UoDEdushare

Having previously blogged during a research seminar, and found this of value, I thought I’d try this again so this post is based on notes I made during a seminar discussing the topic of scholarship. The session was being led by Professor Brian Hudson from the University of Sussex and there were a range of people from lecturer to dean level in attendance from a variety of disciplines including teaching, community education and education psychology. The discussion began with a consideration of the nature of scholarship, research and the tensions of balancing this with administrative and mangerial roles. It quickly became apparent that a shared understanding of the term scholarship was an issue. What was less clear was why people had these different views and interpretations. I suggested that even using social media, and reading relevant tweets, could feed in to this process. Although I got the feeling not everyone in attendance agreed but that is no bad thing as debate can facilitate the learning process.

As the session developed the first key point, for me, was that scholarly attributes (Andresen, 2000) start with critical reflectivity and should be seen as a habit of mind. This is followed by engagement in public coversation and scrutiny, as everyday practice, and an underpinning spirit of curiosity – motivation or drive – or an ethic of enquiry. This seemed fairly clear but got me thinking if this is obvious to everyone (academics and students) and more importantly, if not how is this approach encouraged or fostered without being forced or imposed. 

Brian Hudson leading the discussion on scholarship

The discussions moved on to research focussing on maths teaching. Brian made reference to a text by Mason et al. (2010) which highlights the value of mathematicians getting stuck. I was aware of the text and agreed with this view (having overcome maths anxiety myself) but Brian explained that even higher level advanced maths scholars encounter this. Suddenly I made a connection. Through engagement with Twitter I’d been following a physics PhD student from St Andrews University. His regular reference to getting stuck then finally overcoming difficult maths problems made this idea real for me. I even thought I could share this with education students or young learners in school. I also think this also links well to the need for teachers taking personal responsibility, and ownership of their professional development, and the importance of teacher agency. 

There have been some great examples of autonomous professional learning here at the University of Dundee, in the School of Education and Social Work, such as a book club initiated by a staff member and taken forward with input from the students, which was very well attended by at the first session this year. This year PGDE students have also set up their own study groups to support essay writing and a theory discussion group. For staff there are plans for a journal club which could prove to be very helpful. At Strathclyde University the students run a very popular CPD society and they organise events including TeachMeets.

University of Dundeee, Education Book Club

So what did I make of the scholarship session? Well I may argue that the session was a great example of scholarship in action as I and others present critically evaluated our ideas and hopefully have been motivated to go on and inquire more. And for anyone still struggling with the concept of scholarship, I hope they are just temporarily stuck, and like Mason’s mathematicians will embrace this feeling then strive to overcome it. 

Scholarship in action

References

Andresen, L. W. (2000) A Useable, Trans-disciplinary Conception of Scholarship, Higher Education Research & Development, vol. 19, No. 2, 137-153.

Mason, J., Burton, L. and Stacey, K. (2010) Thinking Mathematically, Harlow: Prentice Hall.