Abstract:

Students frequently enter their research courses with fear and trepidation seeing them as a necessary evil of their graduate education. In 2018, the Faculty of Graduate Studies at Athabasca University in Alberta Canada spearheaded an initiative to develop an advanced qualitative research course to be offered across faculties. The focus of the design was to create a course that was interesting, innovative and exciting for students so they could engage in learning about the landscape of qualitative research and to see and experience what it is like to “be” a qualitative researcher. As more and more post-secondary institutions move towards online based environments, we see a need for faculty to learn and engage students in different ways than what they were accustomed to in traditional face to face classrooms. In this presentation, I will briefly overview the design process and share some of the innovative teaching strategies (called Artistic Pedagogical Technologies) that were used to invite students into the learning environment and to help them feel engaged and excited about qualitative research.

Keywords:

Graduate education, qualitative research, artistic pedagogical technologies.