The Group Consultancy Project: Building Scholar-Practitioner Identity Through a Community of Research Practice

• In Event: Accepting Educational Responsibility: Approaches and Frameworks to Teaching Research Methods

Abstract

In the last decade, there has been an effort to re-design the Ed.D as a degree that prepares practitioners to blend practical research and applied theory as tools for social transformation. To achieve this, programs have employed signature pedagogies—forms of instruction placing students in authentic practice settings. This case study examines the process of student learning in a less known signature pedagogy – the group consultancy project– as a community of practice that provides service to local communities in one U.S. EdD program. It reveals the benefits of the consultancy for developing graduates’ inquiry abilities, enhancing their equity lens, and thus socializing them into a scholar-practitioner identity. The presentation discusses implications for institutions that prepare scholar-practitioners as agents of change

Author

• Veselina Lambrev, University of South Florida