School of Education (January to December 2017)
Project Plan Document (17 Jan 2017)
This programme is directed towards creating an enabling environment to activate the quality of teaching and learning of postgraduate students, through developing the repertoire of technical, operational and conceptual dimensions required to supervise and manage research learning. This entails addressing capacity development of supervisors (especially novice supervisors) drawing on resources from within the School itself, from outside specialist expert resources, and from dialogical sharing amongst groups of postgraduate students at the level of their readiness to engage in research. Both pragmatic and conceptual intervention is required to activate postgraduate scholarship, as well as support scholars to disseminate their academic outputs in journal publications. All activities planned co-affect each other. Different groups of individuals will participate in the targeted programmes: sharing distribution of time and human resources.
AIMS
This programme aims to:
- Provide support to both postgraduate students and supervisors to generate capacities in designing, managing, and reporting on educational research studies (including proposal development, field work engagements and dissertation/ thesis report writing);
- Promote spaces within the academic cultural ethos of the institution which values and promotes research as a scholarly enterprise;
- Generate technical and conceptual tools for promoting and supervising postgraduate studies;
- Profile the existing scholarship within the research community drawing especially from local academics within the school;
- Draw on expertise of more experienced supervisors/ researchers in terms of academic writing and publication of research projects and journal article
PROPOSED PROGRAMMES
The suggested programme below does not detract from already existing strategies being run by individual supervisors or individual clusters. This programme supplements existing activities. The intention is to develop a more co-ordinated collaboration around “Research Learning” across the School of Education as a whole. The following programmes are envisaged which collectively serve to address the above stated aims:
1. STAFF AND SUPERVISOR SCHOLARSHIP SEMINAR SERIES: “Profiling Academics”:
- a. Purpose: Generate a regular seminar series of UKZN School of Education senior staff to present recent conference papers, recent articles published, disseminate information about their (funded) research projects; outline their book publications profile.
- b. Target audience: All staff and PG students.
- c. Dates: Once a month: beginning Feb 2017à December 2017 (6 sessions: 2 staff per session); evening presentations: 15h30-17h30.
- d. Last Thursday of each month: 27/07; 31/08; 28/09; 26/10; 30/11
- e. Co-ordinators: Angela James,….
2. TECHNICAL SKILLS TRAINING WORKSHOPS: MANAGING RESEARCH AND SUPERVISION THROUGH INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
- a. Purpose: to develop technical operational skills in undertaking postgraduate research and supervision
- b. Targeted audience: PG students (MEd and PhD)
- c. Topics: Based on a survey of students’ needs, the following topics have been identified to support novice postgraduate students:
- i. How to generate a Contents Page from a draft text of a dissertation/thesis;
- ii. Basic/Advanced Computer training (e.g. use of MS word, EXCEL, EndNote);
- iii. How to use Turn-it-in;
- iv. The use of “tracked changes” to manage feedback and supervision;
- v. Managing references;
- vi. Managing the language editing processes
- vii. Emailing, Skype and supervision
- d. 5 topics can be dealt with in 2nd Semester (Selection of topics to be confirmed)
- e. Dates: Once a month: First Thursday: June to October 2017: 5 sessions: one per month
- f. Forum periods (one hour targeted workshops): July; August; September; October; November
- g. Co-ordinator: (PMB): TBA; EDW: TBA,
3. BEING A SUPERVISOR WORKSHOPS
- a. Purpose: to support novice supervisors build expertise in supervision
- b. Targeted audience: (novice ) supervisors and PhD students
- c. Dates: 3 sessions half-day workshops: July 2017, September 2017, November 2017
- d. Topics:
- i. Managing coherence in the supervision process;
- ii. Dealing with under-prepared students;
- iii. Time management and feedback
- e. Co-ordinator: (PMB) TBA (EDW): Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan, Inba Naicker, Fumane Khanare, Daisy Pillay
4. JOURNAL ARTICLE PUBLICATION WORKSHOPS
- a. Purpose: dealing with reworking of draft articles for (re) submission to journal; dealing with fine-tuning an article before submission
- b. Targeted audience: This programme is envisaged to be open to ALL staff: EDW and PMB. The acceptance into a Writing Retreat will be based on their readiness of a draft article (60%); having not been involved in CWWM programme previously or presently; currently supervising MEd and PhD students; have not yet published an article??? (We need to refine the criteria.)
- c. Topics: 2 workshops: 15 members only: July 2017 and October 2017
- d. Co-ordinator: Saral Bansilal,
5. MASTERS IN EDUCATION (MED) SUPPORT:
- a. Purpose: to provide a forum to monitor and track work in progress of MEd students
- b. Targeted audience: MEd students
- c. Dates: 6 sessions (28 Feb, 25 March, 27 May, 05 August, 16 September, 06 November 2017): once a month
- d. Focus: Work in progress reporting
- e. Co-ordinator: PMB: TBA EDW: Vimolan Mudaly, Zanele Ndlovu, Ronicka Mudaly, Zanele Dube
6. PHD COHORT SUPERVISION RESEARCH WEEKEND
- a. Purpose: to develop shared supervisory development amongst supervisors; to generate inter-disciplinarity scholarship; to generate critical readership audience of PhD work in progress; forum for collegial academic exchange of scholarship.
