Transcript Slide 1

Research-Teaching Linkages:
sector-wide project
Ray Land and George Gordon, University of Strathclyde,
Linking research and teaching
“We are all researchers now … Teaching and research are
becoming ever more intimately related … In a ‘knowledge
society’ all students – certainly all graduates – have to be
researchers. Not only are they engaged in the production
of knowledge; they must also be educated to cope with
the risks and uncertainties generated by the advance of
science”
(Scott 2002, 13)
Supercomplexity (Barnett)
Risk (Beck)
Acceleration (Virilio)
Commission of European Communities, 2002 p.40
When taking a close look at the type of core competencies
that appear central to employability (critical thinking, analysing,
arguing, independent working, learning to learn, problemsolving, decision-making, planning, co-ordinating and
managing, co-operative working, etc.) it appears quite clearly
that the old Humboldtian emphasis on the virtues of researchteaching cross-fertilisation remain surprisingly relevant in the
current context.
It is very striking that the list of ‘employability’ competencies
overlaps quite largely with the competencies involved in the
exercise of the modern research activity.
Research could be a strong
condition that is aimed at
bringing about supercomplexity
in the minds of students. (Barnett
1992 p.623)
the issue is whether lecturers
adopt teaching approaches that
are likely to foster student
experiences that mirror the
lecturer’s experiences of
research (Barnett 2000 p.163)
Institutional conversations
• Specialist seminars – Alan Jenkins, Mick Healey, Carolin Kreber,
Simon Barrie, Brad Wuetherick, Jan Elen
• Use of Institutional Framing Tool – in what ways is the HEI
enabling the attainment of GAs through R-T Linkages ?
• Many of the institutions surveyed in a state of transformation –
merger, strategic review, restructuring curriculum, tackling
retention, re-purposing of estate, space etc.
• Drivers different in each.
• But a timely juncture for all, potentially, actively to incorporate RT Linkages (Berg & Östergren 1979)
Curriculum design and the research-teaching nexus
STUDENT-FOCUSED
STUDENTS AS PARTICIPANTS
EMPHASIS ON
RESEARCH
CONTENT
Research-tutored
Research-based
Curriculum emphasises
learning focused on
students writing and
discussing papers or
essays
Curriculum emphasises
students undertaking
inquiry-based learning or
low key research
Research-led
Research-oriented
Curriculum is structured
around teaching subject
content
Curriculum emphasises
teaching processes of
knowledge construction
in the subject
EMPHASIS ON
RESEARCH
PROCESSES
AND
PROBLEMS
TEACHER-FOCUSED
STUDENTS AS AUDIENCE
(Healey 2005)
Napier – awareness raising
formal debate on R-T Linkages
http://www.napier.ac.uk/ed/journal
This house believes the link between research and teaching should be an
integral part of every Napier student’s experience
76 For, 5 Against, 1 Abstention
Faculty of Health and Life Sciences: Dr
Jeni Harden Using research to teach
qualitative research – taught to 2nd year
students.
Napier University Business School: Dr
Robert Raeside Consultation Skills –
taught to honours-level and postgraduate
study.
Faculty of Engineering, Computing
and Creative Industries: Dr Hazel Hall
Honours students and the research
literature: means of motivating
engagement through the integration of
private study, tutorial and assessment
activities taught to 4th year students.
Napier R-T Case Study
awards, £100 each
Abertay – graduate attributes
• Confident thinkers - comprehensive understanding
of primary field and its boundaries
• Determined creators - initiating and managing the
creative process and new knowledge
• Flexible collaborators - roles in a team, group
dynamics and interdependence of ideas
• Challenging complexity - working with ambiguity,
uncertainty and error
Abertay cont’d
• independent enquiry of contemporary issues through
collaborative and multidisciplinary work
• incorporation of employer perspective and requirements in all
programme specifications
• programme outcomes demonstrate how GAs support careers
and professional development
• 60% of student contact time in enquiry and project-based work
• 30% shift from lecture-based to enquiry-based
• New teaching and learning spaces to foster this
Heriot-Watt
• benchmark study was carried out into how other 1994
Group institutions articulated R-T Linkages
• 1994-Group mission statements and L & T strategies
scrutinised
• media unit mobilised to make short video vignettes of
good R-T Linkages practice at H-W
• the RAY effect
• longer semesters – with more time for material other
than content to be covered
Heriot-Watt cont’d
• each UG degree programme will culminate in a
project. This will have a major impact on students
• applied nature of H-W: consultancy and real-life
projects being carried out by students at all levels,
industry-student links, UG student publications.
• the new lecturers’ course, PGCAP seen as pivotal in
setting out the culture in which they work
1994
Group
HWU case
studies
External benchmarking
Senior
manager
meetings
RTE QET
Internal benchmarking
REVIEW
‘What’s happening now?’
Individual
champions
Course
leaders
EVALUATE
‘What’s happened?’
PLAN
‘What could happen?’
