Teaching as Inquiry

DALVision 2020: November 13, 2012Shelagh Crooks, Philosophy,

Saint Mary’s University

Focal questions1. What does inquiry in teaching and

learning look like?2. How does it get started? 3. Why should we value it? 4. What needs to happen in the

university to bring teaching inquiry ‘out of the closet’ and into mainstream culture?

1. On the Question of Value

Teaching in the University: A General Observation

Teaching is not seen as requiring or even as sometimes involving investigation/inquiry accompanied by discussion, publication, peer evaluation and critique.

It is just something we ‘do’.

“One telling measure of how differently teaching is regarded from traditional scholarship or research within the academy is what a difference it makes to have a “problem” in one versus the other. In scholarship and research, having a “problem” is at the heart of the investigative process; it is the compound of the generative questions around which all creative and productive activity revolves. But in one’s teaching, a problem is something you don’t want to have, and if you have one you probably want to fix it. Asking a colleague about a problem in his or her research is an invitation; asking about a problem in one’s teaching would probably seem like an accusation.”

Randy Bass, 1999 Director Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship Georgetown

As one scholar puts it...

Two disparate cultures -- Two Solitudes

Research Culture- Deeply rooted in inquiry, intellectual debate, peer review

Teaching Culture – One of Individualism and isolation

Remarkable...

The university is a place of learning and inquiry, and, yet, there is very little systematic inquiry about learning going on.

The university calls itself a community of scholars and yet, with rare exceptions, no such community exists for those who want to pursue serious inquiry into teaching and learning.

Remarkable Faculty who ordinarily demand rigorous

standards of evidence and justification for knowledge–claims within their special field of inquiry, seem content with lesser standards for beliefs and practices in regard to their teaching.

It is not at all clear that problems in teaching are less significant and less deserving of rigorous investigation than research problems within the disciplines.

Questions/Problems that might usefully be asked:

How do students experience my discipline?

How can it be understood/misunderstood? What is it to understand, and how is it

(understanding) manifested and measured?

Why should understanding a particular subject-matter, rather than the retention of facts about it, be the goal of teaching in the first place?

Questions... What is it to educate , rather than to

train or indoctrinate? What does the word ‘higher’ in Higher

Education mean?

Discipline-specific Questions

How do first-year students understand the idea of critique and the goal of being critical, not just in the narrow confines of a philosophy or economics class, but as a matter of course?

Why should we value teaching inquiry (and even consider engaging in it)?

Because it is consistent with, indeed, arguably demanded by, the inquiry function/identity/mandate of the university.

Another Reason There is a very good chance that such

reflection and inquiry will make you a better teacher.

Better?? In the sense that you will be a more

reflective, aware, and engaged teacher. The kind of teacher who is willing to

try out innovations

2. Bringing Teaching Inquiry out of the Closet

Simple answer Teaching inquiry needs to be

recognized and rewarded. Changing Collective Agreements

This means that teaching inquiry can’t be treated as just something extra that a faculty member does -- an add-on to her real - i.e., disciplinary -- scholarship. It needs to be recognized and rewarded as scholarship, full stop.

Also... A Cultural Shift is Required

Development of a new collegial culture

around teaching and learning. Discussion groups/Communities of Practice Development of critical mass of scholars in

teaching and learning DALVision 2020 Dalhousie Teaching and Learning

Conference Bringing students into the picture Institutional support

3. What does Teaching and Learning Inquiry look like?

and 4. How does it get started?

What it looks like depends on...

The question you are asking And the research methodology that is

called for to answer it

Often Interdisciplinary in nature

Interdisciplinary when ... The question you are asking calls for working with the literature of another discipline.

Example: As a teacher of critical thinking I want to help

my students understand the idea of evidence, and see that there is a necessary connection between evidence justified, reasonable belief

Read works in cognitive and developmental psychology such as Deanna Kuhn’s, The Skills of Argument (1991)

Another Example Goal: Reflective , self-regulating

thought, known as metacognition Piaget and Inhelder, 1969 John Flavell, 1976, 1979 Ku and Ho, 2010

Interdisciplinary Interdisciplinary when...the question

calls for the deployment of a methodology which is not part of your disciplinary training.

Partnership/collaboration Example: Anthropologist of religion, using

questionnaires and ethnographic interviews

It starts with a question Why are my students having difficulty

with this idea? Do I really understand the idea myself? How do I achieve my goal of helping

them to understand ’x’? Conversation with colleagues.

Sources Carnegie Foundation for the

Advancement of Teaching Opening Lines: Approaches to the

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Finally Reconceptualisation of teaching in the

university Subverting and disrupting the long-

standing narrative of the 2 solitudes Implications?? Do I take this to imply that everyone

should engage in teaching inquiry? Probably not practical

Thank you!