Associate Professor Franziska Trede from the Institute for Interactive Media and Learning (IML) at the University of Technology Sydney utilised Learning Journeys to support her as she embarked on a solo research project.
Working independently in this way was a new experience for Franziska, who typically works in partnership with other academics. Learning Journeys provided the opportunity for Franziska to explore how this experience might be different, and to reflect on how she approaches her practice more generally.
“I thought Learning Journeys could be something that would enrich the research experience … to be more creative about my research, not just have a plan and tick off my milestones,” she said.
The Learning Power Profile is determined by your learning context and perception of yourself at a specific point in time. Recognising this, Franziska purposefully completed her Learning Journeys survey within the scope of her new project. In doing this, Franziska’s Leanring Power Profile provided her with feedback that could help her build her resilient agency enabling the modification of her approach, in order to work by herself without the support of a team.
“I wanted to see how the spider turned out when I looked at a solo research project and I’m not surprised there’s a dent in the agency, where on other projects I do, that dent is not there,” she said.
Franziska was able to take the information she gained from her Learning Power profile to reflect on strategies to improve her agency. She utilised Learning Journeys to make a contract with herself, using it as a tool to ensure her actions were accountable.
“I have Learning Journeys in the back of my mind when I prioritise other things over this solo project because it’s just me and if I don’t write it up then there’s no consequence, no one is waiting or looking at me.”
Franziska said the nature of working independently meant engaging in coaching conversations was a challenge. She said she didn’t have the opportunity to workshop her profile, which reduced her ability to utilise the experience to support her in her research project. This team approach is very much encouraged and networks exist now at UTS to support this approach.
Franziska said there is value in using Learning Journeys during collaborative research projects and could be used as an especially effective discussion trigger to explore learning. Using it as a tool for peer support means the team could work together to foster each other’s development, setting specific roles and tasks aimed at improving the areas each member wanted to improve.
While Franziska recommended using Learning Journeys in a collaborative research project capacity, she said she still gained some value and believes re-doing her survey would be of benefit in order to evaluate her progress, reflecting on the areas she could improve, or where she had worked well.