CRICOS: 00116K

1. Melbourne School of Graduate Research CRICOS: 00116K

2. Icing The Doctoral Cake November 11 2009 University of Auckland David Beckett Associate Dean (International), Melbourne School of Graduate Research (1888 Building on Grattan St) and Assistant Dean (Research Training), Education CRICOS: 00116K

3. The ‘Melbourne Model’ and its RHD Significance Curricula restructure cf ‘Bologna’/USA: 3yrs Bach + 2yrs Mast + 3yrs Doct; Purposes: Bach (x6) are generic/liberal (eg. Arts, Science, Commerce); Masters are professional ‘grad schools’ (eg. Law, Education, Medicine); Doct: research + ??. Diversity: 20% of our 4800 RHDs students(mainly PhDs) are internationals (25% of the total 44k) Growth: building on strategic research expertise inc interdisciplinarity (‘energy’ ‘materials’ ‘equity’), and on global relationships; ‘cotutelle’ (PhD joint badging) and ‘split’ programs; instit. linkages/partnerships/networks (eg U21, APRU) CRICOS: 00116K

4. The Doctoral ‘Cake’ and the GCALL ‘Icing’ The doctoral experience – traditional PhD in eg Arts, and Education: contrast with Medicine and Science; the professional doctorate eg DEd ‘Graduate attributes’ (creativity, problem-solving, team-working, communicability etc) and international employability: how feasible? Epistemological innovations: interdisciplinarity and relationality – implications for prof’l practice? The 2009 ‘Graduate Certificate in Advanced Learning and Leadership’ (comprising two subjects: Ethical Leadership; The Futures Project) 25pts x 2 = 50pts CRICOS: 00116K

5. First subject: ‘Ethical Leadership’ • a week-long residential intensive (Mt Eliza) • interdisciplinary breadth and cohort experience • the history, principles and practices of ethical leadership • via seminars, lectures, workshops and case studies, with an emphasis on collaborative learning and team-based problem solving • topics: philosophies of power and leadership from antiquity to the present day (Plato, Aristotle, Machiaevelli, MLKing, Foucault); the self in leadership; global sector trends and cultures of leadership across educational, corporate, Government and non-Government organisations. CRICOS: 00116K

6. Generic Skills and Assessment Statement: • “Doctoral candidates who complete this subject will be able to : • Apply research skills and specialist knowledge in new contexts; • Analyse leadership structures in a range of contexts from a variety of different perspectives; • Identify and develop key learning and leadership strengths in themselves and their peers; • Communicate effectively to non-specialists” • Assessment: One seminar presentation during the intensive and a paper equivalent to 2000 words due 2 weeks after the intensive (30%); one 6000 word reflective essay or journal due 6 weeks after the intensive (70%). CRICOS: 00116K

7. Second subject: ‘The Futures Project’ • develop and demonstrate skills in cross-disciplinary problem solving, teamwork and project management (easily listed as generic skills/graduate attributes) • a three-day intensive during which students are comprehensively introduced to a multi-dimensional real-world problem (2009: ‘sustainability’) and beginning planning a group project to address that problem; a three-weekly series of lectures and workshops extending the project teams’ knowledge of the issues and of project management; the presentation of the group project and students’ critical reflection on their own and others’ projects. Assessment: Syndicate presentation and report, or equivalent, of 6000 words per participant (75%) due at the end of the project; 2000 word reflective essay or journal (25%) due 2 weeks after presentation of the project.

8. Assessment Criteria Criteria for these various tasks: ‘Hurdles’ - Likert-scale and comment sheets on team participation, by the team; peers/self assessment (in confidence) Graded assessment of written work - cogency, context, accounts of process inc ethics, contingencies, resources, artefacts, outcomes, significance, interdisciplinarity, self-growth/identity. CRICOS: 00116K

9. Futures Project Assessments: What Makes A Good Project? • Goals, milestones, timeliness • Cohesion, cogency, context – what makes this ‘hot’, now? • Communicability especially to stakeholders (beyond the campus) • Sociality of process (teams/ groups/pairs? leadership?) • Significance/impact – what changes, or could? • Problems/contingencies identified, engaged (people! places!) • Hypotheticals, simulations, ‘what if…’, creativity • Resources factored in - $$, staffing • Ownership of outcomes – feasible? • Reflection – by individuals, by groups • Format - writing, showing, explaining = portfolios are messy – visual, aural, scrappy notes, data etc – but must be made a ‘project’ CRICOS: 00116K

10. Congruence with Adult and Professional Learning Adults learn best when they: ‘learn how to take responsibility for their own learning through self-directed inquiry, how to learn collaboratively with the help of colleagues rather than compete with them, and, especially, how to learn by analyzing one’s own experience…[This] is the essence of the human relations laboratory’ (Knowles, M., 1970: 45). Professional learning occurs best when there are: immediate needs to know; opportunities for practical judgements (cf Aristotle’s phronesis – Beckett and Hager 2002), and when immersion in one’s peer group requires articulation of justifications for one’s actions (eg. Beckett 2009) – relationality, inferentialism – a Wittgensteinian epistemology. CRICOS: 00116K

11. What Have We Learned So Far? • Interdisciplinarity and high academic achievement in both GCALL subjects, outside one’s doctoral specialisation, is possible, and, given an adult learning environment, probable. • However, shaping the Project around a single meta-theme – in 2009, ‘sustainability’ – was not so successful. • But equally, locating a Project adjacent to any one doctoral study was also tricky. • Assessment based on professional learning criteria – the broader world of work – is rigorous, defensibly so (ubiquitous ‘relationality’), and educationally desirable.

12. Questions and Discussion • Eg: are there implications here for – • the design of doctoral programs? • the articulation of graduate attributes? • the nature of interdisciplinarity? • the ‘novice to expert’ view of professional formation? • Feel free to contact me: • d.beckett@unimelb.edu.au • New book: Educational Research: Creative Thinking and Doing. John O’Toole and David Beckett, OUP, Nov 2009 CRICOS: 00116K