Rethinking PhD learning incorporating communities of practice

Shacham, Miri; Od‐Cohen, Yehudit

doi:10.1080/14703290903069019

Cited by 58 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…In doing so, they refer to an emerging strand in recent research on High Educ supervision dealing specifically with community or collective approaches to supervision in both undergraduate and postgraduate education. Within this strand, studies show that collective forms of supervision do not only increase students' participation in authentic academic activities (Heath 2002;Pearson 2005), but also add learning value compared to one-to-one supervision (Parker 2009;Samara 2006;Shacham and Od-Cohen 2009). The majority of studies focus on postgraduate students and describe collective forms of supervision in the natural and health sciences, where it is quite common for students to be organised in research groups with supervisor panels (Pole 1998;Bruce 2008;Cumming 2009).…”

Section: Collective Forms Of Supervision In Higher Educationmentioning

confidence: 95%

Challenges in Collective Academic Supervision: supervisors’ experiences from a Master Programme in Guidance and Counselling

2014

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The idea of peer and group learning is not new in higher education. It has been applied and studied extensively in courses, programmes, and other formal classroom contexts. However, there is not, as yet, a correspondingly large body of research into peer learning in supervision contexts. In this article we address the challenges experienced by supervisors practising Collective Academic Supervision (CAS) as part of a Master Programme in Guidance and Counselling. The data stem from a research and development project and consist of video footage from three collegial development seminars in which five supervisors at master's level watched and discussed video footage of their own supervision of practices. The article, therefore, adds to existing literature on supervision in higher education by illuminating supervisors' perspective on collective supervision processes. Our analysis reveals three major challenges experienced by the supervisors: (1) facilitating equal participation within heterogeneous student groups, (2) balancing between providing answers and involving students, (3) identifying and developing the students' analytical skills. We discuss the practical implications of these challenges and conclude that metacommunication regarding individual expectations and group behaviour should be part of supervisors' repertoire of strategies when practicing CAS. However, more research is needed regarding supervisors' dilemmas, roles and responsibilities in collective supervision, as well as modes of interaction between supervisors and students in different study contexts.

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Section: Collective Forms Of Supervision In Higher Educationmentioning

confidence: 95%

Challenges in Collective Academic Supervision: supervisors’ experiences from a Master Programme in Guidance and Counselling

2014

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“…The particularities of the ecological perspective may be further understood by reference to some of the more prominent exemplars of this shift. In the following, the ecological perspective is contrasted with communities of practice thinking (Shacham and Od-Cohen 2009;Parker 2009), work on the role of individual agency in research education (Barnacle and Mewburn 2010;Hopwood 2010), and the emerging recognition of the notions of reflection and reflexivity in research education (Maaranen and Krokfors 2007;Reeves 2011). The ecological perspective shares with the communities of practice perspective (Lave and Wenger 1991) a concern with how activity and learning is shaped by engagement with particular contexts.…”

Section: The Ecological Perspective and Research Educationmentioning

confidence: 97%

Intentionality and developing researcher competence on a UK master's course: an ecological perspective on research education

Stelma

Fay

2012

Studies in Higher Education

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This paper presents an ecological perspective on the developing researcher competence of participants in the research education component of a professionally oriented master's course. There is a particular focus on the intentionality (as in 'purpose') of the participants' research education activity. The data used to develop the ecological perspective, and which at the same time is interpreted from this ecological perspective, consists of interactive, reflective and more product-like written outputs generated by two master's course participants. The analysis reveals how the participants' developing intentionality was shaped by a hybrid of professional and research-related influences, and how this developing intentionality affected the quality of the participants' research education experience. The analysis, with its particular focus on intentionality, constitutes a further development of the ecological perspective on developing researcher competence proposed by the first author, and is intended also as a contribution to the emerging literature on 'research education'. IntroductionThis paper presents an ecological perspective on the developing researcher competence of participants on a professionally oriented master's course for English language teachers at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom. An ecological perspective on research education was first developed by Stelma (2011); the present contribution is particularly concerned with the intentionality (as in 'purpose') of different aspects of the participants' research education experiences.The first part of the paper provides an overview of the key features of the ecological perspective, including an explanation of the focus on intentionality. The ecological thinking is also considered alongside other perspectives on postgraduate research education, thereby anticipating the pedagogical and theoretical contributions of the paper. The next part of the paper outlines the focus on developing researcher competence in our master's course, and describes the naturalistic data available to us in our ongoing exploration of this pedagogy. A third part of the paper presents an ecological analysis of the participants' research education experiences. The purpose of this analysis is two-fold: (a) to develop understanding of the participants' research education experiences, and (b) to explicate the ecological perspective on research education.

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“…Beauchamp et al 2009), communities of practice (e.g. Shacham and Od-Cohen 2009) and nested contexts (McAlpine and Norton 2006). Central in these conceptualisations is an attempt to understand doctoral students' context-bound learning experiences.…”

Section: Doctoral Education and Developing Researcher Competencementioning

confidence: 99%

An ecological model of developing researcher competence: the case of software technology in doctoral research

Stelma

2010

Instr Sci

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This paper presents an ecological model of developing researcher competence, with a particular focus on doctoral students' use of research software. The model extends on theoretical work done by Young et al. (Instructional Science 30(1): 47-63, 2002), modelling the intentional dynamics of technological learning contexts. The development of the ecological model is linked to existing ways of understanding the doctoral experience.This includes the recent emphasis on pedagogy and learning, as well as different conceptualisations of context. The experiences of three doctoral student informants are used to exemplify aspects of the ecological model. A description of an e-learning resource, designed to support Education doctoral students' use of research software, illustrates a concrete pedagogical contribution of the model. The paper concludes with a more general discussion of contributions of the model to the field of ecological psychology and the literature on doctoral education.

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Rethinking PhD learning incorporating communities of practice

Cited by 58 publications

References 6 publications

Challenges in Collective Academic Supervision: supervisors’ experiences from a Master Programme in Guidance and Counselling

Challenges in Collective Academic Supervision: supervisors’ experiences from a Master Programme in Guidance and Counselling

Intentionality and developing researcher competence on a UK master's course: an ecological perspective on research education

An ecological model of developing researcher competence: the case of software technology in doctoral research

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