Collaborations In Practice (CIP)

What will I learn from this course?

This course aims to develop your awareness of different disciplinary ways of thinking and practicing that allows you to negotiate collaborative, sustainable and interdisciplinary ways to respond to local, national and global societal challenges. As part of a team, you will collaboratively design a project proposal in response to a real local, national or global societal challenge that utilises the range of experiences and expertise in your team. You will then gain a key experience by engaging in an interdisciplinary project provided by a real-world project partner. Through engagement with a project and with students from across the University, you will develop confidence and skills associated with working within realistic interdisciplinary teams, learning to navigate distinct worldviews based on different ways of thinking and practicing within distinct academic disciplines, and build and articulate the experience and skills that employers value.

When will this course be available?

Semester 1, 2025

How many credits is this course?

20 credits

What is the course code?

The course code for Collaborations In Practice (CIP) is EDUC1138. More information on how to enrol can be found on the registration webpages.

 How will I learn on this course ?

You will learn through a combination of challenge-based, enquiry based and game-based learning alongside learning through experience and reflection. The course will begin with an intensive taught week, taking place in induction week. You will learn in large, collaborative spaces (such as the JMS spaces) across 4 days in induction week. Teaching delivery will take place in the morning (scheduled for 10 – 1) on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. You will be exposed to the project themes (presented by the project partners early in the course) and will then progress with teaching and challenges focused on those project themes as you work together in initial interdisciplinary teams. You will be supported by weekly 1-hour tutorials on a Wednesday afternoon from week 1 until week 3. Teams will present their ‘group pitch’ (the first assessment task) during the tutorial in week 3 to the other teams in their tutorial group. 

From week 4 you will move into your project teams where the focus of the work becomes enquiry-based, as opposed to the enquiry-oriented first component of the course. In teams of ~6, you will work on project themes provided by the project partners, and will supported by a mentor for each theme. Mentor sessions on a Wednesday afternoon (2-hours long) will enable teams to meet weekly with their mentors to provide updates and ensure a collaborative space exists for project work. Student teams are expected to significantly progress their project work outside of this collaborative timetabled space as well. The course notionally ‘ends’ with a final ‘showcase’ event where teams present their final project outputs in a final 2-hour showcase event in week 9. 

 How will I be supported academically on this course?

Sessions in induction week will be timetabled for 3 hours (10-1pm), but there will be only 2 hours of delivery (10-12noon) to ensure that you have timetabled time in which to work together in teams on team-based activities that you might otherwise struggle to arrange time for. IE student timetables will display 10-12, but the room and teacher will be timetabled for 10-1 on each day. Two additional ‘teamwork’ hours will be available in the same room on each day of induction week from 2-4pm, but these will normally be unstaffed. The purpose of these additional hours is to provide you the time and space to work in your teams on pre-assigned homework tasks. This means that any room that is booked for CIP teaching should be booked for 10-4pm on each day in induction week (except Wednesday). By attending the four sessions scheduled in induction week, the students will be guided in around 20 notional learning hours. 

Three identified Project Partners will each provide two project themes as their contribution to the course. The six project themes will form a basis for the challenge-based nature of the course will be introduced briefly on the first day of the course by the ILP Teaching Team, but the Project Partners will specifically present their project themes in details (for an hour) in the third taught session (Thursday of induction week). Project Partners will be required to attend that session for ~1hour. This will provide time for initial enquiry and discussion. 

The course convenor (or delegate) will be present throughout the day during the first week of the course to ensure constant opportunity for informal feedback but will not actively intervene during these additional ‘non-contact’ hours – they will also not necessarily need to facilitate any activities during the taught contact hours. The delivery team for each session will be responsible for planning and implementing the taught 2-hour sessions but will not need to be present beyond those 2 hours. 

Mentors will facilitate the tutorials and the supervision (mentor) sessions from week 1 until week 8. There will be one mentor allocated to each project theme (6 mentors in total). Each mentor will be expected to mentor 3-4 student teams. Themed tutorial groups (comprising 3-4 teams each working on the same theme) will be formed for the tutorials and pitch groups. These teams are expected to sustain into the project phase, but equally there may be some necessary movement of students at the point where students move to the project phase of the course (e.g. due to challenging group dynamics). Such movement is expected to be exceptional. 