University
strategy
development
IMPLEMENT
‘Let’s make this happen?’
Dissemination of
findings and
products of project
University strategic
prioritisation
Course
development
Dundee
Four strands of activity identified to date:
• Communication, information and discussion eg ResearchTeaching Linkages website
• Embedding within the discipline eg College of Life
Sciences 2 schools
• Working with students
• Utilising existing activities to maximise engagement.
‘piggyback’ approach eg, current development of college
L &T development plans; a professionalism and
employability strategy and associated online toolkit to audit
curricula; new network of HEA Subject Centre institutional
contacts
Edinburgh
•each college L&T strategy incorporating R-T Links
•review of course information held in university data
systems to include review of course rationale,
learning objectives and course content
•electronic questionnaire for circulation to Students,
Professoriate, Heads of Schools, Heads of
Department, Directors of Research Centres,
Programme Coordinators, Course Leaders
•PGCert a potentially powerful tool
Paisley / Bell
• a review of the documentation produced in the
current revalidation of all the University's
programmes following the merger with Bell College.
• 52 accreditation events lined up.
• graduate attributes to be written into programme
specifications
Open University
• Ped-R project approach. Piloting methodology for
supporting development of GAs by enhancing course
presentation and design in Maths 1 & History 2
• Running project in conjunction with OU SFC-funded
Retention Strategy, since it represents a valid and
innovatory approach to retention through appropriate
course design and presentation.
Open University
• Tutors and course writers apply principles of
troublesome knowledge and threshold concepts to
the two courses. Asked to share experiences of
course presentation and identify areas where
students regularly have difficulty. Then asked to
develop activities and interventions (EBL) to help
students with the areas of course identified.
• The pilot methodology and lessons learnt will be
presented to Course Team academics in Maths and
History at two seminars, one hosted by the Centre for
Open Learning of Mathematics, Science, Computing
and Technology (CETL), and one by History Faculty.
ECA
The new strategic plan has opened up interesting
discussions and incorporates R-T Linkages. Within
the College of Art the notion of practice has regained
its emphasis. So there is now an integrated
triangulated relationship as follows:
Practice
Research Methods
Teaching
ECA
• Practice is being reconfigured in terms of research
methods (which was previously preparation for 4th
level).
• Students are being made aware of their own GA
development (via learning outcomes).
• Some students undertaking small-scale primary
research (e.g. investigative work with hand-held
cameras). Plans for a subject-specific conference
organised on this theme.
Generally positive reception
• “There was universal support for further development of R-T
linkages across our portfolio of courses at degree and taught
Masters levels, since this was seen as crucial to enabling our
students to achieve the attributes SAC and employers think are
important.”
• “Overall RTL has been discussed at all levels within the
university and good practice in this area has been identified.
Linking teaching and research is seen as a ‘normal’ activity.”
(Napier)
• “At Heriot-Watt University the Research-Teaching Linkages
project is progressing well. The project has been envisaged in
four stages: review (what’s happening now?), plan (what could
happen?), implement (let’s make this happen) and evaluate
(what happened?). The QAA Enhancement Theme has
facilitated the ‘review’ phase.”
1) Problem at sectoral level
The twentieth century saw the university change from a
site in which teaching and research stood in a reasonably
comfortable relationship with each other to one in which
they became mutually antagonistic.
Ronald Barnett (2003 p.157)
2) Issues in disciplinary context :
different conceptions of research
• Trading view
(community of practice)
• Domino view
(techniques)
• Layer view
(discovery)
• Journey view
(ontology)
Source: Brew (2003 p.6)
Linking research and teaching: different
conceptions of research
• Trading view
(community of practice)
• Domino view
(techniques)
• Layer view
(discovery)
• Journey view
(ontology)
• Interpretive view (meaning making)
Source: Brew (2003 p.6)
Two clusters
(Simons & Elen 2007 p.620)
• Interpretive conception of
knowledge
• Constructivist conception of
education
• Learning = knowledge
construction
• Education and research both
involve learning as an
essential process
• Researcher = expert learner
• Research = an exemplary
learning process and is
therefore useful for teaching.
• Classic rationalist
conception of
knowledge
• Research seen as
application of
technical rationality to
lay bare, or solve
problems.
• Transmissive (didactic)
view of education
Science context
Science/Hum interface
Humanities
Relation of research and teaching
Weak
Cat A
Weak
relation
Hybrid
Cat B
Transmission
relation
Cat C
Hybrid
relation
Integrated
Cat D
Symbiotic
relation
Cat E
Integrated
relation
(Robertson 2007 p.546)
Category A (weak / unrelated)
Teachers and researchers should be ‘on separate job
tracks’…
‘most teaching at stage 1 and stage 2 done by people
without PhDs who’d have a fairly large number of contact
hours expected of them’…
discipline has been building on its developments since say,
2000 BC or soemthing like that…there’s a lot of intellectual
baggage that you’ve got to acquire first before you can
start thinking about making your own contribution to it.
