What I did while working in Galicia

Is the same thing as I do now - it makes no difference where I work from as far as the students experience goes as the course is fully online - actually helps the facilitators empathise with the students as we all work and study from home as well.  Here are two of the students I worked with talking about their experience. We are recruiting for September if you are interested check us out at http://ultraversity.net or find ultraversity on Facebook.

Undergraduate Research

In a recent paper, [Undergraduate student as action-researcher: work-focused learning. Available from http://digitalcommons.bolton.ac.uk/iec conference/9] we analysed the data from final year undergraduate major project reports to identify the characteristics of the projects undertaken by BA LTR students with the aim of uncovering 'who they have become'.

From this analysis 4 key aspects of their work were identified:

1. Application of action research methodology and research methods - students were able to design and apply a rigorous approach to their inquiries.
2. Improvement to personal practice - students demonstrated critical awareness and ability to improve their working practices.
3. Significant contribution to relevant professional knowledge - contributing to the overall understanding of the business of the enterprise as a learning organisation.
4. Wider impact across the work-place - organisations recognise and value the growing capability of students to provoke others in the workplace to improve their practice.

In a nutshell we saw rigorous approaches to inquiry, we saw significant contribution to personal development and to professional knowledge in the workplace and, for some students, well beyond the workplace. We saw that workplaces recognise the value of the contributions undergraduates make. Further informal research on the BA LTR an BA LTT pathways since this paper was published has identified  that workplaces also respond to student's discoveries by implementing significant changes. Teaching Assistants studying at level 1, 2 and 3 have reported schools rewriting aspects of policy as a direct result of new knowledge gained through study. New initiatives have been introduced by management as a result of the work done by students working in universities and in small businesses. Increased responsibility in the workplace has been regularly reported and for some students promotion or new careers opportunities arise during rather than after their studies. 

The combination of rigorous approaches to applying research methodologies and methods coupled with the uncovering of new and significant local knowledge and the dissemination of this knowledge to create impact at organisational level would seem worthy of the label 'Research'.  That our undergraduate students are being recognised by workplaces as contributing significant new knowledge on a local scale indicates to me there can be considerable value in undergraduate research. What an undergraduate student is unlikely to achieve is a complete review of literature in their field; undergraduate study does not provide the time-frame needed to ensure all knowledge in the field is examined. Personally I feel it is likely that this is only rarely achieved at Masters or PhD level either. To expect undergraduate students to make a unique contribution to knowledge on a global scale as a result of studying modules lasting 12 - 18 weeks is not feasible. We live in a vastly complicated world and although our students are studying in one of the worlds most commonly used languages there is a vast amount of formally and informally published work in many languages. 

Replication of research in a social context is inevitable and desirable. I do not see a unified solution to learning or to organisational success, for example; every class in a school presents educators with a unique mix of learners and, although at the organisational level we can strive to provide a baseline that is likely to work for most of the pupils in most of the classes, the detail of what works best for this teacher, in this year with this class is likely to be different to what works well for this teacher with the next class. Our pathway aims to develop a lifetime habit of applying research strategies to continually evaluate practice and adapt strategies to suit changing populations and changes in workplace aspirations and requirements. Deploying the tools of reflective practice and action inquiry as ongoing strategies for assessing and responding to workplace needs ensures members of a workforce can maintain effectiveness in the light of changing circumstances. 

That methodologies are implemented in a systematic, unbiased and rigorous way and that they lead to significant new local knowledge is key to deserving the label 'Research'.  As to the question "Can Undergraduate students do research ?" I have no hesitation in responding; yes many of them can if the course is designed to develop research skills.  

I would like to hear more from the horse's mouth as it were - are you a student, an educator, are you in a workplace where undergraduates explore their practice; what are your views on the undergraduate student as researcher issue; what evidence do you have to support your views? 

Can undergraduates do Research ?

Our BA LTR and BA LTT pathways are designed to enable undergraduate students to operate as researchers designing inquiries to improve practice and discover new knowledge. Having facilitated the curriculum since 2003 I am confident to say that many of our undergraduates do discover knowledge that is new to them and when shared in the workplace and beyond it is not unusual for these discoveries to be valued by others. Their discoveries are not presented as unique or finite. For most they were uncovered through rigorous and systematic processes; as they are not claiming a PhD we are not looking for a unique contribution to their field of knowledge.

It is felt by some that undergraduates are not able to do "Research". Several factors are highly visible in this debate:

Undergraduates are unlikely to have the experience and academic acumen to achieve high levels of rigour.

They do not have time to read all of the literature in their field.

Their contributions to knowledge are unlikely to be significant or unique.

Can we be sure that all Masters and Doctoral students or those working at higher levels read all of the literature in their field; the sources published in Mandarin, Urdu, Spanish etc etc? Given the temporal parameters I agree it is likely that they will have read more than some undergraduates but I doubt that many people ever read all that is published.

