Traditionally, supervisors work with students on an individual basis and postgraduate development programmes are run on site. However, with increasing numbers of part-time and international students, supervisory relationships are likely to be conducted at a distance as students study alongside other commitments. Isolation can often be a key feature for many postgraduates, whether based in the same institution as the supervisor and more particularly for international students or those studying at a distance. It can also be an issue for their supervisors. However, in this age of electronic communication, interactions at a distance should be able to be at least as robust as many of those conducted face to face. More broadly, the international research community is something generally cited as the context for research work, supervision, study and publication more generally. Entry firstly into the university academic community, and then into the larger global research community can be enabled, we would argue, by the support of communities of practice from the outset of postgraduate students' and supervisors' interactions. In this context, considerable numbers of international postgraduates at Anglia Ruskin University (UK) and their supervisors are being effectively supported through three innovations which build institutionally related communities of practice: (1) Guardian supervisors work with the students on research development programmes, with accompanying meetings organised during and round programme workshops, which focus throughout on strategies of meta-learning. Subsequently they support students' work at a distance with emails, and webcam correspondence. (2) PhD students are empowered to develop mutual, critically focused support for each other's work through the enhanced use of the cohort in the compulsory research development workshops and through ongoing discussion lists, self-help groups and symposia. (3) Supervisors of international postgraduates are supported as a community of practice through the revision of online supervisory discussion and development. This paper is based on action research carried out with current and graduate students, guardian supervisors and supervisors as collaborators to explore the rationale, problems, practices and the richness of the experience of working with a system which fosters communities of practice, involving guardian supervisors, distance supervisors and postgraduate cohorts.
This paper grows from research which focuses on the learning characteristics of PhD students, incorporating communities of practice both during their studies and beyond completion of their PhD, and drawing on theories of adult learning and lifelong learning. It shows how professional discourse enhances academic discourse through student engagement in lifelong learning, and how PhD 'learners as field experts' turn into researchers beyond their PhD, influencing their environment and contributing to academic culture and society. We present these insights as a model of adult learning and professional development.
Considerable debate exists among discipline-based astronomy education researchers about how students change their perceptions in science and astronomy. The study questioned the development of astronomical models among students in institutions of higher education by examining how college students change their initial conceptual frameworks and construct mental models in astronomy. The study considers four areas of astronomical knowledge: "sky observations," "Earth and its orbit," "solar system" and "stars” by implementing a recently developed research tool - Conceptual Frameworks in Astronomy (CFA) (Pundak, 2016). The responses of 537 undergraduates from three Israeli colleges were classified into one of four mental models: pre-scientific, geocentric, heliocentric, stellar/scientific. The findings indicate significant differences among students adopting some combination of the four mental models. Most students adopted a combination of these models and used different conceptual frameworks for different astronomical phenomena. Students with a scientific engineering background tended to use the stellar/scientific model more often than Liberal Arts students. The stellar/scientific model is the most scientifically progressive of the four models tested and manages the most systematic astronomical conceptual frameworks. The study identified three variables: "physical background," "average academic grade" and "academic discipline" - which contribute to the adoption of the stellar/scientific model.
Web technology offers lecturers the option of checking students' assignments online. Several systems have evolved to deliver personal assignments to each student in a multi-participant course. These systems provide students with immediate feedback, allowing them to correct erroneous answers and referring them to relevant literary sources that can assist them with their assignments. These strategies influence the lecturers' teaching and their ability to respond to students' difficulties in real-time. The study examines student attitudes concerning the integration of the WebAssign (WA) Online Assignment Checker (OAC) in the teaching of academic courses. An on-line questionnaire investigated attitudes of 75 engineering students studying introductory academic courses assisted by OAC. The questionnaire included the following six dimensions: involvement and interest, understanding the studied material, lecturers' consideration of students' difficulties, importance of the course, tutorial methods and dishonest assignment submission. Significant findings emerged for attitudes in three dimensions. The students think that OAC assist lecturers to relate to their difficulties, contribute to their success in the course, and do not encourage cheating such as copying. No preference was found between submitting homework in hardcopy or online.
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