Professional Development
PhD students are required to complete a minimum of 120 hours of professional development activities. Professional development is highly recommended for Masters's students.
You can register for professional development modules via myDevelopment.
For activities to count towards your 120 hours, you need to choose them from the Graduate Research topic area.
Activities are broadly categorised into:
Excellence in Research & Teaching - designed to develop knowledge, skills and abilities that are immediately relevant to academic life.
Professionalism, Innovation & Career - designed to develop the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to apply your expertise within and beyond academia.
Activities are offered centrally, by MADA and other Faculties, the library and SAS. Students should develop their learning plan in consultation with their supervisor according to what is relevant for their research project and stage of their career development.
What to consider when developing and structuring your learning plan:
- Mandatory modules: some are offered centrally, e.g. Research Integrity, some by MADA
- Level of activity: foundational, intermediate or advanced
- Pre-requisites: activities can be / have pre-requisites for others
- Frequency / duration of activities
- Other Faculties might offer activities that are relevant to your project
- MADA activities are developed by the Departments and Wominjeka Djeembana; some are open to all students, some are limited to the department cohorts
- Mode and duration of activities: can be online, in-person or hybrid
- Some activities might involve attendance of off-campus events
For more information, including how to report on completed PD hours for your milestones, please follow this link
Professional Development Modules Overview
Fine Art
| Activity Title | Level | Description | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Research Mechanics for Graduate Students in Fine Art - Introduction | Foundation | This module introduces academic expectations in preparing a thesis or a practice-led research project. It includes guidance in discipline-specific library and literature searches and introduces candidates to bibliographic and note-keeping software. The module comprises two 2-hour parts. | 4 |
| Research Mechanics for Graduate Students in Fine Art - Workshops | Foundation | “Research Mechanics for Graduate Students in Fine Art – Workshops” follows on from “Research Mechanics for Graduate Students in Fine Art – Introduction”, and will develop and expand on the material covered in that activity. It will include analysis of methodological approaches in Fine Art across Fine Art, Curatorial, and Art History and Theory research, and will support the candidates in developing their research proposals. The workshops will build critical, analytic and communicative skills. The activity comprises eight two-hour workshops. | 16 |
| Writing Workshop for Graduate Students in Fine Art – Introduction | Intermediate | This activity offers a series of practical workshops on writing in a fine arts’ context. The workshops focus on developing an understanding of research aims, and strategies to refine and focus research positions and questions, and will include direction on how to commence structuring and organising a thesis/exegesis, prepare for the confirmation, and practical advice on the process of writing and revising/editing. The activity comprises six, three-hour workshops. | 18 |
| Fine Art Reading Group | Intermediate | This module follows on from module “Writing Workshop for Graduate Students in Fine Art - Introduction”. A critical aspect of productive research is the ability to read, understand and critique published research in a variety of formats, including: journal articles, books, and exhibitions. One way to develop this skill is through participation in group discussions of published research. In addition to broadening knowledge of a student’s field of research, these discussions help hone critical thinking skills, build familiarity with research and theory, methodology and data analysis methods and enhance communication skills. | 20 |
Design
| Activity Title | Level | Description | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Introduction to Design Research and Writing | Foundation |
This foundational seminar series will support candidates at the early stages of their research degree. The purpose of the module is to enable students to prepare for confirmation, develop their research and writing skills and practice oral communication.