Ehrenberg and Siday noted an odd quantum vector effect related to a doughnut shaped magnetic field in 1949 although their results went unnoticed until Aharonov and Bohm rediscovered the effect in 59 and it was not witnessed unambiguously until 86. Were Aharonov and Bohm not proper researchers because they were not aware of the earlier work; it was their name that stuck to the effect.

A fossil examined by many experts over many years yields only conformation that it is similar to other fossils of that genus and type until someone notices a structure and proposes, then confirms, it represents proto feathers and these were actually hairy looking dinosaurs - was it only the last person, the one who noticed something new, who was doing research, or is it possible that the systematic and rigorous confirmation of existing knowledge and the finding of nothing new is still a research process?

Scientists have searched for a unified theory of everything for a long time, GUT seems to ignore gravity, Superstring theory aims to include gravity and M Theory is progressing but parity violations in weak interactions in particle physics have continued to thwart hopes for perfection for 50 years - what if we find that the Universe is more like Gleiser's imaginings with asymmetry, imperfection and accident being fundamental characteristics. What if a unified theory is only a pipe dream based on the old idea of perfection in the mind of a deity leading to their being a definable blueprint for nature concept; what if we are only seeing a small part of the picture limited by our ability to perceive and conceptualise the physical world?

Many educators have striven for many years to develop effective practices relating to pedagogy, exploration of theory underpins much of this. Like the world of physics it is a complex field and children offer similar problems to the parity variations - they don't all fit into the right boxes or respond the same way to the same practice. There is no unified theory of education although many "right ways" have been proposed, successful approaches vary from teacher to teacher, from culture to culture and from child to child. The teaching assistants on our pathways read widely, draw on their experience and the experience of others to design systematic and rigorous inquiries that aim to improve practice by designing solutions to solve real world problems. Proposed solutions are honed and refined through cyclical inquiry with each iteration being examined through careful data collection and analysis leading to improved solutions for the next iteration. Solutions are not presented as finite, no unified final solution is in their sights; they are aware that what is best practice today can always be improved on tomorrow; that what works for one person might not work for another. The aim of our curriculum is to develop a lifetime habit of systematic and rigorous reflection and exploration- a habit I would describe as having the characteristics of ongoing practitioner research.

Does operating as a researcher exploring and contributing to knowledge locally count or do you really need to make a unique contribution on the global perspective to be labeled as a researcher? I had better keep reading.

New Masters

I work with a great team, Anthony Ken and I along with help and advice from Shirley and Tim have built a new Masters Pathway we are offering an MA in Professional Development that will enable students to study fully online or in a blended delivery. Creative use of technology is high on the agenda along with developing critical thinking skills through conversational learning and peer review in an online community. There is a choice of modules and within each module students will decide on their own focus. Modules are designed to explore the development of solutions to workplace problems and to achieve personal aspirations - how to fill gaps, address weaknesses and improve what is already working well.

We are starting to register students ready for a September start; if you want to know more or register your interest you can leave a comment on here or contact me via my University email ian.tindal@anglia.ac.uk or contact Anthony using the details on the image below.

Universities and technology

David Lammy, the minister of state for higher education recently said, “Students are all on Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, i-Phones and
i-Pads for their social life and their university experience is still
divorced from that […] Universities have to be advancing technology.”

Our BA Learning through Technology (BA LtT) course is the latest evolution of the BA LTR that started back in 2003 it is fully online and designed to draw on this potential as will the Masters we are designing at the moment. In our online communities on a daily basis I see evidence that our BA LtT students are using these kind of technologies and a lot more. Some of our students use their iPhones as their main interface with the conversational aspects of our course logging into FirstClass Client via the iPhone app. I see discussions about places they go to shrink pictures, draw diagrams, make comic strips, animations, videos, design and conduct surveys, build whole websites or presentations, and I see the results when they bring the files into their online assessment portfolios. The outputs from online tools are becoming as common in assessment portfolios as the time tested MS Word and PowerPoint. As part of a module activity during the first semester on the course many of our students make a blog to use primarily as a reflective learning journal; some go on to use their blog to share their work in progress, gather peer review and to showcase their completed work. We have students posting videos on youtube as part of their peer review activities, posting presentations to disseminate their research online and gathering feedback data online.

Using these tools is no longer the realm of the techno-geek it is today's way of life for many. From where I am standing it seems that divorcing students' university experience from this world is to look at life through yesteryear's eyes. Universities who do not evolve to adopt this world might risk becoming lonely dusty hollow halls ..talking of which... on our course we don't use lecture theaters, we don't need need expensive flashy buildings with huge concrete footprints, students study from wherever they can get a phone signal or internet access - at work, at home, on the train, on holiday but never in a university building.