On Wednesday afternoon in weeks 1 and 2 mentors will facilitate two hour-long tutorials, before a 2-hour long ‘seminar’ session in week 3 (the ‘pitch’ session) wherein active feedback will be facilitated between teams. Students will be expected to contribute around 20 notional hours towards their group pitch assessment. Mentors will be expected to assess pitches and any group contribution modifiers to grades. This will be supported by course leads. From week 4-8 mentors will facilitate 2-hour long mentor sessions that support the team projects, during which time they will support and facilitate completion of the group progress updates and any associated task completion assessment items. Mentors will be responsible for assessing this component also, again supported by the course leads. Mentors will also be responsible for supporting teams through these periodic updates, e.g. if teams struggle to form, or if contribution is uneven then mentors can address this and support this. During this ‘project phase’ of the course the majority of study learning is guided independent study (enquiry). 

The final ‘showcase’ event in week 9 will be a celebration of the course and the teams’ achievements. Students will showcase their final project output, and the course leads, mentors and project partners will all be in attendance. Feedback will be provided by all, and student teams will be able to modify their final project output before a final submission deadline for the final project output and individual reflective logs later in the semester. 

What unique learning experiences will I have on this course?

Much of this has already been outlined above, however the unique experiences would include: 

  • Opportunity to engage with a project partner from GCF, Hunterian or beyond the institution entirely 
  • Opportunity to create a project output with real world meaning 
  • Opportunity to engage in enquiry-based learning at an early stage in your degree 

 What skills will I learn on this course?

Students on CIP will develop a range of future skills. This will include, but will not be limited to learning to apply their learning through risk and failure, design and plan approaches to problem solving, communicate with others, articulating your thinking and recognising the strengths and skills of others, collaboration, organisation and management of projects, recognising problems that cross-subject boundaries and reflect on your learning and decisions, including the impact of those decisions. 

These skills will be surfaced through a combination of active learning strategies that signpost to the ‘Future Skills Taxonomy’ where relevant, but will moreso be surfaced through assessment and reflection activities, such as the reflective log, where students will be asked to reflect on their skills development and awareness as they progress through the course. Through reflection (and feedback) alongside an assessment rubric that enables feedback on skills development, students will be able to self-assess their skills development. 

How will I be assessed on this course?

There are three components of assessment for this course: 

  • 10% group pitch for the problem-solving task [ILO1, ILO3] 
  • 50% co-designed project output1 for the research-based task from your group [ILO1, ILO2, ILO3].
  • 40% individual reflective log [ILO3, ILO4].

Sequence  

Assessment type 

Weighting   

(indicate % or Pass/Fail  

Formative 

Reflective Log Entry  

0  

Summative (Week 3) 

Pitch  

10%  

Summative (Week 9) 

Project Output 

50% 

Summative (End of Course) 

Reflective Log 

40% 

The Group Pitch will take place typically towards the end of week 3 and will be 5-6 minutes in length. Your Group Pitch will outline your group’s chosen ‘approach’ to researching and engaging with the societal challenge you are addressing, expressing the need to explore that challenge, relevant objectives of your proposed enquiry, as well as presenting a consideration of the required resources and how they will be deployed. You should consider your Group Pitch as an opportunity to ‘gain support’ or, depending on your approach, to ‘gain backing’ to proceed with your proposed project. 

Your group will present your Group Pitch to a small number of other groups on the course. Through a process of ‘active feedback’ (where your group will present its pitch, compare it against other groups’ pitches and against resources provided by your tutor, and then reflecting through your reflective logs) your group will be able to gauge how well you have performed as a team, and what you might do differently as you begin the research-based group project.  

The co-designed project output will be agreed between the project partner/sponsor and the student team and could comprise less traditional academic outputs, for example an artefact, product, poster or public engagement communication or a more traditional ‘report’. The output will also be sub-divided into process (25% progress reports and task completion) and output (25% final output).  

There will be 5 elements of progress reporting, e.g.: 

  • Initial team set up, social contract, initial ways of working 
  • Proposing tasks, timelines, final project outputs and reaching agreement 
  • Periodic progress update 1 
  • Periodic progress update 2 
  • Shaping the project output with the partner 

The Individual Reflective Log will comprise at least 8 entries; with each entry based on a key stage of the course (e.g. the workshops early in the course, your group pitch, your first meeting with the project partner, regular mentor meetings, feedback on your progress reports, etc). The entries can be of varying length, but the overall log should total around 1500 words. Your reflective log must show how you have developed against ILOs 3 and 4, including not only on your approaches but also those of your groupmates and how disciplinarity has impacted on how you approached the tasks.

Who is the course leader?

Dr Michael McEwan is leading this course.