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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
Reflections from the QAA Quality Enhancement Projects
• 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.
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.
Assumption:
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?
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 researchteaching linkages in mind?
Healey 2005:
Use to map the
to use as a
overall curriculum?
map of the overall
experience?
Research-Teaching Linkages (the jargon slide)
Undergraduate
and
postgraduate
learning
environments
Re-configuring disciplinary
specific types of outputs as
disciplinary assessment
approaches
Re-viewing curriculum to
enhance enquiry-based
processes that lead to disciplinecommon ‘ways of thinking’
Re-situating the learning:
Socio-cultural contexts in which
learning takes place
Mapping through researcher development frameworks
• The
knowledge,
intellectual
abilities and
techniques to
do research
• The personal
qualities and
approach to
be an effective
researcher
Domain A:
Knowledge
and
intellectual
abilities
Domain B: Personal
effectiveness
Domain D:
Engagement,
influence and impact
Domain C: Research
governance and
organisation
Vitae RDF
• The knowledge
and skills to work
with others and
ensure the wider
impact of
research
•
The knowledge
of the standards,
requirements and
professionalism to
do research
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?
Tinker with
one,
inadvertently
engage with
the others
(Starting
point)
ResearchTeaching
Linkages
(Forward to)
(Back to)
Assessment Employability
Knitting the threads together:
FEEDBACK & PDP processes
• Focus on reflective praxis;
Bringing
principles of
R&T,
assessment &
feedback
together
• 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.
Assumption
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?
Basic assumptions for curricular review?
Making sense of Higher Education ‘learning for work’
Discipline specific
WRL & Employability
find out about jobs;
How to:
do the subject
understand the subject
interact in the classroom
Careers
adapt what is learned &
understood outside the
academy
be & act in different places
present self;
reflect on aligning
strengths with careers
Extra curricular activities?
present self
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