Archive Links for Webinars on RSD for Masters by Coursework

In Australia, many universities have recently included major research components or capstones in coursework Masters programs. For many disciplines, this is a very different approach compared to previous Masters coursework structures, and not always a welcome one because they are imposed by the Australian Qualifications framework (AQF) at Level 9. This level specifies that masters programs enable students to ‘plan and execute a substantial research based project, capstone experience and/or piece of scholarship’.

A ‘substantial research’ component would be more advantageous if students are prepared by masters courses in the semesters that build up to the project, capstone or scholarship. This webinar series will consider how regular (content-rich) courses may be informed by the Research Skill Development (www.rsd.edu.au) framework, so that students may develop research mindedness that complements technical research skills enabled by research methods courses.

Together research mindedness and technical research competency combine to enable students to develop the skills associated with research in the discipline, or interdisciplinary context, in ways that fit into the existing learning and assessment regime, whether face-to-face, online or blended modes, intensive or semesterised.

Friday 21 November: Assessing Research components of coursework Masters
The powerpoint may be downloaded here: Assessing coursework masters research

Friday 31 October: Research mindedness vs technical research skills:  https://fop-connect.adelaide.edu.au/p5plcbongqi/

Friday 24 October: Introducing Masters students to the six facets of the RSD.  https://fop-connect.adelaide.edu.au/p1sv91iu8hi/ Only second half!

UWisconsin-Stout RSD Community of Practice

The University of Wisconsin-Stout Community of Practice has been evolving and developing throughout 2014. The blog for their CoP provides some amazing insights into early implementation issues at an institution, from changes in specific courses to dynamic conversations that map skills across degree programs. See a number of their posts at

http://uwstoutrsd.wordpress.com/

Why not support their developing community and comment on their work?

Putting the RSD to Work: A Symposium before the HERGA conference, Adelaide Wednesday September 24th, 2014

Its ten years since the first version of the Research Skill Development framework (www.rsd.edu.au) was developed by Kerry O’Regan and myself.

In that time quite a few people have used it in many different contexts and universities. For example, see different disciplinary uses on the website http://www.adelaide.edu.au/rsd/examples/

We are taking the opportunity before the Higher Education Research Group of Adelaide (HERGA) conference to run a symposium for those who know a little about the RSD but are interested in working with experienced users and exploring how it could be used in their context.

Putting the RSD to Work
Wednesday September 24th, 2014

Putting the RSD to Work symposium provides you with the opportunity to learn about how educators have used the Research Skill Development framework to inform the learning of research skills in university curricula. Specific RSD Working Issues that will be addressed in the Symposium will be chosen from the following:

• Assessment and feedback
• Discovery learning in small groups
• Student ownership of learning
• Flipped Classroom design
• Student Problem Solving
• Masters course design for AQF9
• Institution-level implementations
• Optimising Problem Solving Skills
• PhD learning and supervision
• Introducing the RSD to students

The symposium will provide you with time to plan and develop ideas and resources based on the Research Skill Development (RSD) framework, with guidance from experienced users.

Location:
Napier
University of Adelaide, North Terrace Campus.

Program
8.30 Registrations and coffee/tea
9.00 Introduction and purpose of the symposium
9.30 Pecha-Kucha Session 1. Four RSD Working Issues: 5 minute presentations, 5 minute Q&A.
10.15 Working Issue Session 1. Attend one of the Working Issues portrayed in Pecha Kucha Session 1.
11.15 Break
11.30 Pecha Kucha Session 2. Four more brief presentations on Working Issues.
12.30 Emerging Issues from the morning
12.45 Lunch
1.30 Working Issue Session 2.
2.30 Whole Group Interactive session based on emerging issues.
3.30 Wine and align. Ideas, possibilities and new thinking in small groups.
4.30 Report back from each group and where to from here?
5.00 Finish. Depart for drinks/ dinner.