The module comprises 4 interactive sessions of 4 hrs each. | 16 |
| Design Thinking: Strategies for identifying and creating better solutions to complex challenges | Foundation | This online, self-paced short course introduces candidates to the foundations of user-centred Design Thinking. You will learn design thinking strategies and methodologies, such as empathy mapping, stakeholder mapping, storyboarding, ideation and prototyping. Using these tools, you will address a complex real-life challenge, culminating in a viable, desirable, and sustainable response. | 10 |
| Design Research Methods | Foundation |
This series of six one-hour online self-paced lectures and associated readings will orient students towards key methodological approaches and tools common within design practice research. Example case studies will provide candidates with foundational knowledge into how the following approaches can
be applied in practice:
| 12 |
| Design Research Communities - Healthy Communities | Foundation | The Design Research Communities - Healthy Communities engagement activity takes advantage of research efforts in the Faculty in the field of "Design for Health / Wellbeing" as opportunities for graduate researchers to critically participate in research forums where transdisciplinary approaches to research and design are debated by leading industry and academic experts, as well as the broader "Design for Health / Wellbeing" research community. The purpose of the activity is to enable Design students to better engage in public discourse on Design research and practice by providing strategies to prepare for conference attendance, opportunities to network with experts in their discipline, and opportunities to practice oral communication. | 2 |
| Design Practices Reading Group 10 X 1hr Sessions 4pm-5pm 26 July; 2 August; 9 August; 16 August; 23 August; 30 August; 6 September; 13 September; 11 October; 18 October | Foundation | A critical aspect of productive research in Design is the ability to read, understand and critique published research in a variety of formats, including: journal articles, books and reports. One way to develop this skill is through participation in group discussions of published research and practice case studies. In addition to broadening knowledge of Design theory and practice, these discussions help hone critical thinking skills, build familiarity with research and theory, methodology and analysis methods and enhance communication skills. | 10 |
| Preparing for Design Milestones 4 X 2 Hr sessions 10am - 12pm Sessions on 2 August; 16 August; 30 August; 13 September; 11 October | Foundation | This seminar series will support candidates with milestone presentation. The purpose of the module is to enable students to prepare for confirmation, mid candidature and pre-submission milestones, develop their research and writing skills and practice oral communication. The module comprises 4 interactive sessions of 4 hrs each. Each session will require candidates to prepare 1hrs pre seminar activity, 2 hrs in person seminar and 1 hr post seminar activity including reading and writing activities. | 16 |
| Effective Information Visualisation for Research Communication | Intermediate |
This professional development activity provides candidates with the skills to communicate research through effective, evidence-based information visualisation design. It will introduce design-led approaches to creative data storytelling, designing with data humanism, and communicating complex research
findings in ways that are accessible to a general audience. Candidates undertaking this activity will develop skills in data sketching, visual thinking techniques, data cleaning, and using free and open-source tools to create data visualisations suitable for their research topics. The activity will comprise 4 x 1hr parts (self-paced) and the creation of a visualisation diagram: | 4 |
| Participatory Design: An Introduction to Designing with People | Intermediate | At the core of participatory research and co-design practice is a commitment to gaining insight from working with people. This module introduces students to dimensions that come into play when we engage communities, stakeholders or even peers in our post-graduate research. Students will learn how an orientation to participatory research in design must be grounded in an ethics of what it means to ask others for their time, to share their lived experiences, to host a co-creative space. Participatory design is presented as a relational practice that engages broad constituencies of people, yet this introduction underscores that working with people also operates in relation to structural, cultural, political and ecological dimensions. To this end the module asks students to consider their own positionality and power within the engagements and to reflect on how the participation can be designed as a reciprocal exchange. Bringing a co-design practice to the module the learning will be facilitated through a workshop that explores the worlds we live, to underscore what we know and what we cannot know of others' lifeworlds. | 3 |
| Participatory Design: Facilitating a Design Workshop | Intermediate | The design workshop has become a familiar strategy in professional practice for bringing together a broad range of constituents around a shared project. This module introduces students to how to facilitate a design workshop for research purposes. This practical module overviews some of the key considerations when designing a workshop, with the focus on how to facilitate a session that requires a diverse range of stakeholders to co-create together. With a focus on including a diverse range of voices and lived experiences the students will reflect upon how facilitation moves can amplify people’s motivation to fully engage. The module introduces basic tools like running sheets, ways to negotiate the workshop aims and how to set participant expectations. To optimise the data gathering or insights surfaced to inform the next phase of the research the module introduces iterative steps for developing and playtesting the workshop in advance of going live. With the opportunity to tentatively plan a workshop, students will learn how to set clear objectives for each proposed workshop activity so that both the needs of the participants and goals of the research are met. | 3 |