- b. Target Audience: All PhD students and supervisors in the school invited
- c. Dates: 6 sessions: 2 day programme: Feb 17/18, Mar 24/25, May 26/27, Aug 04/05, Sep 15/16, Nov 05/06
- d. Friday 15h30- 19h00
- i. Plenary session Co-ordinator: TBA
- ii. Plenary speaker focusing on 3 generic topics across the three seminars:
- 1. Data management in the field work phase
- 2. Data analysis
- 3. Developing a coherent thesis report
- e. Saturday 8h30- 16h00: Breakaway groups : work in progress for groups of students
- f. Breakaways Co-ordinators: PMB – Anne Harley,
- i. PMB:
- 1. Phase I: Proposal Development (Co-ordinator: Carol Bertram; Jacqui Naidoo)
- 2. Phases III: Data Analysis and Report Writing (Co-ordinator: Vaughn John; Julia Preece)
- ii. EDW:
- 1. Phase I: Proposal Development (
Co-ordinator: Nyna Amin, Shakila Singh…
- )
- 2. Phase II: Field work (Co-ordinator: Ayub Sheik, Doras Sibanda)
- 3. Phase III: Report writing (Co-ordinator: Murthee Maistry, Jaya Naidoo)
- g. Need for other co-facilitators to assist all programmes in EDW: …. and PMB: ???
Administration
- a.Overall Administrative Support: Bongi Bhengu-Mnguni AND others
- b.Overall School Academic Co-ordinator: Dr Bheki Khoza (Academic Leader: Research)
- i. To manage, disseminate programme notices (publicity around
- ii. To co-ordinate budget expenditure (hiring, payments) with the co-ordinators of targeted
- iii. Keep budget records of expenditure
Calendar of events
Planning January 2017 > commencement of programmes Feb 2017
| Programme | Frequency | Dates | Sessions |
|---|---|---|---|
Staff and supervisors scholarships seminar series | 6 sessions once a month | TBA | [6] (Last Thursday of the month) |
Technical IT Skills training workshops | 5 sessions (Forum periods) | TBA | [5] (1st Thursday of the month) |
Becoming a supervisor | 3 x half-day programmes (July, Sept , Nov 2017) | TBA | [3] (3rd Thursday of the month) |
Journal Article publication (PhD students and supervisors) | 2 x 2 day programmes (July; Sept) | TBA | [4] |
Masters in Education cohort support for course work/thesis only students | 5 sessions | TBA | [10] |
PhD Cohort Research weekends | 6 sessions plenary x2 sessions 5 breakaway | TBA | [6] |
BUDGET (Under construction)
Allocated: Teaching and learning development grant R90 000-
| Programme | Frequency | Expenditure | Sub-total | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Staff and the supervisors seminar scholarships series | 6 sessions once a month (FebàOctober 2017) (Thurs evening programme) | 6 seminars x R1500 | R9 000- | 2 professors per session Open to all PG students and staff |
| Technical IT Skills training workshops | 5 sessions (Forum periods) | 5 sessions X R1000 | R5 000- | Target : Novice Supervisors & PG students (+/- 100 participants) |
| Becoming a supervisor | 3 half-day programmes (July, Sept , Nov 2017) | 3 sessions X R1000 | R3 000- | Target: Novice Supervisors (20 participants) |
| Journal Article publication (PhD students and supervisors) | 2 x 2 day programmes (July; Sept) | Hotel conference venue: 2 EDW and PMB X 2 workshops x R8 000- | R32 000- | Target: 15 novice staff who have draft journal articles (selected into programme) |
| Masters in education cohort support for course work/thesis only students | 5 sessions | Cohort support EDW: 5 sessions x R2000-= R10 000- PMB: 5 session X R2000- = R10 000- | R20 000- | Target: MED students PMB & EDW (2 groups) (75 participants) |
| PhD Cohort Research weekends | 3 sessions plenary x2 sessions 5 breakaway | 3 Guest speakers: Flights : 3 x R4000= R12000- Accommodation: 3 X 2 days X R1000pd= R6000 Honorarium: 3 x R1500= R4500- Travel (between PMB and EDW) 3 x2days XR1000-= R6000- | R28 500- | Target: PhD students PMB: (2 groups) EDW (3 groups) |
| R97 500- | Balance -R7 500 |
Issues to clarify
- Presentation of plan: to solicit ownership and volunteers for co-ordinating the programmes.
- Staff requested to volunteer to engage in co-ordinating particular sessions/programmes.
- Implications for involvement with respect to Workload compensation: need clarification
- Co-ordinators to develop more detailed programme: send draft plans to Task Team by ?? Feb 2017.
- Catering costs per session are to be kept to a minimum: sandwiches and tea/coffees/cool-drinks only
- Need to be aware that there will be clashes with other Forum period activities.
- Request for involvement of ALL SENIOR STAFF: professors, associate professors and senior lecturers (in co-ordination/ participation as a way of building collegial capacity). ALL STAFF are encouraged to volunteer to work alongside senior staff.
Planning implementation
After volunteers have been established for programmes/ presentations: Each group of co-ordinators will meet with Academic Leader: Research (Bheki Khoza) to finalise their specific programmes, delivery dates and budget.
Task Team: