Linking research and teaching

1
Linking research and teaching

• Associate Professor Angela Brew
• The University of Sydney

2
Plan

• Defining the agenda
• Institutional strategies
• What gets in the way?
• Where is this going?

3
Knowledge generation
Research
Disciplinary Research culture
Academics
Students
Departmental Learning milieu
Teaching
Knowledge Transmission
4
(No Transcript)
5
Research-Enhanced Learning Teaching key areas

• Research-enhanced teaching
• Research-based learning
• Scholarship of learning and teaching

6
1. Research-enhanced teaching

• Teaching is informed by staff research. This
  includes the integration of disciplinary research
  findings into courses and curricula at all levels
  such that students are both an audience for
  research and engaged in research activity.

7
2. Research-based learning

• Opportunities are provided for students at all
  levels to experience and conduct research, learn
  about research throughout their courses, develop
  the skills of research and inquiry and contribute
  to the Universitys research effort.

8
(No Transcript)
9
A student prepares his skating robot for a test
run at the Olympic Ice Skating Rink (University
of Calgary, Canada)
10
Research-Enhanced Learning Teaching key areas

• Research-enhanced teaching
• Research-based learning
• Scholarship of learning and teaching

11
3. Scholarship of learning teaching

• Staff and students engage in scholarship and/or
  research in relation to understanding learning
  and teaching. Evidence-based approaches are used
  to establish the effects and effectiveness of
  student learning, teaching effectiveness and
  academic practice.

12

• the scholarship of teaching as a kind of going
  meta in which academics frame and systematically
  investigate questions in relation to teaching and
  learning

(Hutchings Shulman 1999)
13
Key elements of the scholarship of teaching and
learning

• Knowledge of teaching and learning and the
  literature that informs it
• Commitment to reflection on teaching practice in
  order to improve it
• Communicating and disseminating knowledge about
  teaching and learning in a variety of ways
• Taking account of students perspectives

Following Trigwell, K., Martin, E., Benjamin J.
Prosser, M. (2000)
14
Plan

• Defining the agenda
• Institutional strategies
• What gets in the way?
• Where is this going?

15
Plan

• Defining the agenda
• Institutional strategies
• What gets in the way?
• Where is this going?

16
University of Sydney Context

• University Plan, Faculty Teaching and Learning
  Plans
• Performance-based funding for teaching including
  a Scholarship Index

17
Scholarship of Teaching Index Criteria

• Qualification in university teaching (10)
• National teaching award (winner) (10)
• National teaching award (finalist only) (5)
• University teaching award (including awards for
  Excellence in Research Higher Degree Supervision)
  (5)
• Faculty teaching award (2)
• Publication on university teaching book (10)
• Publication on university teaching refereed
  chapter (2)
• Publication on university teaching refereed
  article (2)
• Presented conference paper or poster on
  university teaching (1)

18
University of Sydney Context

• University Plan, Faculty Teaching and Learning
  Plans
• Performance-based funding for teaching including
  a Scholarship Index
• Vice Chancellors Awards for Outstanding Teaching
  and for Research Higher Degree Supervision
• Criteria for promotion
• Use of problem-based or issues-based curricula

19
Project Aims

• Increasingly employ undergraduate teaching and
  learning strategies which enhance the links
  between research and teaching
• and
• utilise scholarly inquiry as an organising
  principle in departmental organisation, and
  curriculum development
• and
• Encourage and reward the scholarship of teaching

20
Strategies to develop research-led teaching

• A Working Group

21
Strategies to develop research-led teaching

• A Working Group
• A web-site for staff development

22
Strategies to develop research-led teaching

• A Working Group
• A web-site for staff development
• Workshops to faculties departments
• Large events to raise issues
• Faculty reviews
• A Graduate Certificate in higher education unit
  to teach academics to research their teaching

23
Faculty Initiatives

• Grad cert in higher education mandatory for all
  new staff
• Faculty research on teaching learning website
  /in-house publication
• Teaching learning support unit within the
  faculty
• Faculty Teaching Learning Committee
  subcommittee on Scholarship of teaching
• Faculty staff seminar series on teaching
  learning issues
• Staff publish in journals and/or attend teaching
  learning conferences

24
Plan

• Defining the agenda
• Institutional strategies
• What gets in the way?
• Where is this going?

25
Plan

• Defining the agenda
• Institutional strategies
• What gets in the way?
• Where is this going?

