Humanizing Teaching and Learning
My scholarship examines how teaching and learning can become more humanizing, equitable, inclusive, and responsive to the people at the heart of education. I am particularly interested in questions of belonging, learner agency, dialogue, shared power, and the relationships that shape educational experiences. Drawing upon more than two decades in education across K–20 settings, I approach these questions as both a researcher and a practitioner, with an emphasis on translating scholarship into meaningful changes in teaching, faculty development, and institutional practice.
Student–faculty pedagogical partnership is a central strand of this work and the focus of my doctoral research. Through this scholarship, I explore how students and educators can learn with and from one another, navigate traditional power structures, and collaboratively create more responsive learning environments. More broadly, my work contributes to ongoing conversations about how institutions can strengthen teaching and learning, cultivate belonging, and better support diverse students and educators.
Dissertation
Student–Faculty Pedagogical Partnerships Humanize Teaching and Learning: A Phenomenological Study
This phenomenological study explores how students and faculty experience pedagogical partnership, with particular attention to humanization, power, equity, reciprocity, and dialogue. The findings illuminate how partnership can create more relational and collaborative approaches to teaching and learning while also revealing the complexities involved in reimagining traditional student–faculty roles.
Manuscripts in Progress
My manuscripts in progress extend the findings of my doctoral research while contributing to broader conversations about humanizing teaching and learning. Together, they examine how student–faculty pedagogical partnerships can foster more relational educational experiences and how shared power, dialogue, and collaboration can help reimagine traditional roles in higher education.
Hillkirk, K.A. Student-faculty pedagogical partnerships humanize teaching and learning: Findings from a phenomenological study. Manuscript in progress.
Hillkirk, K.A. Shared power, humanization, and dialogue in student-faculty pedagogical partnerships. Manuscript in progress.
Becoming Through Partnership: A Scholar Reflection
Written shortly before I defended my dissertation, this reflection explores how conducting phenomenological research transformed not only my understanding of student–faculty pedagogical partnerships, but also my understanding of myself as an educator and scholar. Published in the American Association for Teaching and Curriculum’s Spring/Summer 2026 newsletter, it considers scholarship as a relational practice shaped by humility, dialogue, vulnerability, and a willingness to be changed by others.