| Participatory Design: Participatory Prototyping | Intermediate | The prototype has often played a central role in the practice of participatory design. This module shares a broad range of moves, beyond the design workshop, for the act of prototyping to be introduced into a participatory design research program. This virtual module has students assessing what kind of participation they are seeking in the prototyping process. Introducing a range of engagement objectives and modes of participatory prototyping, the module overviews an expansive potential use of prototyping with the public. Students will consider the role of the prototype in conversation with the materials of the situation. Recognising the potential of engaging with prototypes to mediate the reflective backtalk with the designer, speculative feedback from the different constituents and evaluative talkback from the design situation. During the module, students will consider the potential opportunity and chart tactical phases for participatory prototyping in their research program. | 3 |
| Participatory Design: Co-Design Methods and Care-Based Moves | Intermediate | In the public sector, co-design is increasingly recognised as a potentially equitable approach for working with diverse communities and a broad range of stakeholders. More than just a toolkit of methods, in this module co-design moves are interleaved with the embodied, material practice of designing to mediate a care-based approach to community engagement. This workshop module includes a breadth of co-design activities so that students can experience the ways the mindset and method come together to define the participatory encounter. With consideration for the individual and the collective experience different co-design methods will be tried out and evaluated. Students will identify what their research seeks to achieve, for example, is the co-design encounter collecting lived experiences, fostering agency within a community, imagining different ways of acting, revealing unmet needs, envisaging new futures or driving consensus. During the module students will get to try different methods and moves to critically reflect on what resonates with their research context and program. | 3 |
| Participatory Design: Analysing Stories and Narrating Data | Intermediate | A key affordance of participatory design for research is the access to a spectrum of sensorial data that might not be captured through qualitative interviews, ethnographic observation or quantitative surveys. Yet participatory encounters, whether field work or design workshops, can be challenging for knowing what data to gather and how to analyse the breadth of material in front of you. This can lead the researcher to feel a kind of paralysis in the face of what data to evaluate. This interactive workshop has students attending to this challenge of how to story the data gathered, sensed and observed. The module introduces a range of methods for analysing, theming, sense-making, or attuning to participatory data. Students will connect the evaluation phase back to the questions their research is asking to determine which stories to pay attention to and how to narrate the insights that emerge. Drawing on research practices from grounded theory and participatory action research the students will be pointed toward ways for coding and theming research, as well as design-led strategies for visualising or co-analysing with participants. In session, students will have a chance to generate their own and give feedback on a peer’s plan to learn how an evaluation mindset applied iteratively throughout a research program opens up multiple staged opportunities for data and insights to shape the direction of the research. Resources to support this workshop can be found at the associated Moodle site. | 3 |
Design Writing for Publication | Intermediate / Advanced |
This intermediate/advanced workshop will support candidates to develop their ability to communicate their design research outcomes through publication. Candidates will examine a range of discipline specific publications to interrogate approaches to design research writing. Guided workshop activities
will facilitate preparing writing for publication in targeted quality academic outlets. Candidates will develop a conference paper, journal article or book chapter based on their own research practices in the context of collected data, methods, theories and relevant scholarly debate.
The module comprises four interactive sessions of 4 hrs each. | 16 |
| Introduction to design ethnography: Designing and conducting ethical and responsible research | Advanced |
All academic research should be ethical and responsible. This activity invites students to consider in detail how this underpins their PhD research, through expert insight on a range of topics. Students will learn how an ethics of design ethnography must be multivalent and consistently integrated in
research processes. The module encourages students to consider ethics throughout their projects, rather than treating it as limited to a discrete university-endorsed predictive process before fieldwork begins. Instead, our approach in the Emerging Technologies Research Lab expands the institutional treatment
of ethics to additionally treat ethical practice as always situated and developing continually as researchers engage with participants in each specific research setting. Our work must also be responsible in terms of its potential future impact.
