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Dr Richard Baker : Teaching : Teaching Research: "Special topics in geography"

Teaching Research: "Special Topics in Geography" 

Paper to the IAG and NZGS Joint Conference Hobart January 29th 1997.

Dr Richard Baker

 Introduction

What are we trying to do in teaching?

University teaching involves a balance between imparting knowledge and developing student self learning. The relative balance varies both between disciplines and within courses in any given discipline. There has been great debate about degree to which each is desirable any time. I have heard the issue raised at ANU both within our department and within wider cross departmental forums.

It is also important to realise that different students have different learning needs, with some requiring the balance to tip towards accumulating factual knowledge and others requiring a focus on the development of self-learning skills. Moreover the balance for particular students will vary at different times in their university careers. Meeting these varying needs creates seemingly insurmountable challenges to university teachers. Given differences between student needs for knowledge and self learning it is clearly impossible to pitch a conventional lecture course at the appropriate point for each student. In this paper I outline a range of teaching approaches used to develop student self learning skills.

Self learning takes many forms. It includes gaining skills in:

  • finding information, be it in a library, archives or on the Internet;
  • getting information by interviewing people;
  • group learning, ie learning from class mates and later from work mates;
  • self reflection, ie learning from own experiences;
  • observation;
  • analysis;
  • seeking and effectively using criticism.
Good skills in all the above are desirable if students are to become effective researchers (autonomous learners) both at university and in the workplace. Academics and students alike can always learn more in each of these regards. They are not innate skills but ones that are learnt. This paper gives an example of an advanced research based unit that encourages students to develop some of the above listed self learning skills. I have taught three separate courses at ANU and used in each a mixture of getting knowledge across and developing self learning. Of these course the first year geography unit has had the largest proportion of getting knowledge across but even in this unit I have seen my role very much as motivating them to learn for themselves rather than teaching them things. Telling this to 200 first year students eager to hear the wisdom of a university lecturer always creates quite a stir in the class. Deconstructing the view of lecturer as all knowing authority and the associated passive learning model are clearly important steps in encouraging self learning. I also teach a first semester third year unit - "Environmental Policy and Planning" that usually contains about 80 students. Given the size of the class it is difficult to do the intensive teaching that one would wish to do at 3rd year level but I have a major focus on self and peer learning through making tutorials the central focus of the course. Pre-tutorial workshops (see Baker 1996 and Supertutorial web-paper ) that determine how the tutorial facilitators are going to run the subsequent tutorials play a major role in this self and peer learning process.

Special Topics in Geography

Introduction

"Special Topics in Geography" is an advanced third year unit at the Australian National University (ANU). "Special Topics in Geography" provides potential honours students with the opportunity to carry out a semester long research project that requires about 5 or 6 days field work. The unit aims to develop student research skills prior to the commencement of their honours year. Students have either worked on:

  • topics related to environmental policy in placements with members of parliaments, in government departments [1] or non government organisations such as the National Farmers' Federation and Greening Australia;
  • environmental research questions suggested by community groups such as Landcare groups and Catchment Committees[2].
The engagement in real world issues required from such collaborative research is an important part of the unit. It has proved particularly important in giving students a sense of the applied relevance of what has up to this time been very much theoretical non-applied learning. Being able to be useful to community groups or in professional situations has a very important empowering effect on students. The applied nature of such collaborative projects has also greatly aided student employment opportunities. A number of students have gained employment directly from their projects, staying on to work in paid positions with the organisation they had been collaborating with. Others have reported that the experience gained from the unit has assisted them get related employment. A number of students have successfully used their "Special Topics in Geography" reports as attachments to job applications or taken them to job interviews and others have reported that skills gained in oral presentations were valuable in job interviews. Students who have gained employment have also reported back on the value of the skills gained in the course in successfully carrying out their work duties.

Methods used in the course

A variety of methods have been used in the class. The following discussion outlines the use of:

  • weekly two hour workshops;
  • learning contracts;
  • research plans;
  • an excercise to improve field trip observation and note taking  
  • team work and role reversals;
  • reflective seminars
  • oral presentations.

Weekly workshops

The class meets for a two hour workshop each week (see Table i for details of each meeting). A different student each week is required to take minutes and to then circulated them to the class via Email. At the first workshop the parameters of the course are outlined. I stress that "Special Topics in Geography" involves doing a semester long (17 week)[3] research project that not only gives them the opportunity to develop their research skills but also has to be useful to the community group, non-government organisation or government department with which they work. I stress that an important part of doing research is being well organised and that in the course they will be required to develop a learning contract and a research plan. At the first meeting I also ask students what they want to get out of the course. Recurring themes that have emerged each time are knowing how to:

  • work with community or professional groups;
  • get the confidence to do what is necessary;
  • get help and to receive constructive criticism from other people;
  • best communicate their study's findings to the group they worked with.
Table A: Special Topics in Geography timetable

Note: each workshop runs for two hours and reading for each workshop is handed out the week beforehand.

