Enhancing undergraduate learning through the development of research-teaching linkages: Managing the process across different levels within a programme Dr Vicky Gunn

Opening conversation:

• What does ‘enhancing research-teaching linkages’ mean to you?

A bit of context from the Enhancement Themes

• General perception – students need to be an audience for the first year or two. Depends on staff conception of ‘research’ and discipline.

• Student research practice feeds into staff and postgraduate research.

• Explicit links need to be made between the academics and the students.

• Importance of involving postgraduates.• Constraints of assessment processes.• Not much discussion of the relevance of technology in

inculcating research-mindedness• Experiences can be lost across the levels of

study.

Reflections from the QAA Quality Enhancement Projects

Basic typology of links (from Healey, 2005)

There are four main ways of engaging undergraduates with research and inquiry:

• research-led: learning about current research in the discipline

• research-oriented: developing research skills and techniques

• research-based: undertaking research and inquiry

• research-tutored: engaging in research discussions.

Making the processes of research an explicit experience within a curriculum improves a whole range of skills, not just the ones required to continue as a researcher in the discipline area.

What does this mean in terms of the experiences to which we should expose our students?

Assumption:

Example practices:

• Designing the syllabus (content) around researchers’ current focus;

• Inviting students to attend research seminars provided by staff throughout the undergraduate programme;

• Refiguring level 1 and 2 materials to include seminars given by staff on their research that tie directly into sections of the course.

Example practices:

Enquiry-based approaches at course level:

• Redesigning the curriculum to mimic the research process (often implemented through simulations of the research process in levels 1 & 2);

• Redesigning the curriculum to include students as RAs (often in levels 3 & 4);

Enquiry and application

• Placements as part of practical application of abstract subject

• Simulation of real world issues in classroom

Problem with the case studies we have:

The problem with most case-studies concerning research-teaching linkages is:

they only provide a snap shot of one or two elements within a whole programme.

Ways of reviewing whole programmes with research-teaching linkages in mind?

Healey 2005:

Possible to use as a map of the overall experience?

Use to map the overall curriculum?

Research-Teaching Linkages (the jargon slide)

Re-configuring disciplinary specific types of outputs as

disciplinary assessment approaches

Re-viewing curriculum to enhance enquiry-based processes that

lead to discipline-common ‘ways of thinking’

Re-situating the learning:

Socio-cultural contexts in which learning takes place

Undergraduate and

postgraduate learning

environments

Mapping through researcher development frameworks

• The knowledge of the standards, requirements and professionalism to do research

• The knowledge and skills to work with others and ensure the wider impact of research

• The personal qualities and approach to be an effective researcher

• The knowledge, intellectual abilities and techniques to do research

Domain A: Knowledge and intellectual abilities

Domain B: Personal effectiveness

            

Domain C: Research governance and organisation

Domain D: Engagement, influence and impact

Vitae RDF

Considerations:

• Structure of undergraduate programmes in terms of when to emphasize what

• Common elements throughout the course

• Elements unique to a given year

• Ways of encouraging coherence, progression from one year to another, meaning-making between different modules in the face of flexibility of provision?

But what about….

All the other enhancement themes we have to engage with?

Integrating the themes: basic assumption

Meaningful links between the themes?

(Starting point)

Research-Teaching Linkages

(Back to)

Assessment

(Forward to)

Employability

Knitting the threads together: FEEDBACK & PDP processes

Tinker with one,

inadvertently engage with the others

• Focus on reflective praxis;

• Encourage self-reliance and resilience;

• Help students make meaning of and in a range of situations (ie broader than the immediate classroom);

• Expose students to unfamiliar settings and assist them through the related anxiety.

Bringing principles of

R&T, assessment &

feedback together

Making the processes of research an explicit experience within a curriculum improves a whole range of skills, not just the ones required to continue as a researcher in the discipline area.

What does this mean in terms of the experiences to which we should expose our students?

Assumption

Basic assumptions for curricular review?

Making sense of Higher Education ‘learning for work’

Discipline specific

How to:

do the subject

understand the subject

interact in the classroom

WRL & Employability

adapt what is learned & understood outside the academy

be & act in different places

present self

Careers

find out about jobs;

present self;

reflect on aligning strengths with careers

Extra curricular activities?

Researcher-Mindedness Enhancements?

Opportunities for developing Graduate Attributes for 21st Century

Recognizing the practicalities

• Valuing reciprocity – where in all of this is the student voice?

• Progression• Standards• Raising awareness of learning contexts• Managing student anxiety• Managing staff anxiety• Time-tabling• Change takes time