For a teacher at stage 1 or 2 to have an immense grasp of a
subject to its cutitng edge .. threatens to get the lecturer
bogged down
Category B (transmissive)
Those people who are keen on their research ,
conduct good research, also make the best
teachers. They’re fresh, enthusiastic …
It is the process of going over the fundamentals of
a subject from the perspective of somebody who
can see also see the frontiers of a subject
There’s a tremendous amount of factual
information which needs to be absorbed before the
process of tying it together and seeing the
connections can occur
Category C (hybrid)
It’s quite possible to give students tastes of that
[research/inquiry] …through fieldwork as they do
in Geography 103, through role-play exercises
involving planning problems..
We have students involved in inquiry mode and
research experiences right from stage one .. We
also structure those experiences and the contrast
between them as they go through from year one,
year two, year three and so on quite deliberately..
Category D (symbiotic)
Research needs teaching and teaching also needs research..
You’re trying to bring students into the process of how we
acquire knowledge and what we do with it when we have it.
So I guess for me it’s kind of making them part of that little
scholarly community for the time that they’re here and the
wider goal is that – so they’ll leave here with an inquiring
mind.
That involves a lot of very close reading of text, and
understanding the text in its context of the wider theories …
It’s a way of thinking and being and living …
Category E (inseparable)
I don’t see it as two separate processes .. Well for
me I can’t separate them out .. Because when I’m
teaching ,I’m actively thinking about a certain kind
of problem that’s in the text. I can read the same
passage out five years running and I’ll guarantee I
do not say the same thing about it each year. It’ll
be different.
Those kind of – “this is teaching, this research and
where those things delineate…” - that’s not kind of
how we see it…it’s much more inter-related and
interconnected
Students experience of learning in a research
environment: Physics
What is research?
Breaking new ground; moving forward;
exploration and discovery
How visible is it?
Laboratories and machinery (ie tools) but
often behind closed doors
Where is it located?
Out there; at a higher level
Who does it?
Lecturers
Robertson and Blackler (2006)
Students experience of learning in a research
environment: Geography
What is research?
Gathering information in the world;
answering a question
How visible is it?
Most visible in the field
Where is it located?
Out there in the field
Who does it?
Lecturers and (increasingly over time)
students
Robertson and Blackler (2006)
Students experience of learning in a research
environment: English
What is research?
Looking into; gathering; putting it together;
a focus of interest
How visible is it?
Not tangibly visible but apparent in the
dialogue
Where is it located?
In the library; in the head
Who does it?
Lecturers and students
Robertson and Blackler (2006)
Institutional implications
• Could some students graduate without
experiencing the contestability of
knowledge?
• Separation of research and teaching could
cause ontological issues for most
academics, who prefer a mix
• The disciplines manifest very different
temporalities
• What role should staff development play in
this? A more discipline based approach?
Functional and idealist approaches
“It is furthermore a peculiarity of
the universities that they treat
higher learning always in terms
of not yet completely solved
problems, remaining at all times
in a research mode …
Schools, in contrast, treat only
closed and settled bodies of
knowledge. The relationship
between teacher and learner is
therefore completely different in
higher learning from what it is in
schools. ..”
Wilhelm von Humboldt 1810
What is distinctive about ‘higher’ learning?
“…At the higher level, the
teacher is not there for the sake
of the student, both have their
justification in the service of
scholarship.”
Wilhelm von Humboldt 1810
Idealistic (Humboldtian) approach. (Simons & Elen 2007)
• Research a kind of general education.
• Academic enquiry, morality (edification) and
citizenship are linked.
• University different from schools (social needs) as
well as from research institutions (govt needs,
commercial interests)
• Education at the university solely guided by academic
enquiry (one submits to the tribunal of reason, the
spirit of truth, the force of the better argument.)
• Not influenced by pedagogic expertise or didactics, or
managerial or moral or economic imperatives.
• State and society cannot ask for immediate returns.
Why haven’t university communities engaged
effectively around the GAs agenda?
[Generic attributes initiatives in the UK] have had
little impact so far in part because of teachers'
scepticism of the message, the messenger and its
vocabulary and in part because the skills demanded
lack clarity, consistency and a recognisable
theoretical base.
(Bennet et al 1999, p 90)
Generic attributes and disciplinary
contexts
• We have an overall strategic intention
• But a very diversified outcome
• In what ways can distinct disciplinary contexts enable
the attainment of collective graduate attributes? (ie
more than just rhetorically)
• E pluribus unum?
• What nested structures are
available?
• What ‘meaningful alignments’?
• Could subject benchmarks
play a more useful role?
• Is the Bologna dimension (eg
Diploma Supplement) of
significance?
Linking research and teaching: Conclusions
• Nature of the linkage between teaching
and research is complex and contested
• Adopting a broader definition of
research than is currently common is a
way forward which should benefit the
learning of students in institutions with
a range of different missions
• Aligning disciplinary cultures with
graduate attributes is a current political
imperative