Professional Seminar: Conducting Research in a Collaborative Culture

1. Professional Seminar: Conducting Research in a Collaborative Culture Tina Bhandari, Beth MacDonald, Jenny Martin, and Windi Turner Purpose To bring graduate students from different fields together in order to offer diverse perspectives on educational research design. “It is the long history of humankind (and animal kind, too) those who learned to collaborate and improvise most effectively have prevailed.” - Charles Darwin Discussion Belief: Collaboration builds character and opportunities. Role: co-designer and active participant Satisfaction: 100% where beliefs and roles were confirmed with confidence Belief: Collaboration is nonpartisan and never assuming. Role: active participant researcher Satisfaction: self assurance and revised outlook Methods Adopting a Participatory Worldview paradigm, as explained by Reason and Bradbury (2008), the participant-researchers’ collaboratively aimed to  ascertain effective aspects of this particular doctoral seminar, suggesting that an inferred reality is socially constructed through a blend of multiple perspectives.  A participatory research type design, specified by Small (1995), was utilized as participant-researchers found reason to gain access to scholarly acts through “research, education, and action” (p. 943).  Together, the class decided that the aspects of the course design needed to be researched and investigated further.  Therefore, at the end of two academic semesters, six participant-researchers and one participant each wrote a two to three page narrative describing their experience in the doctoral professional seminar. Familiarity with literature and other participant-researcher perspectives were not discussed until after all the narratives were written. Belief: New literacies allow for collaborative writing from distant geographical locations. Role: co-author, reflective participant Satisfaction: Writing with ooVoo and shared Google documents strengthened outcomes. Belief: Collaboration allowed for interaction with data in an inductive nature. Role: co-designer, reflective researcher, open perspective Satisfaction: new perspectives, confidence Results Conclusion • “I not only found that what I learned in this seminar helped me as a doctoral student, but also was helpful to my colleagues in the same program as myself!” • “I’m beginning to glimpse what I’m doing here and why I’m doing it. Add to that the relationships formed with a core group of other PhD students, and you have a very valuable course. .” • “We are all in this process together, and it feels comforting to know that we are going • through the same things and are so supported by our department..”