Discipline, Diversity and the Development of all Students' Research Skills
John Willison
http://www.adelaide.edu.au/directory/john.willison
The University of Adelaide
Australia
John is a senior lecturer in the Centre for Learning and Professional Development, coordinating the Graduate Certificate in Higher Education for academics from all faculties at the University of Adelaide. This work has lead to rich and varied collaborations on various aspects of curriculum design and assessment, within the university, at the national level and internationally. His work on `Graduate Attributes' has directly informed national level frameworks for Engineering Graduate Qualities, and work on `Reflective Practice' has lead to close collaborations with South African Universities.
John's principle research interest centres around the ways that academics conceptualise and implement the explicit development of their students' research skills within undergraduate and masters by coursework curricula; he leads a five-university project, funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, called Research Skill Development (RSD) and Assessment in the Curriculum. In addition, the RSD conceptual framework is currently being utilised in Canada, Holland, Iran, South Africa and the United States of America. The close conceptual connection between the skills associated with research in a discipline, and the skills required and developed in Work Integrated Learning is a stream of current interest; interviews with students from various contexts are pointing to the value they place on research skills once they are employed.