Pre-coursework:

Bring along an idea, however underdeveloped, for a small-scale research project.  This should be drawn from recent personal teaching experience and could be part of a larger investigation or piece or work.

Who should attend?

Teaching staff with experience, who have an interest in enhancing their practice through small-scale research and evaluation and who are either not familiar with research or would like to extend their current research practice into the field of teaching and learning.
Participants should be able to demonstrate a commitment to sharing their findings with a wider audience, within their teaching domain or beyond. Not suitable for PGR's unless there is a significant classroom delivery experience.

Course Description:

The workshop is the first to be developed in a forthcoming wider series of short courses on the theme of Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL).  All workshops in this series can be found in the Learning and Teaching area of the Central Short Courses Programme. Inquiring into our professional practice, and sharing insights with an external audience, is part of our wider endeavour to enhance the student learning experience.  We continually seek to not only understand what we do but also what the understanding and skills required to support you as you start your evaluation and research.  The activity is identified as 'small-scale' in that such explorations often do not attract extra funding as they are understood to be part of routine continuing professional development and updating of your specialist subject area.  This does not mean, however, that principles behind approaches to large-scale specialist projects do not apply.  You just have to know how best to apply these in the context of researching your own practice.  In this workshop, you will learn how to adopt a rigorous approach which will result in credible findings that will positively influence both your own, and other colleagues practice.  Research teaching and learning also emanates from a social scientist perspective and you will need to be familiar with the methodologies and tools associated with this research tradition.

Pre-course work

Bring along an idea, however underdeveloped, for a small-scale research project.  This should be drawn from recent personal teaching experience and could be part of a larger investigation or piece or work.

 

Learning outcomes:

• Understand the context for when small-scale research into teaching and learning is most appropriate and effective;
• Understand the theoretical perspectives or research, including research paradigms and methodical differences;
• Recognise the importance of research design and effectively apply this;
• Make effective choices relating to research tools when conducting small-scale research;
• Have developed an initial research question and identified a credible plan of action.

Course Tutor

This course will be run by a Professional Development (Teaching and Learning) colleague.

Recommended other courses:

N/A

UK Professional Standards Framework

This course addresses the following:

• Areas of Activity: A5
• Core Knowledge: K5; K6
• Professional Values: V3

Find out more about the Framework here