Students-as-producers: Developing valuable student-centered research and learning opportunities

Abstract

The desire to connect teaching and research to create a productive and progressive framework for student learning has become one of the most significant spaces for academic development in Higher Education over the recent past. The positive effects on student learning through the inclusion of real-life, complex and unstructured research-like activities needs to be at the core of undergraduate education, and following this paradigm the student acts as producer of knowledge instead of simply knowledge consumer. The concept underpinning 'student-as-producer' is that learning is grounded in research and research-like activities so much of what the student learns will be through their own discoveries, working in collaboration with academic advisers and other students in a supportive research-rich environment. This paper focuses on the research practices and activities during a study carried out by undergraduate students from the School of Political Science and Sociology at the National University of Ireland Galway, primarily designed as a student-as-producer project, under the guidance of an academic supervisor/facilitator. Students were placed at the center of deliberations, design, development and implementation of the research and subsequently have become the focus of this particular reflective paper. What were their experiences at various stages of the process, what do they think were worthwhile and valueless in the practice, and what learning principles, if any, were paramount? A series of semi-structured open questions were posed to uncover pressures and barriers to their overall learning experiences resulting in some thoughtful and helpful lessons to enhance such student-centered learning in the future.

Active Methodologies in Higher Education: Perception and Opinion as Evaluated by Professors and Their Students in the Teaching-Learning Process

“…From various studies analyzed ( García Valcárcel, 1993 ; Alonso and Méndez, 1999 ; Kember and Kwan, 2000 ; Biggs, 2005 ; Monereo and Pozo, 2006 ; Kember, 2009 ; Attard et al, 2010 ; Hynes, 2017 ; Gómez and Gil, 2018 ; Cabral and Duarte, 2019 ; Dominguez et al, 2019 ; Zamora-Polo and Sánchez-Martín, 2019 ), we confirm continued use of the traditional model – also called the knowledge transmission or teacher-centered model, which focuses on the teacher, transmission of information, and expository style, but also a greater presence of the model that focuses on student learning, also called learning facilitation, the constructivist model, student-centered learning model or learning paradigm ( Kolb, 1976 ; Imbernón and Medina, 2006 ; León and Crisol, 2011 ). The two orientations coexist in teaching methodology, understood here as different modes of organization, methodological focus, and evaluations system that stress the reproduction of knowledge and the role of methodology in the construction and/or transformation of knowledge ( Samuelowicz and Bain, 2002 ).…”

Influencia de variables contextuales en el enfoque de enseñanza: relación entre enfoque de enseñanza y estilo de aprendizaje

“…En este sentido Trigwell y Prosser (1996) sugieren que el estudiante promueve el cambio conceptual dando lugar a un aprendizaje de alta calidad. En este enfoque el alumnado es el responsable último de la creación de conocimiento (Hynes, 2017).…”

Metodologías activas en la universidad y su relación con los enfoques de enseñanza

“…Por su parte, los docentes que conciben su enseñanza como facilitadora utilizan un enfoque centrado en el estudiante (CCSF). En el que, lo que el alumnado es el responsable último de la creación de conocimiento, al considerarle un agente activo del profesorado de aprendizaje (Hynes, 2017). Por lo tanto, las concepciones de los docentes se relacionan con sus enfoques, y estos a su vez, tienen relación con el aprendizaje del estudiante (Salter, Pang & Sharma, 2009).…”