Indonesia
As soon as the event began, Hamamah, Ph.D., Dean of the Faculty of Cultural Studies (FCS), Universitas Brawijaya (UB), welcomed Prof. Sue Starfield. The online meeting room was filled with enthusiasm from the lecturers for Prof. Sue’s talk.
Prof. Sue is an emeritus professor at the School of Education, University of New South Wales (UNSW), Australia. Her research and publications encompass academic literacy, writing for publication, postgraduate pedagogy, and identity in academic writing. She has authored several books on qualitative research methods and received Australian Research Council grants for her work.
Prof. Sue was invited by FCS UB to assist the lecturers of the English Literature Study Programme in improving the efficiency of the Research Proposal Writing (RPW) course syllabus through an online workshop. The event was held on Wednesday (10/07/2024).
The workshop commenced with a presentation of the lesson plan module prepared by the English Literature RPW lecturer team. Sahiruddin, Ph.D., explained the target learning outcomes, planned activities, and time allocation to Prof. Sue.
Prof. Sue positively assessed the draft module, appreciating the quality and relevance of the material. She also provided constructive feedback for further improvement.
“It is great that you have enough time to teach students how to write proposals. The activities you plan for students will also really support them in writing their proposals,” she said.
“For the peer review process, I think we might need to provide guidance on how to give feedback. Students don’t always know what kind of assessment and suggestions their fellow students need. It might also help to create simple exercises that make them more familiar with the format of writing research proposals,” Prof. Sue added.
Prof. Sue then shared her knowledge and experience on writing effective research proposals and how to teach it to students. She introduced the objectives of research proposal writing and explained the steps to structure a research proposal to achieve these objectives.
Prof. Sue discussed each chapter of the research proposal in detail and recommended resources, including books and websites, to assist students in their writing.
During the question and answer session, the lecturers eagerly asked questions. One of the questions came from Fatimah, S.Pd., M.Appl.Ling., a lecturer in the RPW linguistics specialisation.
“One of the problems that students face in class is difficulty in finding topics. The process of determining a topic can take two to three weeks. Is there a way you recommend to help them brainstorm ideas for research topics?” asked Fatimah.
“Coming up with a topic is not an easy task, even for doctoral students. It is a challenging process for undergraduate students. You can get them to answer simple questions to get started. Which area are you interested in? Is there anything you would like to know more about? Once they know the areas they are interested in, have them read a lot of articles on those areas. They can make a mind map of the ideas that come up, whatever they are. Then you can give feedback on those ideas,” Prof. Sue replied.
At the end of the event, Prof. Sue encouraged the lecturers and advised them to always support the students’ process.
“A few times, we had to rethink how to give feedback. Some of my ways didn’t work well. There is no other way but to adapt, even if you think your way is good. You have to give feedback that you yourself would find helpful. Support them throughout the writing process,” she concluded. [trans.acl/ed.al/vidya/PR FCS]