so , communities of practices should certainly envelop students and staff…and perhaps external people ..could i bear to do it about communities of practice of enterprise and ktps etc?

difference between ontology and epistomology :

ontology – what are considered to be real things; how the world is – eg for scientists material is key; what object is

epistomology – practice to develop knowledge; how to find out what is real; what researcher does

fuse – mind and body as one

ontology is predicated by epist

so if looking for waves v particles, you see waves v particles.  ‘the lens you look through defines what you see’ – my quote

Bordieu the act of understanding the world = knowledge practice so phenomenology = knowledge practice

world v world how i know it

up to kant assumed human mind is sufficient to understand the world = trancendentalism

scientists say what they create corresponds to something in the world therefore = truth

opposite to transcendentalism = immanence – human mind doesn’t transcend itself- humanmind is limited may or may not be able to grasp the truth. concepts are constructed by human being

ok?

anyway reflections..

find the drilling down to research questions doable,,,but used to research aim rather than question and i think i prefer it..need to find out what the essential difference is.if any. seems more focused than a question.

my thinking is now down to two areas (probably)

research question one :

What is the evidence, nature and role of trust between academics and HE students in developing effective communities of practice?

for this

in education context

experience of creating collaborative learning – based upon communities of practice

can link to leading this (leadership strand)

is transferable to other contexts…agencies, charities, local gov, commercial..doesn’t limit me

conceptual focus is trust, but does link i think to rm – internal relationships..##

think respect needs to come in , and also issues of likeability

so i think that one is most likely

but the one on wom is still there for me , cos interesting, and have just spent all this time researching it..and i think again could be useful either from marketing perspective, or poss could orientate more towards educational experience and implications for pedagogy…but then perhaps too limiting. for future.

so research question here could be

how does student-generated wom influence the HE undergraduate educational experience?

admissions – therefore expectations

educational choices – how hard to work? which options to choose? how to work?

employability – alumni recommendations and platform for reputation building and opportunities for graduates and studetns

ok that’s it folks

increasingly elderly population

increasingly obese population

rise of china/india – implications for uk

credit crunch

increasing use of technology

increasing stress levels…

pluses

• increasing nos of elderly people
• benefit of extended contribution to society
• opportunity to enhance retirement – physical and mental wellbeing
• reduction of costs if can do the above
• so reasonably valuable
• lots of mature peeps round here
• opportunity to develop educational offers to satisfy this market
• poss links with retirement packages..

population

• pre retirement (define)
• post retirement(define stages)
• agencies – health agencies
• educational providers

why

• linked to HE
• positive angle of independent learning and student as consumer
• limited to HE (not a positive)

population

• current students as before
• alumni (up to three years post graduation)
• academics
• prof service staff

i would

• conceptualise co-production
• peadagogic implications
• service implicaitons
• finding models of co-production which students can identify with

why?

• increasing no of working mothers in workplace (in HE?) could be schools, FE and HE?
• would like to help define territory on this
• feel some personal expertise in area
• should this be carers? therefore include people with elderly people to support (increasing no)

population

• working mums at different stages – pre school; primary; secondary – currently in employment in education; have left employment within education from maternity leave onwards
• HR depts
• line managers

look to develop a framework for typologies of wkg mums : implications for public policy; implications for staffing; implications for mothers

An exploration into the evidence, nature and role of trust between students and front-line employees within an HE environment

pluses:

• trust is interesting
• lots of literature on trust
• shirdeshmuk model could be starting point
• trust is eminently applicable to many contexts

population

• applicants within UCAS process
• current students
• alumni – up to 3 years post graduation- define by turnover of staff
• UK and O/seas ?
• academics
• academic administrators
• fle service staff (accomodation, library, reception, etc etc)

again, case study? selected unis?

questions

is there trust? how does it evolve? what is trust in this context? what are outcomes of trust? trust between different types of employees and students

look at networks of relationships

i think  i’ll identify six or so, aim to reduce to two by reading week and then work with those two for the year and then at end of year choose one that works best (and i’m still interested in).

