Location
Boston 1
Session Format
Presentation
Abstract
This session presents the authors’ model – the Five Cs – for building collaboration, inclusion, and reflection with undergraduate learners. The Five Cs model of Climate, Course Design, Co-Facilitation, Collaborative Assessment, and Critical Self-Reflection repositions the instructor from behind the lectern to within a circle of learning with others as a facilitator.
Drawing on principles of adult learning, learners are repositioned from passive receivers of information (Peters & Armstrong, 1998) to active co-constructors with the facilitator in shaping the learning environment course’s climate, as well as the course’s design, facilitation, assessment, and reflection.
In this presentation, the authors share the model and then explicate the strategies for enacting this model in creating learning environments that center students as co-creators of knowledge.
Through interactive discussion, participants will leave with adaptable strategies for building collaborative, inclusive, and reflective learning communities that strengthen learner agency, deepen engagement, and sustain educator growth.
Keywords
Adult learning; undergraduate education; Five Cs model
Professional Bio
Gwen Scott Ruttencutter, PhD, assistant professor in the Department of Leadership, Technology & Workforce Development at Valdosta State University, holds a PhD in Educational Psychology & Research from the University of Tennessee. Her scholarship broadly examines teaching-learning in higher education through the lenses of adult learning, as well as examining equine-assisted learning within higher education. Kate Warner, PhD, professor and Associate Dean of the College of Education & Human Services at Valdosta State University, holds a PhD in Marriage & Family Therapy from Nova Southeastern University. She conducts and publishes research on family preservation, resilience, equine assisted learning, and working therapeutically with migrant farm workers.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Ruttencutter, Gwen Scott and Warner, Kate, "Leaving the Lectern: Building Collaborative, Inclusive, and Reflective Undergraduate Learners with the Five Cs Model" (2026). Georgia Educational Research Association Conference. 78.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/gera/2026/2026/78
Leaving the Lectern: Building Collaborative, Inclusive, and Reflective Undergraduate Learners with the Five Cs Model
Boston 1
This session presents the authors’ model – the Five Cs – for building collaboration, inclusion, and reflection with undergraduate learners. The Five Cs model of Climate, Course Design, Co-Facilitation, Collaborative Assessment, and Critical Self-Reflection repositions the instructor from behind the lectern to within a circle of learning with others as a facilitator.
Drawing on principles of adult learning, learners are repositioned from passive receivers of information (Peters & Armstrong, 1998) to active co-constructors with the facilitator in shaping the learning environment course’s climate, as well as the course’s design, facilitation, assessment, and reflection.
In this presentation, the authors share the model and then explicate the strategies for enacting this model in creating learning environments that center students as co-creators of knowledge.
Through interactive discussion, participants will leave with adaptable strategies for building collaborative, inclusive, and reflective learning communities that strengthen learner agency, deepen engagement, and sustain educator growth.
