Research Informed Teaching

Tansy Jessop2 November 2016

@solentlearning

Demystifying Research Informed Teaching:

Do R & T occupy parallel universes?

Tansy JessopSLTI Workshop4 November 2016

Your thoughts

Please write short phrase post-its in response to these questions (no right or wrong answers – go for gut feeling):

1) What is the purpose of higher education?2) What is research? What words spring to mind to

define research?3) What is teaching?4) So what is research informed teaching?

The workshop

1) Scoping out the territory2) What are universities for?3) History, paradigms, models4) Debunking four myths about RIT5) So why bother with RIT?

RIT depends in part on what society, the economy and you think that universities are for…

Looking back in history: medieval universities

• The main ones: Bologna (1088), Paris, Oxford (1000s), Cambridge (1209)• Training for church and civil service• Law and philosophy• Men• Authority of teachers• Printing press 1440 (Caxton), 1470 (Gutenberg)

Medieval Universities in Europe (1100 to 1500)

It is a peculiarity of the institutions of higher learning that they treat learning as not yet completely solved problems, remaining at all times in a research mode… Schools, in contrast, treat only closed and settled bodies of knowledge

(Humboldt's Programme for University of Berlin 1810)

Birth of the modern university

But has anything changed since the middle ages?

And is it working for student learning?

A ‘facts first’ approach prevails…

Research informed teaching challenges facts first

Why we need to demystify RITA slippery elusive thing always changing shape? How do we get to grips with it?

A pointless task? Risky for standards? Risky for weaker students?

So what is RIT?

Teachers active

Students active It’

s abo

ut c

onte

nt

It’s a

bout

pro

cess

Research-tutored

Research-orientedResearch-led

Research-based

(Healey 2005)

Take Five: Post it exercise • Write down as many examples

of RIT that you have experienced or led.

• Write down what prevents you from doing RIT routinely across the curriculum?

• Populate: a) The four category white board

b) What prevents RIT?

RIT as practised (my untested hypothesis)

Teachers are active

Students are active W

hat

How

Students generate research

Teach researchmethods

Teach using research

Studentsconduct research

Myth 1: RIT works best in research-intensive universities

• Sciency• Competent and capable researchers• Great research environment• Lots of dosh• Loads of PhD students

But does it?

Researchexcellence

Teaching excellence

RIT depends on how you view knowledge…

Students are kept “at arm’s length” from research

(Angela Brew)

Especially when research is positivist, external, detached, experimental, scientific, product oriented…

(Brew 1999)

Brew’s argument: paradigm wars?

Brew (2003)

“A positive research and teaching link primarily depends on the nature of students’ learning experiences, resulting from appropriate teaching and learning processes, rather than on particular inputs or outcomes”

(Elton 2001, 43).

Myth 2: Research-active lecturers are better at RIT

• Confidence• Research projects on-the-go• They can put their own research into teaching• But does this view favour the transmission of

information• Is this a trading view of research?

Students don’t rate it

HEPI Student Academic Experience Survey 2015

The nature of the link may no longer depend on the research excellence of teachers, but rather on their ability to encourage

and facilitate in their students a problematic approach to learning. The focus has been shifted from the excellence of the

teacher to the excellence of the learning experience (Elton 2001, 50)

Myth 3: You can’t do RIT with first year undergraduate

students

It all began with Perry’s Unit Evaluations…

“This course has changed my whole outlook on life. Superbly taught!”

“This course is falsely taught and dishonest. You have cheated me of my tuition”

This has been the most sloppy, disorganised course I’ve ever taken.

Of course I’ve made some improvement, but this has been due entirely to my own efforts!”

The reliance on traditional instruction is not simply a choice made by individual faculty—students often prefer it. This resistance to active learning may have more to do with their epistemological development than a true preference for passivity.

William Perry 1981

The journey: move over dualism

By confronting students with uncertainty, ambiguity, and conflicting perspectives, instructors help them develop more mature mental models that coincide with the problem-solving approaches used by experts.

William Perry 1981

Intellectual Development of Students

Why bother with RIT?

• Self-confidence• Independence in learning • Increasing epistemological sophistication• Entry into discipline research cultures• Collegial relations with academics• Improved grades• Enhanced metacognition• Increased engagement• Employability skills

(Levy 2012)

Benefits to students in the following areas:

We need to shift students from the idea that university is just like school, only faster.

Lewis Elton

ReferencesBrew, A. 2003. Teaching and Research: New relationships and their implications for inquiry-based teaching and learning in higher education, HERDSA. 3-18.Brew, A. 1999. Research and teaching: Changing relationships in a changing context, Studies in Higher Education, 24:3, 291-301.Collini, S. 2012. What are Universities for? London: Penguin Books.Elton, L. 2001. Research and Teaching: Conditions for a positive link, Teaching in Higher Education, 6:1, 43-56.Hattie, J. and H.W. Marsh, 1996. The Relationship between Research and Teaching: A Meta-Analysis. Review of Educational Research, 66(4), 507-542.Healey, M. and A. Jenkins, 2009. Developing undergraduate research and inquiry. York: Higher Education Academy.Healey, M., 2005. Linking Research and Teaching: disciplinary spaces In R. Barnett, ed, Reshaping the university: new relationships between research, scholarship and teaching. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill/Open University Press, 30-42.Jessop, T and Wu, Q. 2016 (forthcoming) Debunking common myths about RIT. Dialogue Journ-alPerry, William 1981. Cognitive and Ethical Growth: The Making of Meaning. In Chickering, A. 1981. The Modern American College. San Francisco. Jossey Bass. Shulman, L. 2004. Pedagogies of Substance. Chapter 7 In Teaching as Community Property: essays on Higher Education. 128-139. San Francisco. Jossey-Bass.