1 / 10

Dr Vicky Gunn Director Learning & Teaching Centre

Research-teaching nexus in work-based final year dissertations and capstone projects: Pragmatics or Innovation?. Dr Vicky Gunn Director Learning & Teaching Centre. What is the dissertation about?.

chesmu
Download Presentation

Dr Vicky Gunn Director Learning & Teaching Centre

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Research-teaching nexus in work-based final year dissertations and capstone projects: Pragmatics or Innovation? Dr Vicky Gunn Director Learning & Teaching Centre

  2. What is the dissertation about? • Generate, marshall, analyse, present coherentlythe results of an in-depth study within a given discipline Self-determining, persistent, able to negotiate task needs Practice and demonstrate ways of thinking Write appropriately for given audience

  3. Outcomes of this: Pragmatic? Dissertation: Reproducing the products and process of doing one aspect of research

  4. Irony: Changing frameworks require innovation to fulfill pragmatic needs? Researcher development needs: shifting boundaries • Global and disciplinary dilemmas & inter-disciplinarity • Researcher personal development – rebalancing attributes • Technologies & how and where researcher networks function Undergraduate study-workplace nexus: • Growing demand for undergraduate study - work place links (pragmatism being equated with inauthenticity here?)

  5. Taking liberties with researcher development frameworks (Vitae RDF)? Disciplinary literacies, intellect, techniques Self-efficacy, drive, efficiency & other personal qualities Working appropriately with others; understanding diverse audience needs; building networks Knowing standards, ethics, professionalism

  6. Reconstituting the dissertation as work-based researcher development • Capstone project design needs to respond to following set of questions: How can students engage fully in their work-based environments so that they: • Become fully aware of both the research and work based cultures in which they are immersed? • Learn how to think and act specifically in relation to these? • (The really tricky one) Prepare extended piece of writing relevant to disciplinary-research culture but which captures the essence of the work-place in which the project was undertaken?

  7. Work-based dissertation = research-intensive employability Scaffolded enquiry

  8. Implementation decisions • Valuing reciprocity – negotiating criteria –student voice / employers’ need? • Raising awareness of different contexts • Time-tabling = programme redesign • Standards and credits (taxonomies as primers) authentic to both discipline and work-place • Scaffolding for completion • Portfolio approach to assessment • Managing student and staff anxiety • Change takes time

  9. Academic Department as a work-place?

  10. Resources • Gunn, V.A. (2010) What's Topical/Emergent in Research-Teaching Linkages? Quality Assurance Agency (Scotland) @ http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/documents/G21C/RTL_150910.pdf • Gunn, V.A. (2010) Enhancing research-teaching linkages as a way to improve the development of employability attributes. Quality Assurance Agency (Scotland) @ http://www.enhancementThemes.ac.uk/documents/G21C/G21C_ERforE.pdf • Gunn, V.A., Bell, S. & Kafmann, K. (2010) Thinking strategically about employability and graduate attributes: Universities and enhancing learning for beyond universities. Quality Assurance Agency (Scotland) @ http://www.enhancementThemes.ac.uk/documents/G21C/Employability_230210.pdf • Gunn, V.A. & Kafmann, K. (2011) Employability and the austerity decade. Quality Assurance Agency (Scotland) @ http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/documents/employability/G21C_VickyGunn_employability060611.pdf • Gunn, V.A. (2011) Maintaining Scotland’s Research Mindedness: Enhancing Research-Teaching Linkages. Quality Assurance Agency (Scotland) @ http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/documents/ResearchTeaching/G21C_VickyGunnRTL_080611.pdf • Healey, M. (2005) Linking research and teaching: exploring disciplinary spaces and the role of inquiry-based learning. In Barnett, R (ed) (2005) Reshaping the University: New Relationships between Research, Scholarship and Teaching. McGraw Hill / Open University Press, pp.67-78. • Healey, M and Jenkins, A (2009) Developing undergraduate research and inquiry, available at: www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/York/documents/resources/publications/DevelopingUndergraduate_Final.pdf Frameworks and practices • Adelaide Researcher Development Framework: www.adelaide.edu.au/clpd/rsd • Council on Undergraduate Research:www.cur.org • Research & Teaching Links - Quality Enhancement themes outputs: http://www.enhancementthemes.ac.uk/themes/ResearchTeaching/outcomes.asp • Vitae: Early Career Researcher Development Framework: www.vitae.ac.uk/rdf

More Related