Workshop discussion

The workshop discussion raised many issues, largely of frustration, either with students or with management. We were fortunate to have a student in the session to provide insight from the "other" side. Just as we as teachers and educators are looking for new ways of engaging and motivating students in courses that may be compulsory (e.g. general education), so she was able to tell us that her training had not really equipped her for practice. Other participants expressed frustration with motivating faculty to think about outcomes and generic attributes, generally because there were no perceived rewards for teaching.

I am not sure that we came up a consensus in terms of what action research we might engage in so I will pose some questions that might get the ball rolling:

What skills, attributes are required for your discipline/field/area/profession?
Are you currently “teaching”/students “learning” them? How? Why not? How could you incorporate them into your teaching practice?
Are you assessing them? How? Why not? How could you assess them?
Emiratisation! Graduates not appropriately prepared? Why?
Graduate attributes and disciplines? Differences?
Espoused theory vs. theory in action?
Students vs. faculty views?

Definition of generic or transferable skills
According to the Higher Education Council of Australia (HEC, 1992), transferable attributes are the skills, knowledge and abilities of university graduates beyond disciplinary content knowledge, which are applicable in a range of contexts and are acquired as a result of completing any undergraduate degree. They should represent the core achievements of a university education. Bowden and colleagues (2000) describe graduate capabilities as the qualities, skills and understandings a university community agrees its students should develop during their time with the institution. These attributes include but go beyond the disciplinary expertise or technical knowledge that has traditionally formed the core of most university courses. More importantly, they are the qualities that prepare graduates as agents of social good in an unknown future (Bowden et al., 2000).


Several features define a generic graduate attribute or generic capability (Barrie, 2004):
1. They are often referred to as generic attributes rather than generic skills as they encompass more than skills and attitudes. Attribute is a more global term that can accommodate new or alternative conceptions of knowledge and understanding.
2. The outcomes are generic in that it is claimed that the ‘skills” are developed regardless of the field of study or discipline knowledge. They are acquired through the various disciplinary contexts but transcend disciplinary outcomes.
3. They are abilities that should be present in a university graduate from any undergraduate degree. They are an important outcome of university level learning.
4. These outcomes result from the usual process of higher education. Importantly, they should not be a set of supplementary outcomes requiring an additional curriculum or programme.

Bowden, J., Hart, G., King, B., Trigwell, K. and Watts, O. (2000). Generic capabilities of ATN University graduates. http://www.clt.uts.edu.au/ATN.grad.cap.project.index.html
Downloaded 2 February 2010.

Higher Education Council of Australia. (1992). Achieving Quality. Higher Education Council. National Board of Employment, Education and Training. Canberra: Australian Government Press.
The best example I have seen of an explicit policy and advertisement of generic graduate attributes is from the University of Sydney. http://www.itl.usyd.edu.au/graduateAttributes/policy.htm

Below is an example of action research and generic skills (requires subscription but your college may have)

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~db=all~content=a758481279

Some resources on Action Research

What is Action Research?



Apart from being something that we should be engaging in every day in our practice as professional teachers and educators.....


Carr and Kemmis (1986:162) define it as "..a form of self-reflective enquiry undertaken by particpants in social situations in order to improve the rationality and justice of their own practice, their understandings of these practices, and situations in which the practices are carried out".

Action research involves a cycle of action and reflection, to improve social practice, teaching being an example of social activity. Many of us are familiar with Kolb's learning cycle from practice any way. So, I see action research as an extension of this.

The easiest place to get started with finding out more about Action Research is the Internet. Books are often difficult to come by. By checking out what universities and organisations post, you can get a pretty good idea about how to proceed.

Below is a list of websites/resources that you might find helpful.

http://www.edu.plymouth.ac.uk/RESINED/actionresearch/arhome.htm
http://celt.ust.hk/ideas/ar/resources.html
http://www.alliance.brown.edu/pubs/themes_ed/act_research.pdf

http://www.slideshare.net/WSSU_CETL/action-research-in-education

http://www.newhorizons.org/strategies/action_research/front_action.htm

http://www.web.net/~robrien/papers/arfinal.html

http://celt.ust.hk/ideas/ar/resources.html

First post

This blog will support those engaging in research following on from Michelle McLean's plenary talk and workshop on Generic Graduate Attributes at the symposium Higher Education in the Gulf: Research insights in learning and teaching (Zayed University, Dubai, 18 March 2010).