The document summarizes a conference on using courses as research projects where students take on researcher roles. It describes a case study where a master's course on communication was turned into a research laboratory. Students were divided into research teams, given research questions from professors, and performed case studies and analysis. They presented their results as mini-conference papers. The course engaged students in the role of researchers and produced high-quality output. However, it faced obstacles from students' and universities' preconceptions about traditional learning. The document argues for learning communities and breaking hierarchies to facilitate collaborative knowledge production instead of knowledge acquisition.

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Courses as research projects and students
in the role as researchers. A case study
Kjetil Sandvik, Associate Professor, Media, Cognition
and Communication, University of Copenhagen

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Disengaged students: blame the
pedagogical set-up
I never teach my students. I only attempt to provide
the conditions in which they can learn.
Albert Einstein

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Agenda
• Inspired by theories on entrepreneurial
education as well as on learning
communities , this paper presents and
discusses the pedagogical potentials and
challenges in relation to a case in which a
MA course was turned into a research
laboratory situating the students with roles
as researcher.

4. DUN Conference 2017 May 30-31
Point of departure
• Learning is related to the environment created for the
learning experience
• It comes with specific routinazations and structures
which shape and determine the educational practices.
• The auditorium and the classroom-like lecture rooms
so dominant at the universities incite specific
pedagogical and didactical routines and rituals:
• Lectures comes with specific hierarchical roles
ascribed to the lecturer (the provider of knowledge)
and the students (the receivers of knowledge).
Helle Neergaard & Dorthe Refslund Christensen (2017)
Breaking the waves: Routines and ritual in entre-
peneurship education, in Industry & Higher Education

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Point of departure
• The routines and rituals embedded in the physical
design as well as the pedagogical design of the
learning situation may…
• go against ideas about (co-)creating learning
environments that are engaging and inspiring and
which urge the students to be in charge of their
own learning processes and development.
• They (may) work counter to making students
active and to provide a sense of being part of an
academic environment (belonging!).
• They contradict the idea that learning is not (just)
about acquiring knowledge, it is also about
researching and creating knowledge.

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The case
• MA course (“Communication 2.0”) in cross
media communication turned into a research
laboratory providing the students with roles
as researcher.
• The course was rooted in an actual research
project ‘Meaning Across Media’
• As such the students’ research efforts
contributed to the research objectives of the
Meaning Across Media project.

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Course design: laboratories
• An important part of the course was not only
introducing students to communication 2.0 but
also…
• inviting the students to partake in an ongoing
field of research
• …concerning methods, theories and perspectives
concerning this particular field of communication
studies.
• As such each seminar consisted of a laboratory in
which students were invited to theorize and
analyze the specific topic of said seminar in
collaboration with senior researchers.

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Course design: students as
researchers
• The students were offered the role as (junior-)
researchers
• The students were divided into research teams
• The students were provided with research questions
and inputs from senior researchers (and suggestions
for relevant literature)
• The students performed research in the shape of
doing various case-studies, analyzing, theorizing and
discussing
• The students created short research reports after each
laboratory to be put in the research team’s online files
• The students presented their results at the course
workshops (mini-conferences) in the shape of
research paper presentations with opponents and
discussions.

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Results
• Even though not accustomed to this role, the students
engaged in the role as researchers
• High level of self-organized activities in the research
teams
• High level of out-put in shape of ’conference-papers’
(more than just final exam papers).
• Very positive evaluation (apart from critical comments
about the auditorium assigned to the course and the
curricula and exam regulations not being suited for this
kind of experimenting course format)

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Obstacles
• The pre-coding of students:
o focus on doing ‘what’s expected’
o getting it right, getting good grades
o fixed ideas of ‘how learning in universities should be’
o reluctance towards experimenting, making excurses,
challenging knowledge (and themselves…)
• The pre-coding of the system:
o course-administration,
o evaluation-system,
o exam system etc.

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The coding of the learning space
Not really what you would call a laboratory, eh?

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Where to move: towards the
learning community as
pedagogical principle
• Participants of learning community must feel some sense of
loyalty and belonging to the group (membership) that drive
their desire to keep working and helping others
• The things that the participants do must affect what happens
in the community; that means, an active and not just a
reactive performance (influence).
• A learning community must give the chance to the participants
to meet particular needs (fulfillment) by expressing personal
opinions, asking for help or specific information
• A learning community must give the participants possibilities
to share stories of events with particular issue included
(emotional connections) emotional experiences.
Bonk, C. J, Wisher, R & Nigrelli, M. (2004). Chapter 12. Learning Communities,
Communities of practices: principles, technologies and examples
in Littlton, Karen, Learning to Collaborate. Nova. USA.

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Concluding remarks: Changing the
game
• Breaking up the teacher-student hierarchy: in a learning
community setting the teacher is not the (sole) ’information
provider’ but a participant (with specific skills) in the learning-
environment and –processes facilitating learning as
collaborative and co-creative activities (entrepreneurial
approach to teaching/learning)
• Challenging the ideas about teaching and learning: from
acquiring (fixed) knowledge that can be tested/evaluated to
engaging in knowledge-production and discussion: what is
knowledge, how does it come into existence, can it be
contested, disrupted, improved…?
• Challenging the ’nature’ of course planning: from fixed
learning goals to continuous making and remaking the goals:
adapting to what is important, necessary and interesting to
learn…

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Concluding remarks: what to
keep in mind• Design: how do we organize learning-
spaces (online/offline) that ensure
learning community processes (every
space comes with specific agencies:
possibilities and limitations, e.g. the
lecture room, the auditorium, the online
course-system)
• Practices: how do we create open and
collaborative processes – thinking
beyond the traditional ’teacher lectures,
students acquire knowledge, students
reproduce knowledge, teacher evaluates
and provides feedback’-scheme
• Roles and rituals: giving the students
responsibility and empowerment in the
learning processes: collaboration and co-
creation – being part of creating the
learning process, defining the goals,
designing the methods etc.
o Academic makerspaces!
• Flows: how are the communication
patterns and logics organized: traditional
one-way with possibilities for asking
questions, giving comments, taking tests
etc. vs. multiple-ways: dialogue,
collaborative processes

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…
• Coding of rooms: a traditional class room, lecture
room or auditorium with a ‘stage’ for the teacher
including black/whiteboards, screens for powerpoint-
presentation and tables and benches/chairs for the
students in front of this vouch for a specific learning
environment and teaching format in contrast to open
spaces, spaces where furniture and communication
technologies can be moved around and arranged to
suite the specific learning situation.
• Consider this: Online learning environments often
remediate offline ditto: online lectures (e.g. TED talks)
duplicate a traditional classroom setting, online ‘class
rooms’ are set up with the same communicative logic
as in offline class rooms – contrary to conference-
setups (like Google Hangout, Adobe Connect…) or
online-worlds (like the basic idea of Second Life) with
the possibilities of collaborative learning processes.