Week 1 Introductory workshop, students asked to state what they want to get out of the course, learning contract material handed out

Week 2 Workshop on learning contracts, 1 day field trip to main study area.

Week 3 Workshop on taking field notes, student required beforehand to have read each other's field notes

Week 3-4 Discussions on one to one basis with each student about their learning contracts. Students required to complete research plan and to critique each other's plans.

Week 4 Workshop on giving oral presentations, class required to developed some draft criteria for marking oral presentations

Week 5 "What is research?" workshop, discussion includes examining contrasts in quantitative and qualitative methods

Week 6 "Ethics in research" workshop, discussion includes issues of confidentiality and responsibility to informants.

Week 7 Student led workshops on qualitative and quantitative methods

Week 8 Workshop on how final reports are to be marked and class required to develop guidelines for marking written work

Week 9-10 Vacation: students encouraged to do the bulk of their field work in this break from classes

Week 11 Workshop on report writing skills

Week 12-14 Practice presentations on where they are at in their research and refinement of criteria for marking oral presentations

Week 15 Class discussion on what they have learnt about doing research from doing the course. Draft report due and is handed back with comments in week 16.

Week 16 Final presentations that are peer marked, held in the evening so that community members involved in projects can attend. As well as a mark, each student is required to give feedback under a variety of headings to each speaker. I type up this feedback to ensure anonymity. Members of the public are also encouraged to give feedback.

Week 17 Final report required and is marked against criteria developed by the class.

Learning contracts

In weeks 2-4 of the unit students, as well as commencing their research, are required to develop their learning contracts. There is a growing literature (eg Knowles 1986, Pettigrove et al 1994 and Tompkins and McGraw 1988) on the use of learning contracts, or negotiated learning plans as some authors prefer to call them. In the first meeting I supply the students with extracts from some of these articles and ask them to read them and come back to the next meeting to discuss, as a group, how they want to develop their plans. Given that the learning contract idea is new to nearly all of the students, it is important to provide some examples. In the first year I taught the course the examples obviously had to come from the literature but in subsequently years I have been able to add examples from previous "Special Topics in Geography" students. While giving students some examples, it is important to stress that these are not templates to copy but a source of ideas for them to pick and choose from as they develop their own contracts to meet their particular needs.

In weeks 3-4 each student is required to individually discuss their draft learning contracts with me. Students are encouraged to set out:

  • the objectives of their research;
  • how they plan to met these objectives;
  • how they plan to demonstrate how they have meet their learning objectives;
  • what they expect from me in supervision;
  • the respective weightings that they wish to give the different components of the assessment.
I stress that the learning contracts are flexible documents that can be re-negotiated any time up to two weeks before final submission date. By this time I require a firm agreement on what is going to be submitted and the respective weightings the students wish to place on the assessment of their oral and written work.

The learning contracts are very effective in getting students to make explicit what they want to get out of the course and how they plan to achieve these goals. As such it is particularly suited to an advanced final year unit where students are ready and capable of extending themselves. Many students find the process of making their learning goals explicit an important learning process in itself and one that often reveals things about themselves that they previously were not consciously aware of. In post-course evaluations many students noted that the learning contract process made them think about how they learnt and in particular how it challenged the strategic learning strategies that they had developed. The contracts made them think about what they wanted to learn and the degree to which they could assess how well they achieved these goals. The students were the first to agree that this was a challenge to their standard university strategy of playing the "assessment game" of maximising marks rather than learning.

Research plans

The students are required to develop a research plan in consultation with me. As with the learning contracts, providing students with examples of research plans is crucial to get many students over the hurdle of not being familiar with the concept. Students are encouraged to outline:

  • their research question;
  • a list of issues that need to be addressed to answer this question;
  • a list of how they intend to address these issues;
  • a list of possible problems that might arise and how they might overcome these problems;
  • a timeline for their research plan;
  • the expected outcomes.
Some students have difficulty separating out the requirements of the learning contract and research plans. While there is often unavoidable overlap between the two the difference can be summarised as:
  • the contract is a private agreement between the student and lecturer on learning goals, the form of assessment and the obligations on both sides;
  • the research plan is a public document on how they plan to do their research which the students have to show their classmates and any relevant individuals in the organisations with which they are colloborating.
A most productive way to get students thinking about research plans is to make every student comment on the feasibility of each other's research plan. The process of critically assessing other research plans and reading comments on their own plans greatly increases their quality. The plans are left in a folder in the departmental office and each student is required to attach a brief, anonymous if they wish, comment on each plan. Students have proved to be particularly good judges of:
  • unrealistic research plans (eg "this is a PhD topic not a 3rd year semester project");
  • overly theoretical plans that appear not to involve the required amount of field work;
  • research plans that pre-empt the findings.

