.L.; Barberà, E.; Bali, M.; Gachago, D.; Pallitt, N.; Jones, C.; Bayne, S.; Børsen Hansen, S.; Hrastinski, S.; Jaldemark, J.; Themelis, C.; Pischetola, M.; Dirckinck-Holmfeld, L.; Matthews, A.; Gulson, K.N.; Lee, K.; Bligh,B.; Thibaut, P.; Vermeulen,M.; Nijland, F.; Vrieling-Teunter, E.; Scott, H.; Thestrup, K.; Gislev, T.; Koole, M.; Cutajar, M.; Tickner, S.; Rothmüller, N.; Bozkurt, A.; Fawns, T.; Ross, J.; Schnaider, K.; Carvalho, L.; Green, J.K.; Hadžijusufović, M.; Hayes, S.; Czerniewicz, L. & Knox, J. 2021. Networked Learning in 2021: A Community Definition. Postdigital Science and Education, 3, 326–369 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-021-00222-y
Writings on compassionate learning design
Gachago, D., Bali, M., & Pallitt, N. 2022. Compassionate Learning Design as a Critical Approach to Instructional. In Jerod Quinn; Martha Burtis; Surita Jhangiani; and Robin DeRosa (eds): Towards a Critical Instructional Design Design. Pressbook. https://criticalinstructionaldesign.pressbooks.com/chapter/compassionate-learning-design-as-a-critical-approach-to-instructional-design
Pallitt, N., Bali, M., & Gachago, D. 2022. Academic Development as Compassionate Learning Design: Cases from South Africa and Egypt. In T. Jaffer, S. Govender & L. Czerniewicz (Eds.), Learning Design Voices. https://doi.org/10.25375/uct.20028431
Gachago, D., Bali, M. & Pallitt, N. 2023. Equity-Oriented Learning Design: An Entangled Future. Postdigit Sci Educ. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-023-00420-w
Gachago, D., Bali, M, & Pallitt, N. 2023. Changing from Within: Narratives of Resistance from Equity-Oriented Learning Designer. The Journal of Applied Instructional Design, 12(2). https://dx.doi.org/10.59668/722.13022 *
Bali, M, Gachago, D., & Pallitt, N. 2025. Compassionate learning design as a liberating praxis: stories from learning designers around the world. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education (JLDHE). https://journal.aldinhe.ac.uk/index.php/jldhe/article/view/1331/1087 . Nominated for the 2026 JLDHE Article of the Year Award.
Bali, M., Pallitt, N, & Gachago, D. 2026. Compassionate learning design as an approach to critical digital and AI literacies. In J. Castek, J. Coiro, E. Forzani, C. Kiili, M. Schira-Hagerman, & J.R. Sparks (Eds.). International handbook of research in digital literacies. Routledge. [Forthcoming].