Program Capabilities (1)

Program Capabilities mapped

Jeremy Y. and Adrian M. used the things generated out of yesterday’s meeting to arrive at this. We are now moving to the writing.

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