The activity will comprise of 1 hour workshop, 1 hour self-study, and 1 hour discussion with peers. | 3 |
| Design ethnography: Working alone and with other researchers | Advanced | This activity builds on "Introduction to design ethnography: Designing and conducting ethical and responsible research" and considers themes that inform all ethnographic research. The first is the centrality of ethics and responsibility. Even if the research project does not directly engage research participants, fieldwork based on auto-ethnography or participant observation must still do so in a way that emerges continually throughout the project, as discussed in “Introduction to design ethnography: Designing and conducting ethical and responsible research”. Reflexivity is also crucial, or identifying and accounting for our own position in the field as researchers, what we bring to our research orientations and the effects we might have on the contexts in which we work. Relatedly, the role of embodiment, both in sensory perception and as a location of cultural and social factors that shape our position in and attitudes toward research. It follows that the use of researchers’ own thoughts, feelings and sensory experiences provides a powerful route to understand others’ experiences. Finally, this activity will prompt participants to consider how research materials made alone or with other researchers contribute to the scholarly analytical process, rather than stopping at mere description. | 3 |
| Design ethnography: Working with research participants | Advanced | At the heart of any ethnographic research is the attempt to reach new understandings about people and their lifeworlds. This necessarily includes and draws on many different technologies and diverse examples of design, together with feelings, thoughts, memories and forms of anticipating possible futures. The complex and dynamic nature of the experiential world means that ways of investigating it must be able to attend to its emergent qualities, and also be alert to the insights that complicate the initial research questions. Moreover, there are many practical challenges of working with research participants, including the recent hurdle of researching in conditions of physical isolation. This Module builds on “Introduction to design ethnography: Designing and conducting ethical and responsible research” to consolidate a distinctive methodology based on digital, visual, sensory and design approaches. In addition to extending their understanding of the principles of methodology of design ethnography, students will learn about a range of techniques, their benefits and challenges, and the analytical insights they can support. | 3 |
Architecture
| Activity Title | Level | Description | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Introduction to Transdisciplinary Research in Architecture, Urban Planning & Design | Foundation |
This transdisciplinary activity provides an introduction to key approaches to research enquiry in architecture, urban planning and design and profiles the range and diversity of research approaches across the Department and the Faculty. The activity introduces the range of modes, methods and mediums
of transdisciplinary research found in our core subjects, and is organised around materials produced by research leaders, focusing on the specific approaches of the Research Labs.
This activity is broken up in seven parts. A one-hour introductory lecture is followed by six workshops of 2.5 hours each, consisting of a short lecture, followed by a practicum delivered by a range of research staff. | 16 |
| Research Knowledge Translation in Architecture, Urban Planning and Design | Foundation |
A critical aspect of productive research in architecture, urban planning and design is the ability to determine the source material and ascertain its quality as scholarly work, and analyse and interpret published research papers, spatial investigations and projects. One of the best ways to develop this
skill is through participation in group discussions of published articles, book chapters, and project precedents or case studies.
This activity is broken up in four sections, during which students are asked to discuss and evaluate a range of works as well as annotated bibliographies. This series of four three-hour workshops will broaden your knowledge in your chosen field, build your familiarity with key approaches and debates across the multiple fields represented by research across disciplines that may intersect with your own, and assist you in understanding argument strategies, developing critique of specific arguments, and enhancing your communication skills. | 3 |
| Architecture, Urban Planning & Design Reading and Writing Group Session One: 2 August - 11-2 Session Two: 16 August - 11-2 Session Three: 30 August - 11-2 Session Four: 13 September - 11-2 | Intermediate |
A critical aspect of productive research in architecture, urban planning and design is the ability to determine the source material and ascertain its quality as scholarly work, and analyse and interpret published research papers, spatial investigations and projects. One of the best ways to develop this
skill is through participation in group discussions of published articles, book chapters, and project precedents or case studies. This activity is broken up in four sections, during which students are asked to discuss and evaluate a range of works as well as annotated bibliographies.
