NEWS
Journal article award for international excellence
Four RMIT academics have won an international award for their article on leadership practice for curriculum development in different disciplinary contexts.
Associate Professors Fiona Peterson, Andrea Chester, Suzie Attiwill and Debra Bateman are all Learning and Teaching leaders within the RMIT College of Design and Social Context.
Their article “Learning and Teaching Scholarship: Discovery across Disciplines” was published in the Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Collection Annual Review, Volume 10 in December 2015.
It was selected for the Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Collection’s 2015 International Award for Excellence from among the ten highest-ranked articles emerging from the peer review process and according to the selection criteria outlined in the referee guidelines.
The article compares stories from the practice of leading curriculum development across the social sciences, humanities, and creative arts, to explore the potential of interdisciplinary thinking in collaborative knowledge building.
Those in formal leadership roles for learning and teaching have adapted the “integrated scholarship” approach for collaborative learning through practice, research, reflection and discovery.
Peterson said the article highlights that interdisciplinary thinking is integral to making creative connections, in exploring the scholarship of learning and teaching across disciplines. This is important for RMIT with its focus on innovation and transformative learning experiences for students.
“Using a comparative personal narrative methodology, we focused on stories of leading curriculum development and implementation.”
“This highlighted the importance of developing a shared scholarly language, which acknowledges different disciplinary world views” said Peterson.
The Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Collection consists of nine peer-reviewed journals published by Common Ground Publishing in the United States.
The collection includes eight quarterly journals focused on distinct thematic areas and an annual review that publishes work of exceptional quality and broad interest across the field.
Established in 2006 and currently publishing its 11th volume, the Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Collection is indexed by Scopus, the Australian Research Council (ERA), Ulrich’s Periodicals Directory, various EBSCO databases, and others.
As part of the award, the leaders are invited to the next conference, where they will also be acknowledged in a short presentation.
The Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Conference will be held on 2-4 August 2016 at the Imperial College London in the United Kingdom.
Story: Wendy Little