What Should Honours Do?

I wrote this months ago in a different place. Be good to have it here, in an abbreviated version.

Here we go. (Insert sound of tentative rolling up of academic sleeves.)

• honours should always have research outcomes
• honours research requires the investigation of a dense or messy problem
• a dense problem is something that you don’t already know the answer to yet
• a dense and messy problem requires you to change your understanding to address it
• a successful honours outcome requires the student to experience qualitative change, in themselves (in their understanding of) as a consequence of investigating this messy problem (by way of contrast, a PhD requires the student to realise a qualitative change in their disciplinary domain)
• such problems can be theoretical writing, they can be about practice, they can be about making, they can also arise in doing each of these things
• the investigation of this dense and messy problem can be via thesis, project or via practice
• the investigation will produce outcomes that can be in the form of a thesis, a project and exegesis, or a portfolio and exegesis
• all honours students are expected (and required) to be able to write to their work
• all honours students are expected to read, and utilise in their practice, relevant theories
• a theory is a proposition that is grounded in, and arises within, an informed practice of thinking
• this thinking might not only be in words, but the exegesis requires you to use words

Studios are now Laboratories

(image source via Flickr and it is by jurvetson)

One clear outcome of our second planning day was that labelling the research labs/studios as studios led everyone to treat them as, well, studios, rather research specific things. So from now on they are going to be referred to as laboratories, places of experimentation and research. This becomes a thinkertoy that helps people get to grips with what is being proposed, and what it could be.

A Better Iteration

Yoko has done a very good graphic for the proposed studio/laboratory model. One of the benefits of working with communication designers is when you get work like this. The labs are currently being conceived of as 12 credit point units, which would be three contact hours per week. They would provide the core honours experience within this new honours.

It’s a pdf so you know the drill:

Proposed lab scenario visualisation

Scenario Model for the Second Planning Day

So, after the meeting I sat down with Jeremy Y to revisit the thinking around scenarios. Very valuable insights for me about the use of scenarios, and Jeremy also has great models and experience about how to do this so that you get outcomes. The structure of the day is good. The morning is more abstract thinking which can then be used to inform and influence the sorts of thinking, activities and outcomes we get from the afternoon sessions. The scenario driven activities, which revolve around the studio/lab aspect of honours, segues nicely into thinking about the methods and communication theory subjects that are involved. This way these subjects can be thought of as helping to enable the studio/laboratory model, and are not merely an adjunct that are then experienced as outside of, or just sitting alongside of, the rest of honours.

btw, drawing credits to Jeremy Yuille.

So, brief notes.

PROJECTS
Define projects first, as this helps ground the personas and the contexts discussions. I think this will also help with a lot of the people involved in the planning day because they will, generally, have had little experience of these sorts of activities, so grounding it in a more concrete context is good. To do this invite everyone to just brainstorm or imagine possible projects, real, imagined. These go on post it notes and get put up on wall. They can be grouped around common themes or methods. Each group (a group will be defined by table size, given the classrooms we’re using, probably 6 to a group) will select one project as the basis for the next steps.

PERSONAS
As a group make a list of the people who might be particpants and the key actors involved in the project. Academics, students, research subjects, partners (industry, community, cultural groups), anyone who this project might impact on. This could include the research community too. Then work in pairs to make these people concrete, give them a persona. Name them. What sort of car do they drive (do they drive), favourite colour? What sort of music do they like? Any pets. Favourite author and what book made the biggest difference to them? Why are they involved and what do they hope to achieve because of their involvement?

CONTEXTS
Now, take these people, in this project, and think about where it would happen. What areas does it involve? Where would it have impact? These might be places, industry practices, knowledge domains. It is also, literally, where it would take place. In a classroom (what sort), in an office, in a home?

IMPLEMENTATION
Finally, how would you achieve this? What do you think your personas need to be able to do this? What problems and questions arise for you?