26
Issues

• Tendency to redefine existing practice
• Ethics in teaching
• Campus planning
• Involving the research community
• How to move on

27
What gets in the way?

• Economies of funding regimes
• Separate evaluation of teaching and research

28
Teaching
Research
29
What gets in the way?

• Economies of funding regimes
• Separate evaluation of teaching and research
• Hierarchical levels
• Academic mindsets
• Student mindsets
• Modular course structures
• Clearly prescribed course outcomes

30
Plan

• Defining the agenda
• Institutional strategies
• What gets in the way?
• Where is this going?

31
Plan

• Defining the agenda
• Institutional strategies
• What gets in the way?
• Where is this going?

32

• What is required is not that students become
  masters of bodies of thought, but that they are
  enabled to begin to experience the space and
  challenge of open, critical inquiry (in all its
  personal and interpersonal aspects)

(Barnett 1997 110)
33

• Scholarship
• Scholarship as a quality of academic
  professionalism
• Scholarships of discovery, integration,
  engagement
• academic
• citizenship

• Inclusivity
• Academics,
• undergraduates,
• postgraduates and others
• in the university
• involved together
• Relationships characterised by democratic
  discussion
• Awareness of power issues

• Communities
• Mutual engagement
• in a joint enterprise
• Learning as participation
• Personal Identity developed
• through engagement,
• imagination enlightenment

Inclusive scholarly knowledge-building communities

• Research
• Expanded definitions conceptions Development
  of social knowledge and personal meaning
• Teaching as research
• Inquiry-based
• academic
• practice
• Reflexivity

• Knowledge Building
• Starts from the questions of participants
• Mode 2 knowledge
• constructed through communication
• and
• negotiation

• Teaching and learning
• Student-focused conceptual
• change approaches to
• teaching and learning
• Research-based learning

From Brew, A. (2006). Research and Teaching
Beyond the Divide. London PalgraveMacmillan.
34

• Scholarship
• Scholarship as a quality of academic
  professionalism
• Scholarships of discovery, integration,
  engagement
• academic
• citizenship

• Inclusivity
• Academics,
• undergraduates,
• postgraduates and others
• in the university
• involved together
• Relationships characterised by democratic
  discussion
• Awareness of power issues

• Communities
• Mutual engagement
• in a joint enterprise
• Learning as participation
• Personal Identity developed
• through engagement,
• imagination enlightenment

Inclusive scholarly knowledge-building communities

• Research
• Expanded definitions conceptions Development
  of social knowledge and personal meaning
• Teaching as research
• Inquiry-based
• academic
• practice
• Reflexivity

• Knowledge Building
• Starts from the questions of participants
• Mode 2 knowledge
• constructed through communication
• and
• negotiation

• Teaching and learning
• Student-focused conceptual
• change approaches to
• teaching and learning
• Research-based learning

From Brew, A. (2006). Research and Teaching
Beyond the Divide. London PalgraveMacmillan.
35

• Scholarship
• Scholarship as a quality of academic
  professionalism
• Scholarships of discovery, integration,
  engagement
• academic
• citizenship

• Inclusivity
• Academics,
• undergraduates,
• postgraduates and others
• in the university
• involved together
• Relationships characterised by democratic
  discussion
• Awareness of power issues

• Communities
• Mutual engagement
• in a joint enterprise
• Learning as participation
• Personal Identity developed
• through engagement,
• imagination enlightenment

Inclusive scholarly knowledge-building communities

• Research
• Expanded definitions conceptions Development
  of social knowledge and personal meaning
• Teaching as research
• Inquiry-based
• academic
• practice
• Reflexivity

• Knowledge Building
• Starts from the questions of participants
• Mode 2 knowledge
• constructed through communication
• and
• negotiation

• Teaching and learning
• Student-focused conceptual
• change approaches to
• teaching and learning
• Research-based learning

From Brew, A. (2006). Research and Teaching
Beyond the Divide. London PalgraveMacmillan.
36

• Brew, A. (2006). Research and Teaching Beyond
  the Divide. London Palgrave Macmillan.
• Jenkins, A, Breen, R., Lindsay, R. Brew, A.
  (2003). Reshaping Teaching in Higher Education
  Linking Teaching and Research. London Kogan
  Page.
• Brew, A. (2001). The nature of research inquiry
  in academic contexts. London,
• RoutledgeFalmer.