This series of four three-hour workshops will broaden your knowledge in your chosen field, build your familiarity with key approaches and debates across the multiple fields represented by research across disciplines that may intersect with your own, and assist you in understanding argument strategies, developing critique of specific arguments, and enhancing your communication skills. | 12 |
| Introduction to Transdisciplinary Research in Architecture, Urban Planning & Design | Foundation |
This transdisciplinary activity provides an introduction to key approaches to research enquiry in architecture, urban planning and design and profiles the range and diversity of research approaches across the Department and the Faculty. The activity introduces the range of modes, methods and mediums
of transdisciplinary research found in our core subjects, and is organised around materials produced by research leaders, focusing on the specific approaches of the Research Labs. This activity is broken up in seven parts. A one-hour introductory lecture is followed by six workshops of 2.5 hours each, consisting of a short lecture, followed by a practicum delivered by a range of research staff. | 16 |
| Architecture, Urban Planning & Design Reading and Writing Group | Intermediate | A critical aspect of productive research in architecture, urban planning and design is the ability to determine the source material and ascertain its quality as scholarly work, and analyse and interpret published research papers, spatial investigations and projects. One of the best ways to develop this skill is through participation in group discussions of published articles, book chapters, and project precedents or case studies. This activity is broken up in four sections, during which students are asked to discuss and evaluate a range of works as well as annotated bibliographies. This series of four three-hour workshops will broaden your knowledge in your chosen field, build your familiarity with key approaches and debates across the multiple fields represented by research across disciplines that may intersect with your own, and assist you in understanding argument strategies, developing critique of specific arguments, and enhancing your communication skills. | 12 |
Wominjeka Djeembana
| Activity Title | Level | Description | Hours |
|---|---|---|---|
| Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Being / Theory | Foundation | Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Being / Theory is a foundational activity that explores "what is reality" and the diverse realities that exist. It helps candidates in building capacity to understand Indigenous research methodology, also in contrast to Western research methodologies. The foundation to this activity is to build an understanding of core principles of Indigenous methodologies: - Country as the land one is connected to, - Place as physical and temporal space, - Relationality as the all-encompassing interconnectedness of being - Positionality to understand cultural context and one's position within the research | 12 |
| Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Being / Reading Group | Foundation | Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Being / Reading Group follows on from Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Being / Theory. A critical aspect of productive research in Indigenous practice-based research is the ability to critically evaluate the cultural significance of the source material and connect it to your own situatedness in space and time. Students will also critically discuss the connection between past, present and future and how we represent ourselves and community within the research. One of the best ways to develop this skill is through participation in group discussions of published articles, book chapters, and project precedents or case studies. This series of six workshops will broaden your knowledge in your chosen field, build your familiarity with key approaches and debates across the multiple fields represented by research across disciplines that may intersect with your own, and assist you in understanding argument strategies, developing critique of specific arguments, and enhancing your communication skills | 12 |
| Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Knowing / Theory | Intermediate | Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Knowing / Theory builds on Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Being / Theory and Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Being / Reading Group. This activity explores the question of how we learn and the different ways of learning. Students will engage in critical analysis, and explore the art of making and how this is represented within their research. Students will also undertake discursive engagement with the breadth and depth of Indigenous research methodologies to enable them to select the appropriate methodologies for their research project. | 12 |
| Indigenous Research Methods - Way of Knowing Practice | Intermediate | Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Knowing / Practice follows on from Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Knowing / Theory. Based on the skills built in the Theory activity, students will engage in a critical discussion of exhibition, artworks and artists. This will allow participants to explore strategies for exhibiting their own work. | 12 |
| Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Doing - Theory | Intermediate | Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Doing / Theory builds on Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Knowing / Theory, Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Knowing / Practice, Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Being / Theory and Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Being / Reading Group. This activity explores the question of how theory and practice underpin and relate to each other. Students will explore how to interweave the theoretical knowledge they have gained in previous activities with their creative practice in their exegesis, and how to present their research successfully. Student will also gain an understanding of qualitative data analysis. During this activity, students will work together in writing a collaborative journal paper. They will be guided in this process through presentations and a workshop. | 12 |
| Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Doing / Practice | Intermediate | Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Doing / Practice follows on from Indigenous Research Methods: Way of Doing / Theory. Based on the skills built in the Theory activity, students will engage in a critical discussion of the process of exhibiting their creative work; areas covered will include how to prepare for an exhibition, excursions to exhibitions for practical understanding, and workshops for participants to share their experience and learn from each other. Participants will also examine how to interweave theory and practice in their exegesis. The Workshops bring together a research community of Indigenous creative practitioners. The activity is broken up into six sessions of two hours each, delivered in a blended mode (online and face to face), during which students are asked to discuss and evaluate a range of ways of exhibiting works. | 12 |