Register for the Symposium as part of the HERGA conference

Download the flyer for the Symposium RSD_to_Work_Flyer_HERGA 2014_used

 

Visit the RSD site at http://www.rsd.edu.au to be better informed about the RSD framework in advance.

You will be sent a Survey Monkey link after you register. This is to provide information that will be used to make the Symposium work for you.

If you have queries about Putting the RSD to Work Symposium, please contact me- John Willison

john.willison@adelaide.edu.au (08) 83133219

Hope to see you there!

RSD presentations at the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR) Conference, Washington DC 28 June- 1 July 2014

If you are going to this conference, or were not planning to but may reconsider after visiting http://www.cur.org/conferences_and_events/cur_conference_2014/…

… consider dropping in on Cathy Snelling’s presentation: ‘Enhanced alumni: nurturing global citizenship using a scaffolded research skills framework’

or my presentations:

Graduates’ perspectives on of the development of all students’ research skills across undergraduate degrees

and

‘I love it.’ Student motivators to engage in the development of their research skills in the curriculum.

Hope to see you there

John

How to Use the RSD: A new series

The first module on how to use the Research Skill Development (RSD) framework is now available. Its called ‘Introducing your students to the RSD facets’ and available here:

http://www.adelaide.edu.au/rsd/framework/RSD_Module1_Introducing_Facets.mp4

Its about 20 minutes long, and provides examples from five contexts.

If you are not very aware of the RSD framework, you might start with the RSD website http://www.rsd.edu.au

Over the next few months, further modules will become available at:

http://www.adelaide.edu.au/rsd/framework/explanation/

The next two modules planned are:

Module 2: Creating Marking Rubrics that are framed by the RSD

Module 3: Helping students to engage with RSD rubrics

You are very welcome to request a module based on RSD use that would be helpful for you.

You can do this in the comments section of this blog, or by emailing me- John Willison john.willison@adelaide.edu.au

RSD Presentation at Monash University, Friday 11 October

The advantages for graduates of Research Skill Development across undergraduate degree-programs

Mode:     Presentation then workshop

Date:        Friday 11 October, 2013

Time:       9.30am – 10.30 am: Presentation

10.30am – 10.45am: Morning tea

10.45am – 12.30 pm: Workshop with guest presenters

12.30pm: Lunch and networking

Venue:    ISB Meeting Room 2, Level 2,
Matheson Library, Clayton

Explicit research skill development is proving to be an effective teaching and learning strategy for cognitively engaging undergraduate students in many disciplines, and enabling them to work with increasing academic rigour. The project described in this seminar used the Research Skill Development (RSD) framework to provide the conceptual glue across multiple-courses in various degree-programs. This presentation will focus on attitudes about course-wide explicit research skill development of employed graduates from Health Sciences, Humanities, and Engineering. Perspectives of honours students in Heath Science and the Sciences provide a deep understanding of the role of RSD in research capacity building.

There will be opportunity to explore the implications and potential of using the RSD in your context, including:

• Ways that others have initiated the use of the RSD
• How to adapt the use of the RSD to your context
• Starting from scratch- what are possible & realistic starting points?
• Potential collaborations with others in the seminar, or academics in the 30 plus disciplines that have used the RSD
• Assessing students to show that they have attained these research skills
• Scaffolding students to work increasingly independently

Developing curricula to facilitate research skills

Hope to see you there

John

RSD presentation at UNSW Tuesday 8 October

An interactive seminar on

‘The advantages for graduates of Research Skill Development across undergraduate degree-programs’

Date: Tuesday 8 October, 2013

Time: 11.00 -1.00  pm, followed by lunch

Venue: LG 21, John Goodsell Building

Explicit research skill development is proving to be an effective teaching and learning strategy for cognitively engaging undergraduate students in many disciplines, and enabling them to work with increasing academic rigour. The project described in this seminar used the Research Skill Development (RSD) framework to provide the conceptual glue across multiple-courses in various degree-programs.

