Engaging students as pedagogical partners in teaching and learning in higher education is becoming increasingly prevalent. However, developing and sustaining such partnerships can be challenging. The present study highlights the potential of utilizing work-integrated learning (WIL) students as partners. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 18 university instructors to explore how access to an online learning assistant (OLA) program helped them navigate remote instruction challenges. The OLA program was a novel WIL initiative providing co-operative (co-op) education students with full-time, paid work to assist instructors transitioning to remote learning. Unexpectedly, our findings demonstrate that pedagogical partnerships emerged in the context of this WIL program, leading to teaching and learning benefits. Online learning assistants were able to assist instructors with many of the difficulties they faced, although some program challenges also emerged. Our findings suggest that full-time, paid co-op student positions offer a unique program structure that make them ideal for the development and ongoing success of pedagogical partnerships.