ok so here goes:

idea one

exploration into the current and potential role of student generated wom surrounding HE educational provision

pluses:

• interested in wom
• wom area of development in terms of scholarship
• changing patterns of wom evident face to face and via fb etc
• wom potentially powerful and worthwhile understanding
• wom applicable to other areas (not confined to HE in future)

but

• wom difficult to measure – is this an issue in itself
• where’s the evidence of  face to face wom? has to be reported (validity) or intention to utter wom

population

• UK and o/seas students ? (o/seas useful cos HEs trying to attract them)
• potential students (within ucas cycle, have engaged with the uni either by visiting or been on website more than once), current students, alumni

..could focus on alumni for reputation building and fundraising – huge difference in uk for fundraising compared to US – potential for growth of this?

context

• selection of uni
• experience of uni
• selection of areas of choice within uni
• post purchase experience

case study?

study of central southern UK unis (similar geography: bmth solent southampton portsmouth)

when the class were asked why they were doing a doctorate, lots of nice aspirational stuff came out…apparently it’s just me who’s doing it to keep their job.
anyway after a day of laughter (mainly in the car) , inspiration and despondancy in equal measure, i got home, went for a swim, got the kids to bed and decided that my first action was to start a blog.

now blogging is one of those things us teachers ask our students to do, and often don’t lead by example. a couple of years ago this i felt this inconsistency and started up my blog ‘workingmum’ (also co wordpress if you’re interested). i’ve had a bit of experience therefore of balancing the possibility of anyone in the world reading what i write, with the probablility that no-one in the world will read what i write. it’s an interesting tension, but one of the valuable things about blogging.
so there we go, not a blog virgin, but hardly a blog pro..a couple of differences between that blog (workingmum) and this one : the working mum one i draft and craft and check it is presented reasonably well. this one isn’t going to be as well proofed. it will be more of a diary complete with the metaphorical illegible writing which i sometimes try to decipler in my entries from january 1974 (my first diary writing experience..that lasted for 17 years). this one’s going to be more of a stream of consciousness which i won’t check , but which i’ll use to refer back to capture my ideas as they evolve over the next months (years?).

so of course the first thing i did was try to find a name for my blog. started with ones which linked to ideas, reflection etc, but they had already gone. so at bob’s suggestion this one is now named huishnish which as no-one’s ever been there , no-one’s ever used in a blog.  anyway just for reference huishnish is an inspiring place in north harris. so that’s good. everytime i go on the blog i’ll think of nice things

so , down to the business. today what did i come out of the session thinking which might (or might not) be worth noting ? i wasn’t much inspired by the discussion on what educational research might be ..but a couple of things are worth noting… a couple of members of the class talked about research as a route to change. i kinda think that this is slightly problematic as it implies a non-neutral stance to research and the outcomes it uncovers. however clearly there’s a positive pragmatic dimension to this idea of research as a driver for change…so i thought a good place to start would be to record some things i might like to influence change in the he sector (in which i work). here we go:

making staff feel valued (particularly during a period of change); building trust between fle staff, students and upper management in he; collaborative learning – what it means for staff and student cultures and learning; getting students to value the learning community in which they are a part (particularly pg students); engaging he staff in enterprise activity (particulary cpd); improving assessment feedback – students’ use of it, efficiency of, criteria, timing; enhancing opportunities for working women in he ; students as co-producers – impact on learning and the student experience…

ok there’s some ideas i could be focussing on in the weeks ahead.

have just checked the unit handbook – good range of assessment projects to choose from (tick), but no assessment criteria (not good).

will try to write a blog each tuesday night after the southampton sessions.

the lovely karen, helen and i are going to try to track down those articles , divide them up and read a couple each – sharing the findings.

..and btw what a joy to be spending tuesday evenings with those wonderful women