Re-imagining research teaching: our living journey with our students towards improved practices

In teaching research writing and design, we have reflected on our practices with the aim of improving our effectiveness at helping students design and write their Master's dissertations. We chose a living theory, action research approach to experience and live the teaching process with our thirty Master's students in Higher Education studies. The process encompassed four cycles in which we explored our students' research knowledge and skills, self-reflections on the theoretical demands of research writing, perceptions of their growth, as well as our personal self-reflections. By using a variety of research methods during the process, we also allowed our students to apply and analyse the different methods. In this way we hoped to develop their own voices. Our research teaching thus focused on our personal learning, as well as the learning and knowledge construction of our students. Although the feedback from the students was mostly positive, the experience of finding ourselves in contradictory roles - being researchers of our students' growth as well as the subjects of their research - was rather hard to assimilate. Nevertheless, the insights that emerged from our research have helped us to bring about a great epistemological change in our future teaching.