Scholarship As Conversation

What is meant by Scholarship as Conversation?

As a student or working professional, it is no secret that research is a crucial part of our academic and professional journeys. It is through research that new ideas are "formulated, debated and weighted" against each other to negotiate meaning. Much like the saying "there's always two sides to a story", concepts and queries generate varying opinions formulated from varying perspectives. Thus, it is essential for experts to seek out and consider these varying responses, raise questions and provide their own opinions, giving everyone a choice and a "voice", before making a final decision...thus scholarly conversation is born!

Information Creation

Like a never-ending story, information literate students recognise that the process of information creation is an ongoing journey rather than a final destination. They are also able to identify and acknowledge contributions made by others, and critically evaluate these contributions by identify barriers and gaps, highlighting and summarising changes in opinions and differences in perspective, and make meaningful contributions for further development.

Do we as students engage in scholarly conversation?

Absolutely! With the amount of research that we have to do for our academic careers, we are faced with information on a daily basis. With new developments occurring all the time, it is important to keep abreast with these changes. This is most commonly found when doing research for proposals or assignments that need to be completed. When researching a topic, you already know that there are different angles you can approach and you have to consider various expert opinions and highlight any contradictions that are noted. We also have an opportunity t make our own voices heard as we are required to draw conclusions and give our own interpretation of people's views and use them to strengthen our own arguments and opinions.

How can this concept be enhanced?

Students can be divided into several groups and given a particular article to read or topic to cover. They will then be questioned on the article and everyone interprets things differently, thus you will get a variety of viewpoints which may be totally different from what you as the instructor/facilitator imagined. This can be done in a classroom setting or tutorial group.

Much like scaffolding speaks about building up knowledge, information creation involves having a "conversation" with all the researchers which includes critically evaluating their contributions to the pool of knowledge, examining existing evidence supporting these theories or opinions, and also identifying differences, gaps and opportunities for new development. Understanding the vital role each voice plays, including our own, could lead to a transformation of how we view information and how we do research!