Skills in field trip observation and note taking

In week two of the course all students are required to come on a one day field trip to a nearby rural area where the majority of the "Special Topics in Geography" research projects have been carried out. The field trip has proved to be an important part in getting students to know each other and to develop th eethos of collaborative learning required to make the unit work. On this trip students are introduced to a wide range of individuals and are required to make notes on the major social and environmental issues facing the region. In an attempt to enhance skills in observation and note taking all the students are required to read and comment on everyone else's notes. The process highlights the different range of things students have recorded.

Team work and role reversals

An important aim of "Special Topics in Geography" has been to encourage students to learn from each other. Students working on related issues have been encouraged to work together to assist each other. Students working on questionnaires, for example, are required to work together to discuss questionnaire design and to trial their survey question on each other. Likewise students working on projects requiring geomorphic or biological measurements are required to work together to test each other's methods. Students are also encouraged to assist in each other's survey work. In such team work I deliberately try to get students to assist in projects using different methods. Individuals working on qualitative projects hence may end up assisting with quantitative projects and likewise a student working on a project focussed on biophysical issues might end up helping a socially focussed project. Such role reversals have proved useful in encouraging skill exchange, lateral thinking, critical comment and reflection on the nature of different field methodologies. Such team work also provides an important opportunity for building up an ethic of cooperation in the class. Establishing this ethic is of fundamental importance to the unit as so much of the course relies on students assisting each other with constructive criticism.

Reflective seminar

In the first year that the course was run I asked the students to write a short reflective essay worth 10% of the final mark on what they got out of the course. However, the post course evaluation[4] highlighted student concern that they could not be as honest as they would like to be in their reflective essay, due to the fear of losing marks for "owning up" about problems. In subsequent years I have found it more productive to require students to come to the last weekly workshop prepared to discuss what they got out of the course and in particular what they learnt about doing research.

Speaking skills

Given the importance in most work places of good oral presentation skills, I decided to place an emphasis in the unit on oral presentations. Feedback from students entering the work force on the greal value of this aspect of the course quickly reaffirmed this. In the first week of the course reading is given out on successful public speaking. A workshop is then held in week 4 on speaking skills and at this the class is required to develop:

  • a list of cardinal rules to successful speaking;
  • draft criteria on marking oral presentations[5].
Over the rest of the course many sessions are held where students practice speaking and the draft criteria are used to assess these practice talks in an iterative process to refine the criteria. The students are also required to find a relevant seminar to their project somewhere at the ANU and critique the speaker and mark them against the criteria. One year, seminars given by applicants for the Chair of Geography gave the students a great sense of superiority when a number broke various cardinal rules of successful talks.

Student Feedback on this Course

Three themes have dominated the end of course reflective seminars:

  • learning to be supervised is not easy;
  • learning how to manage time is vital;
  • the need to be flexible in research and to be prepared to modify approaches to overcome problems as they arise.
On the first point it should be noted that when developing learning contracts I asked each student to consider how often they wanted to see me to discuss the project. Most set up short weekly meetings but many students reported at the end of the unit how hard they found it to effectively use these meetings. Individuals reported being intimidated by having to talk to a lecturer, being embarrassed to admit they had any problems and being generally concerned about making a fool of themselves. This feedback was a powerful reminder to me that supervision is a new and potentially very intimidating experience for undergraduate students.

