Reading and Understanding Educational Literature

Facilitator

Dr Thushari Welikala

Target Audience

This session is suitable for students and staff who are interested in reading, discussing and critically engaging with published educational literature in higher education across a range of disciplines.

Session Overview

This session offers a guided social forum for colleagues to collectively and critically engage with key aspects of educational literature developed as conceptual arguments and research-based discussions.

The session offers opportunities to improve participants’ awareness of the nature of educational literature, the similarities and differences between literature published in education and the literature published in their own disciplines. It will engage you in reading and critically analyzing educational literature, in particular:

Conceptual papers: the key concepts and theoretical underpinnings, the nature of the argumentation, ethical issues, the presentation of ideas and key messages;

Research-based papers: the research design, ethical issues, the process of interpretation of data and the style of presentation.

It focuses on:

• facilitating participants to critically engage with published literature in higher education

• providing opportunities to collaboratively explore and understand the varying aspects of educational literature across disciplines

• stimulating participants to develop communities of educational inquiry within their own disciplinary areas

Session Intended Learning Outcomes

This session will enable participants to:

• understand the key aspects of educational literature

• critically analyze and engage with published literature in education

• apply their knowledge and skills to develop and publish educational papers within their own disciplines.

Methods of Facilitation

This session will be highly interactive with opportunities for participants to engage in critical and collective dialogue with each other. It will use World Café method to stimulate active dialogue and purposeful conversation.

Please Note: Participants are required to come prepared to discuss two pieces of educational literature which will be emailed prior to the session.