Learning a practice through practise: presenting knowledge in doctoral spoken presentations

Abstract

Learning to 'become doctor' requires PhD candidates to undertake progressive public displays -material and social -of knowledge. Knowledge in doctoral pedagogy is primarily realised textually, with speaking and writing remaining as the primary assessment rubrics of progress and of the qualification. Participating textually begins, in a public sense, with the Confirmation of Candidature presentation/paper and culminates in a Viva Voce/dissertation. Drawing on linguistic ethnographic observations and analyses, this paper uses practice-based perspectives to examine a doctoral candidate practising to present knowledge publicly in a university research centre. The paper focuses on sociomaterial shifts in the trial run and final delivery of the two presentations examining how the candidate is initiated into new actions in response to these changes. Findings reveal how the candidate engages with collective understandings of the practice of presenting knowledge provided by feedback from her doctoral 'friends'. Learning a practice through practise highlights the importance of participating as learning and learning as participating. This is particularly so in a time of change for doctoral pedagogy, when honing a practice collectively is argued to be advantageous in a localised setting that recognises and fosters the benefits of participation. ARTICLE HISTORY

Humanistic Management Performativity ‘in the Wild’: The Role of Performative Bundles of Practices

“…Data collection involved repeated visits and ethnographic immersions, in order to observe them first hand (Antonacopoulou, 2008;Manidis & Addo, 2017). Interviewees were chosen to provide an image of companies from a variety of perspectives including all types of positions in the business structure.…”

First-line managers’ practices and learning in unpredictable work within elderly care

“…Instead, the term refers to diverse meanings and is used in a variety of ways, ranging from simple procedures and interconnected components forming a practice to relationships that constitute practices and their contributions to the ongoing practice (Hager and Beckett 2019). A practice may occur on different levels, for example from a recruitment process to a mouse click (Wilkinson and Kemmis 2015), and has been conceptualised as human activity, more commonly described as 'everyday meanings' (Manidis and Addo 2017). The different conceptualisations of practice have led to critical claims that it is used in a taken-for-granted way and is less problematised in relation to professional learning and workplace learning (Hager and Beckett 2019;Reich and Hager 2014).…”

Governing the social, material, textual, and advancing professional learning of doctoral candidates in the contemporary university

“…They followed a similar spoken script, their talk endured for an agreed timeline, the presentation contained stipulated content, the delivery was multimodal and each candidate stood or sat in front of a number of faculty members and other PhD candidates. Candidates used delivery materials familiar to all -PowerPoint1 slides and hand-outs Manidis and Addo, 2017. Written textual accomplishment in the academy is the basis of how academics share their knowledge, but its teaching is largely invisible.…”