Core Competencies for Undergraduate Community-Engaged Researchers

Undergraduate community-engaged research (UCEnR) is a growing trend which VCU has proactively pursued by providing grants for UCEnR projects and assimilating UCEnR into interdisciplinary curricula. However, a definitive sense of core competencies for undergraduate community-engaged researchers has not yet been established. To that end, this literature review answers the question, What skills should UCEnR students have

Putting research first? Perspectives from academics and students on first-year undergraduates learning research

Exploring the place and potential of ‘research’ in undergraduate degrees has stimulated higher-educational debate for decades, strongly influencing policies, practices and structures. This article’s consideration of some problems associated with teaching and learning about research during the first year of undergraduate degrees, helps throw that debate into a sharper light. Should first-year undergraduates be asked to learn from their own or others’ research, and what difficulties might they experience? What relevant previous learning about research, or lack of it, might they bring with them into their degree? Working with empirical data from across one English university, and literature from universities across the world, these questions are discussed by exploring first-year undergraduate teaching and learning, through the lenses of critical inquiry and constructivist grounded theory.Peer reviewedFinal Published versio

Lessons and lacunae? Practitioners’ suggestions for developing research-rich teaching and learning: Angles on innovation and change

This document is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Innovations in Education and Teaching International on 16 April 2018, available online at: https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2018.1462226. Under embargo until 16 October 2019.This article explores a universal issue in higher education: how in practice can we secure the most productive relationships between the research universities pursue and the education they provide? It opens by drawing from three recent international literature reviews summarising research on research-teaching links, sometimes termed a ‘nexus’. It then proceeds inductively to analyse grounded empirical data from practitioners in an English post-1992 University. This data describes what participants think should change and where, to increase its amount and quality. To illuminate how things might change, the same data is then re-analysed deductively against six ‘lessons learnt’ from a 2012 review of literature examining the diffusion of innovative teaching and learning in higher education. Lessons are confirmed or lacunae pointed out, before the concluding discussion offers recommendations and observations for universities pursuing research-rich education.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Campus information systems for undergraduate students in Spain: a country-wide cluster classification

The availability of broad characterizations of campus information systems for students can be useful for the strategic information management of higher education centres. First we describe and contextualize a characterization model for on-line campus information systems for undergraduate students. This serves as a framework of conceptual reference for empirical work on Spanish universities. Information was gathered by means of structured visits to institutional websites and structured interviews with undergraduate students. Analyzing the information collected enables us to classify Spanish higher education institutions into three clusters with homogeneous characteristics, in the sense of their information system and organizational aspects. Finally, we discuss future research on this subject

Innovative learning in action (ILIA) issue six: Innovative practice in assessment

Welcome to this, the sixth edition of Innovative Learning in Action (ILIA) which focuses our attention on the theme of innovative practice in assessment. On the face of it, innovative assessment may be regarded as any form of assessment which involves the application of a new technique, method or tool. However, to quote Graham Mohl (2007): ‘Innovative assessment is not just some trendy new technique dreamt-up purely to save on the amount of time teachers spend on marking, it is a genuine attempt to improve quality of learning in higher education. If we do save time in the process then all the better for our own learning.’ http://www.city.londonmet.ac.uk/deliberation s/assessment/mowl_index.html. The range of work in this edition of ILIA demonstrates how colleagues are readily embracing this fundamental principle. These papers and snapshots show us how contributors are actively exploring, reviewing and modifying their practice to address assessment principles and strategies helping to produce active learners who are reasoning, critical, highly motivated, capable of self-evaluation and equipped with transferable skills to enable them to flourish in the 21st century global economy. Whilst covering diverse and extensive territory both conceptually and practically, in their entirety these works share common ground in embracing the notion of ‘the redistribution of educational power’ (Heron, 1981). Assessment therefore becomes something which is not simply ‘done to’ students, but it is also ‘done by’ and ‘done with’ students (Harris and Bell, 1990) and is as much about enhancing the quality of their learning as it is about measuring their performance. Some of these works may challenge traditional positions and approaches and in so doing I hope they will provide you with a stimulating and thought-provoking opportunity to reflect on practice and student learning

What Does it Mean to Teach Interpretively?

The ‘interpretive turn’ has gained traction as a research approach in recent decades in the empirical social sciences. While the contributions of interpretive research and interpretive research methods are clear, we wonder: Does an interpretive perspective lend itself to – or even demand – a particular style of teaching? This question was at the heart of a roundtable discussion we organised at the 2014 Interpretive Policy Analysis (IPA) International Conference. This essay reports on the contours of the discussion, with a focus on our reflections upon what it might mean to teach ‘interpretively’. Prior to outlining these, we introduce the defining characteristics of an interpretive perspective and describe our respective experiences and interests in this conversation. In the hope that this essay might constitute the beginning of a wider conversation, we close it with an invitation for others to respond

Understanding Faculty Out-of-Class Interaction with Undergraduate Students at a Research University

While much has been published about the ways in which students gain from contact with faculty, much less is known about the patterns and correlates of such contact for faculty members. Drawing upon data from a survey of faculty (n=901) conducted at a large, highly selective, research-extensive university in spring 2004, this study explores the factors that promote or inhibit faculty members’ engagement in two types of out-of-class interactions with undergraduate students: research-based activities and other out-of-class activities that are less narrowly focused on academic issues. We test four explanations of faculty engagement using OLS regression, and estimate separate models for research-based and other types of out-of-class involvement. Our results provide little support for two of the most prevalent explanations of factors that inhibit faculty involvement: competing time demands, and a lack of institutional rewards or supports for out-of-class interaction. Two other explanations received more support. First, faculty members’ personal values and beliefs were strongly associated with their extent of engagement in out-of-class interactions, particularly for non-research based interactions. Second, the block of variables reflecting faculty members’ interpersonal knowledge and abilities had the strongest association with engagement in out-of-class interactions; this relationship was nearly twice as strong for activities that were not research-based than for those that were circumscribed as research. Our findings suggest that institutions may best be able to support out-of-class interactions between faculty and undergraduate students by brokering information flows concerning opportunities for engagement and the actual “how to’s” of making such interactions work