Then we can use a timeline for the year and do a two part process using this. The time lines can be up on the wall and used by each group, again with post it notes (different colours would be useful to help easily identify information). The first step is to note, more or less as bullet points, what might happen, who might be involved, what might be made (outcomes), and what gets assessed (and perhaps by who?). Stick this above the timeline, obviously using the timeline to put when things are likely to happen.

Under the timeline document all things you think you might need to achieve this. Resources, people, students, information, knowledge, skills. What things? What are they? This will then segue into the final two parts of the afternoon session which deal with the two required coursework components of the honours model.

The Second Planning Day

A second planning day is scheduled for the new honours program. It is open to any interested participants from within the school. An email invite was distributed from the Dean’s office:

The honours working party (convened after the first honours planning day in February) would like to invite all interested School staff to participate in a second honours planning day.

When: 10 am to 4pm on Wednesday July 14
Where: somewhere in building 9 (room to be confirmed once we know likely numbers)
What: lunch will be provided
Next: if you would like to participate please RSVP your interest to Adrian Miles (adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au) by July 7

The aim of the day is to get feedback and contributions to defining the ambitions and aims for the new, school wide honours program that is scheduled for launch in 2012.

• What sorts of things should the graduate attributes be? Why?
• What opportunities should it provide for graduates?
• What would be the research vision for an honours program? Why?
• How do we develop and define an honours lab or studio?
• What sorts of interdisciplinary and collaborative projects should it enable? How?

What sorts of things do we need to know about, now, to let honours be relevant and useful to you and your students as we write program guides, develop the curriculum and all the rest of it?

An agenda for the day will be available shortly.

Once again, if you would like more details, or to participate, please contact Adrian Miles (adrian.miles@rmit.edu.au)

Adrian Miles
on behalf of the honours working group

What Should an Honours Program Do?

Perhaps that should be “what should an honours program be?” I’m involved in developing a school wide honours program, which is tricky as there are a lot of very diverse disciplines and undergraduate courses involved. There is a man with a van amount of paperwork that needs to be done for approval which I’m working through, as well as a variety of consultations and the like that need to be undertaken. As is pretty usual with these matters the compliance documentation pays much more attention to demonstrating industry need and viability than demonstrating good pedagogy or research outcomes. Disappointing, but not surprising, and not unreasonable I guess given the cost of running a program so you need to know it will have students, rather than running it just because it is a great idea.

As part of this process I’m holding a second planning day, partly to help people get on board with what honours is (being a once upon a time institute of technology we have many staff who think that spending another year at university after they have delivered their industry wisdom to a student is just, well not daft, but dangerously intellectual), and then the harder problems of how and why it should be taught. To help conversations like this I provide or seed the debate with some points, so that we don’t spend half the day thinking up these points, but can use them as launching pads.

So, here we go. (Insert sound of tentative rolling up of academic sleeves.)

• honours should always have research outcomes
• honours research requires the investigation of a dense or messy problem
• a dense problem is something that you don’t already know the answer to yet
• a dense and messy problem requires you to change your understanding to address it
• such problems can be theoretical writing, they can be about practice, they can be about making, they can also arise in doing each of these things
• the investigation of this dense and messy problem can be via thesis, project or via practice
• the investigation will produce outcomes that can be in the form of a thesis, a project and exegesis, or a portfolio and exegesis
• all honours students are expected (and required) to be able to write to their work
• all honours students are expected to read, and utilise in their practice, relevant theories
• a theory is a proposition that is grounded in, and arises within, an informed practice of thinking
• this thinking might not only be in words, but the exegesis requires you to use words

That’s the first list. I’ll see what it feels like in a few days. Also need a similar list about learning and teaching outcomes, or models. If you get this figured out first, and people on board, then you have a map for how to teach honours, this matters much much more than the specifics of what you actually then teach. That keeps changing. The deep structure of the why of the teaching, that’s the pointy end. Most academics don’t get this, being content experts and all.