''There is an increasing recognition of the need for students across many disciplines to acquire competence in research methods and statistics. This is often referred to as statistical literacy, defined by Gal (2005, p. 70) as “the ability to interpret, critically evaluate, and communicate about statistical information and messages”. Nikiforidou, Lekka, and Pange (2010, p. 798) also acknowledged the importance of statistical literacy as requiring consideration of the “the synergy of content, pedagogy and technology”.

1.1. Difficulties and misconceptions
However, acquiring methodological and statistical expertise poses significant challenges for many students (Tishkovskaya & Lancaster, 2010). The material is challenging because it is highly abstract and requires the consideration of inter-related logical reasoning, critical thinking, data analysis and interpretation and evaluation skills. Students perceive statistics as difficult and boring and this leads to anxiety and a lack of self-efficacy. Castro Sotos, Vanhoof, Van den Noortgate, and Onghena’s (2007) systematic review of students’ statistical misconceptions found that students have many misconceptions surrounding statistical constructs such as sampling distributions, hypothesis testing and confidence intervals."

​www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131514000141

RIT pre-reading Dialogue Journal of Learning and Teaching 2016/17

Some relevant notes/quotes:
 
“The purpose of RIT is to help students learn through encountering research methods and content”

“Community of scholarship” (Brown 2009)

1. Research-tutored (ACTIVE/INVESTIGATIVE) Student focused / active knowledge producers
2. Research-based (ACTIVE/DISCOVERY) Student focused / active knowledge producers
3. Research-led (PASSIVE/DISCOVERY)
4. Research-orientated (PASSIVE/INVESTIGATIVE)

 
Teachers research interests ‘distorted the curriculum towards their research (Jenkins, 1998)
 
“To be an effective RIT practitioner, academics should consider how to negotiate the links between research and teaching, finding ways to integrate the two, thereby strengthening students’ understanding of research”
 
“In practice, RIT strongly depends on academics’ pedagogic understanding and their willingness to provide intellectual space for students to co-create and solve research questions and problems”
 
“Research and inquiry is not just for those who choose to pursue an academic career. It is central to professional life in the twenty-first century” (Brew 2007)
 
How to encourage students:
 
Students must:
-Develop the ability to investigate
-Develop the ability to make sound judgements on sound evidence
Rational decisions
Understand what and why
 
“RIT entails a conceptual shift fro viewing learning as knowledge reproduction to seeing it as knowledge construction”
 
“Pedagogy of the air” (Barnett 2007, p1)
 
“When students learn as researchers, they are given the opportunities to explore how knowledge is produced, distributed and used through research (Healey, 2014)

“The Artist’s Book Ideation Cards deck was designed as an aid to the book artist, to jump start a new project or inform one in progress. There are two decks in the set: Category Cards containing approximately eight cards in each of the seven categories (text, image, structure, paper, layout, technique and color) and 54 Adjective Cards of which three are ‘wild cards.’ Choosing a card randomly from each of the seven categories and five cards from the adjectives offers an unexpected recipe for a project. Barb Tetenbaum developed the original set of artist’s book ideation cards for use in her teaching practice.This version was further developed and designed in collaboration with Julie Chen''.

MEASUREMENTS: 108 cards, colour illustrations, 64 x 89 mm, in box 139 x 97 x 24 mm

There might be some elements here I can develop into the book arts game that I'd like to design as a resource to support students becoming familiar with relevant artist book terminology, tools, materials and resources.

Here below is a video detailing a prototype board game designed by Rebecca Brady & Ryan Brady for their Research Project / PgCert at UoP. The game is designed to ease in new students into the terminology, structure and user interface used in AVID that runs parallel with the editing workflow they teach students. An excellent original idea employing gamification in H.E. setting.

Heres an illustrated playable board game designed by Todd Klein and Illustrated by Shawn Mcmanus about making it as a professional freelance artist/illustrator focusing on three categories: Skill / Fame / Income. It is presented in a light toungue-in-cheek way, but actually is spot on in terms of making decisions about getting into freelance work.

Here are the UDL guidelines downloaded from UDL website which will be useful for my research-informed teaching.

Yesterday afternoon at UoP I attended a neurodiversity workshop by Amanda Kirby. It was a two-hour presentation offering insightful information regarding neurodiversity and education. Amanda discussed some valuable resources that we can access to support us when teaching neurodivergent students- including the Universal Design for Learning Guidelines (which I read for my Academic and Professional Development reflections). Below are the notes I took, the literature Amanda mentioned and some slides from the presentation.

Resources to explore:
​https://doitprofiler.com/education/universities/
https://udlguidelines.cast.org/

I rediscovered the above quote recently while reading the literature around learning theory, having first come across it over twenty years ago when I included it in my BA Fine Art dissertation (entitled ‘The Philosophy of Utopian Architecture’). The quote thematically encapsulates my outlook on my professional work within the creative industries, and my identity as an ‘illustration-educator’, but it also resonates with my teaching philosophy; my core beliefs and values about the power of education; what it can offer and to whom.

It is fair to say I did a fair amount of research for my PgCert. I am very much looking forward to  the RIT element next term where I will be focussing on Gamification. Below is an excel doc of all my research- including independent research related to Illustration-education.