This seminar will present the attitudes about this explicit research skill development of employed graduates from Health Sciences, Humanities, and Engineering, as well as those from honours students in Heath Science and the Sciences.

There will be opportunity to explore the implications and potential of using the RSD in your context, including:

• Ways that others have initiated the use of the RSD
• How to adapt the use of the RSD to your context
• Potential collaborations with others in the seminar, or academics in the 30 plus disciplines that have used the RSD
• Assessing students to show that they have attained these research skills
• Scaffolding students to work increasingly independently

Developing curricula to facilitate research skills

 

Hope to see you there

 

John

Wired to Inquire? Poster at the ACER conference on ‘How the brain learns’

Christina Surmei and I are presenting a poster called ‘Wire to Inquire’ at the Australian Council of Educational Research. See the poster here: Wired to Inquire – FINAL

If you will be in Melbourne 4-6th August, come and talk to us about being, neurologically, wired to inquire.

John

Our abstract is:

Early childhood is the time when the development that happened in utero and the world surrounding the child meet to create new knowledge and understandings through personal self-initiated inquiry (Willison, 2013). Such spontaneous inquiry can be considered an innate occurrence, connecting biological function, the physical world and the socially constructed world (Zeanah, 1996). Educators document how young children use their constructed play environments to inquire and question their world, providing data that is rich in detail about a child’s Proximodistal and Cephalocaudal development (Berk, 2010). An example of this is an 11 month old infant who, although preverbal, points to objects all around the play environment to provoke a statement from their carer about the name of each object. This answers the young child’s personal self-initiated inquiry, through ‘Cause and Effect’, just like the game, ‘Peek a Boo’ (Berk 2010). This poster will consider multiple factors that equip young children to be, neurologically, wired to inquire.

Berk, L.E. (2010). Infants, children and adolescents, 7th edition. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Willison, J. (2013). Inquiring Ape? Higher Education Research and Development 32 (5) pp. 861-865. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07294360.2013.806043#.Ue-wJm1HAhU

Zeanah, H. (1996). Beyond Insecurity: A Reconceptualization of Attachment Disorders of Infancy. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 64 (1) pp. 42-52.

Archive access for RSD Webinars for Semester 1 2013.

If you missed earlier Research Skill Development (www.rsd.edu.au) webinars, every session was archived:

S1: Graduate Attributes articulated with Research Skills https://fop-connect.adelaide.edu.au/p9rzlwjchdi/

S2: Researching, critical thinking, problem solving, clinical reasoning: same ship different bay https://fop-connect.adelaide.edu.au/p2hbr7bfxuw/

S3: RSD and AQF Levels 8 & 9   https://fop-connect.adelaide.edu.au/p8z9z0mrtjq/

S4:  Researching as a conceptual jewel: Six facets of the RSD  https://fop-connect.adelaide.edu.au/p514u5saq9l/

S5: Student autonomy in research: when and how much? https://fop-connect.adelaide.edu.au/p7k8ebwrnrp/

S6:  When academics integrate RSD across degree programs. https://fop-connect.adelaide.edu.au/p5oj254938e/

These sessions are also all available from https://fop-connect.adelaide.edu.au/rsd-project

John

RSDbinar 10 May: Graduate Attributes articulated with Research Skills

Six consecutive weeks of Friday afternoon webinars on explicit Research Skill Development.

W1 (10 May): Graduate Attributes articulated with Research Skills

Hosted by Dr John Willison and Ms Irene Lee

See the blog on this topic at www.rsd.edu.au (3 May). Comment on the blog in advance, or share your thinking during the RSDebinar.

Log-in details:

Go to the URL below in advance to see site layout, complete soundcheck, etc.

https://fop-connect.adelaide.edu.au/rsd-project

Log in 3pm EST, 2.30 pm SA/NT time /1pm WA time/5am GMT

A headset is essential for speaking.

Alternately listen through built in speakers and contribute via chat box.

The link to the archive of the webinar will be available afterwards.

Hope you can join us.

John

john.willison@adelaide.edu.au