Ethical Issues

Working on real world issues involves running into real world problems. While students have learnt a lot from dealing with some of these problems often it is unrealistic (not to mention unethical) to expect students to deal with all these problems. Given the short length of the unit and the need for students to submit a finished product for assessment it proved imperative for me to be constantly monitoring student progress and if necessary to direct them to modify their projects. The most extreme example of this need came with a project commissioned by a Landcare group that wanted a feasibility study carried out on how to rehabilitate a small roadside reserve. Part of the study brief prepared by the Landcare group was to identify the interest various stakeholders had in the area. What the Landcare group had described as a very straight forward study turned into a political mine field as the impressive research skills of the three students carrying out the project revealed a complex web of conflicting interests in the land. They inadvertently exposed deep seated tensions between different state government departments and with elements of local government. It quickly became obvious that the students needed to back off the plan of identifying the interest various stakeholders had in the area as this was such a contested political issue. It was decided that the students would prepare a public document just on how the land could be rehabilitated and a confidential report to me on the nature of the political conflicts over the site. The keys to the successful negotiation of this situation were:

  • a flexible approach that allowed the students to modify their project;
  • the existence of good communication channels between the students and myself which allowed them to tell me the problems as they uncovered them;
  • the time I was able to spend in the field with the students and representatives of the various government departments involved and;
  • the good working relations I had already established with many of these government officials.

Conclusions

Judging from all the different forms of student feedback that I have received the "Special Topics in Geography" has been very successful in developing student research skills. There are a number of requirement to make such a unit work effectively. The amount of time required working individually with students necessitates a small class size and an intensive effort and commitment from the lecturer running the course. As a result such units are under threat in the current economic climate facing Australian universities of funding cut-backs. However, as I have highlighted in this paper, such units are important in providing students with the opportunity to develop research skills in ways that conventional lecture and library researched essay based courses can not. An interesting pattern to emerge from graduates of the course is that there is no straight forward relationship between good marks in conventional university units and the ability to make the transition to being able to effectively carry out research. Some students coming into the course with very high grades have struggled when it has come to doing research whereas others with much less distinguished records have excelled and gone on to do outstanding research in "Special Topics in Geography" and in their honours year. Units like "Special Topics in Geography" hence provide some students with an opportunity to demonstrate an aptitude at research that they would never get the chance to illustrate in conventional courses.

I would be delighted to supply anyone who is interested with further details of the course. With the permission of ex-students I can pass on copies of completed projects, learning contracts, research plans and student developed criteria for marking oral and written work.

Acknoledgements

I wish to thank my "Special Topics in Geography" students who all so willingly acted as "guinea pigs" in my attempts to encourage the development of student research skills. I am also greatly indebted to Dr Malcolm Pettigrove of the ANU Centre for Educational Development (CEDAM) for his enormous assistance with new ideas, the education literature and with course evaluations. Thanks are also due to Chris Trevitt of CEDAM and Ken Johnson from Geography, ANU for constructive comments on an early draft.

References

BAKER, R.M.,1996a, "Supertuts", "Yes Minister" and action research: methods to assist geography teaching, p189-193 in Proceedings of the Commission on Geographical Education, 28th Congress of the International Geographical Union, Centrum voor Educatieve Geografie Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Amsterdam.

BAKER, R.M.,1996b, Landcare groups and university students working together, in V. Brown (ed.), Landcare Languages: A Communication Manual for Landcare, Canberra, Commonwealth of Australia, 128-134.

HAY, I., 1994, Justifying and applying oral presentations in Geographical Education. Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 18: 43-55.

KNOWLES, M.S., 1986, Using learning contracts, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco.

PETTIGROVE, M, TREVITT A.C.F. and NELSON R.A., 1994, Negotiated learning plans: toward student autonomy in forestry education. In: M.Pettigrove and M. Pearson (eds) Research and Development in Higher Education, vol. 17, Proceedings of the 20th Annual Conference of theHigher Education and Development Society of Australia , HERDSA: ACT. pp835-846.

TOMPKINS, C. and McGRAW, M. 1988, The negotiated learning contract, in Boud, D. (ed) Developing student autonomy in learning, Second Edition, , Kagan Page, London, 172-191.

Footnotes

[1] Placements with MPs or in Government Departments was arranged through the ANU's Australian National Internship Program. back

[2] After the successful completion of Applied Geography projects with Landcare groups in the first year there has been great demand each year for students to work on particular projects and increasing offers of financial assistance to cover some of the student costs. In Baker 1996b I outline these collaborations with community based environmental groups.back

[3] The teaching semester at ANU is 13 weeks with a two week vacation. The 17 weeks includes 2 weeks of mid-semester vacation and two weeks of the end of year exam period.back

[4] Collected in my absence by Dr Malcolm Pettigrove of the ANU's Centre for Education Development and Academic Methods. Dr Pettigrove ran an focus group discussion and passed on anonymous comments to me. back

[5] Hay (1994) provides an excellent oral presentation schedule. I would, however, encourage anyone contemplating oral assessment to get students to develop their own criteria as this forces students to think through the issue in great detail. Existing schedules might be best used as a resource by lecturers to make suggestions on criteria that students might want to consider. back