This postgraduate seminar arises from sharing practice at the EdD national network and seeks to provide further insights into doctoral education, specifically focusing on doctoral pedagogy on EdD programmes. The range of contributions seeks to challenge and understand some of the embedded assumptions relating to student learning and uncover some complex elements in navigating the doctoral journey.
Paper 1: The EdD at 20: Understanding the Motives for the Change in Curriculum
Presenter
Paper 2: Title: A Pedagogy of Autobiography?
Bridget Egan, Programme Leader of the EdD, University of Winchester.
Since its inception, the Doctor of Education programme at Winchester has included a component that requires students to explore an aspect of their professional (and perhaps personal) auto/biography which accounts for their choice of research project. This use of auto/biography is grounded in the view that the production of new knowledge cannot be split from the experience and / or the standpoint of researchers (Steedman 2000). It also recognises that rather than representing a straightforward ‘telling of the self’ auto/biographical practices act as meaning making practices that span the public and the private (Stanley, 1995). Professional auto/biographies move away from the life-course approach to focus on threads or key events rooted within wider professional contexts. Kembede explores the use of autobiography as a means of developing the ‘sociological imagination’, which involves the ability to move between sociological consciousness and other forms of cultural and social viewpoints. In this paper I reflect upon ways in which autobiographical reflection can be supported, using evidence from the reflections of some doctoral students, and from their autobiographical writing. I raise questions about the role of the assessor in making judgements about how students choose to express and present themselves through autobiographical practices.
Presenter
Bridget Egan works in the Faculty of Education Health & Social Care at the University of Winchester. Her pedagogical expertise is in Design & Technology and in Early Years Education, and she has also been heavily involved with the teaching of research methods to undergraduate and postgraduate students, and with generic ‘training’ for doctoral level students.She was asked in 2008/9 to design and validate a Doctor of Education programme, and has been programme leader since the successful validation of the programme in 2010. She has a strong interest in the way in which research students articulate the experiences which engage them in particular forms of research.
Paper 3
Julie Shaughnessy, University of Roehampton and Nick Pratt, University of Plymouth
Developments in EdD programmes in the UK have highlighted issues relating to the nature of pedagogical practices within doctoral education (Boud and Lee, 2009). This in turn has raised important questions about the nature of engagement in doctoral work and the idea of the doctoral process alongside the outcome (Flint, 2011). The significance of developing a deep understanding of knowledge arising out of practice and reflecting on the experience of engagement through deep interrogation of practice opens up questions about the nature of pedagogical design within EdD programmes and the role of theory in critiquing that which is familiar. We propose that many doctoral candidates on PDs experience an epistemological shift that occurs during the process of the EdD as they come to see the world as socially constructed (Pratt et al, 2014). Far from making decisions about practice more certain, this shift often shakes up the world view of the experienced professional, making everything less certain. This paper will explore the notion of epistemological shift and draw on pilot interviews with a small number of supervisors working with EdD students. Questions are raised concerning the tensions when working with experienced professionals undertaking doctoral study. To what extent is supervisory pedagogy mediated? What are the risks and what support might mediate the doctoral journey?
Presenters
Julie Shaughnessy is a Principal Lecturer and Programme Director of the Professional Doctorate in Education. She contributes to a range of professional development programmes in the School of Education. Her research interests focus on teacher development, teaching and learning, violence and bullying in schools and exclusion.
Nick Pratt is a Senior Lecturer and Programme Director of the EdD in the Plymouth Institute of Education. His EdD teaching is focused particularly on different ways to understand learning and his research interests focus on the social and cultural relationships which connect policy and teachers’ practices in the workplace.
Paper 4: Feeling part of a community
Katy Vigurs, Staffordshire University.
‘Feeling part of a community’ has been found to be a motivating factor for part-time doctoral students as well as speeding up doctoral progress (Leonard et al., 2006). Minocha and Petre (2012) suggest that Twitter usage can encourage the development of interactive academic networks to establish social relations with relevant people beyond the doctoral supervisory team. This session presents a study that analyses the use of social media for academic purposes by three different groups of part-time doctoral students. It explores the ways in which Twitter might be used as a pedagogical tool to help part-time doctoral students become part of the research community both within a University and the wider research community beyond. It also identifies some of the barriers and limitations to achieving this. Finally, the session seeks to raise questions about the roles and responsibilities of supervisors and other faculty members in relation to using social media to support part-time doctoral students during their studies.
Presenter
Katy Vigurs is the programme director of a Professional Doctorate in Education (EdD) and teaches in the field of postgraduate professional education programmes, including doctoral education and supervisor development. Her research interests include equity and higher education, doctoral pedagogies, researcher development, and collaborative working in education. Katy tweets for academic and professional purposes at @drkatyvigurs.
Paper 5 (Theme: Peer Assessment)
Joan Smith, Phil Wood, Gareth Lewis and Hilary Burgess
This presentation reports on students’ perceptions of their engagement in an action research project, in which we trialled pedagogies to develop postgraduate researchers’ critical writing and peer reviewing skills through peer assessment. Students were interviewed immediately before and just after the intervention. A third phase of interviews is currently underway, some 18 months after the initial intervention. The pre-intervention interviews indicated that feelings of inadequacy as a researcher and peer reviewer were common. Whilst participants were open to receiving feedback from peers, many expressed anxiety about giving feedback to others. Often this concern related to their fear of providing unhelpful, inappropriate or destructive feedback which might hurt others, impeding rather than facilitating their progress. Students were inducted into the processes of peer review by means of a range of peer assessment activities, during an intensive critical writing weekend. Post-intervention interview data reflect significant shifts in their understanding of critical writing and their self-perceptions as researchers, writers and peer reviewers.
Presenters
Joan Smith is an experienced secondary school teacher, teacher educator and researcher. Her current role is Postgraduate Tutor for the EdD programme at the University of Leicester. Her research issues include teachers’ lives and careers, gender and education and HE pedagogy.
| Event Fee(s) | |
| Guest Price | £60.00 |
| Member Price | £0.00 |
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