TBers,
Although this post is mostly for folks at the BIG research centers, the
idea of including undergraduates in research is a good one... so I
thought I'd post this.
Jim Greenberg
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Rick Reis
Sent: Friday, March 14, 2008 12:52 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: TP Msg. #855 Building Bridges Between Research and
UndergraduateTeaching
"Here the authors try to make sense out of the tons of verbiage out
there on the subject of research and undergraduate teaching, to review
what the research does and doesn't say about whether the nexus exists
and how strong it is, and to suggest ways to strengthen it. "
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Folks:
The posting below looks at three strategies for a greater linkage
between faculty research and undergraduate teaching.. It is by Michael
J. Prince, Department of Chemical Engineering, Bucknell University,
Richard M. Felder Department of Chemical Engineering North Carolina
State University and Rebecca Brent Education Designs, Inc. Cary, North
Carolina, and is based on an article recently published in the Journal
of Engineering Education on the research-teaching nexus, 96(4), 283-294.
<http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/Papers/Teaching-Research(JEE).pdf>.
Regards,
Rick Reis
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UP NEXT: Creating Windows on Learning
Tomorrow's Research
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Building Bridges Between Research and Undergraduate
Teaching
Research expectations for university faculty have been rising for over
half a century, to an extent that a high level of research funding and
numerous publications are necessary (and often sufficient) criteria for
tenure and promotion at virtually every research university in the
country. Pressure to increase research productivity has also risen at
institutions with traditional teaching missions and community colleges.
A common justification for the rising importance of research in the
faculty incentive and reward system is the claim that research and
teaching are tightly linked at both the institutional and individual
faculty levels. This claim has been debated vigorously for decades.
Those who support it point out many ways that research supports
teaching, such as keeping course content up-to-date and modeling for
students the intellectual curiosity and critical thinking that
characterize good research. Opponents cite data from dozens of studies
that have consistently failed to show the alleged correlations between
research productivity and teaching effectiveness. We recently reviewed
the literature on the linkage between research and teaching. Interested
readers should consult the full study report (1) to see the complete
bibliography and detailed justifications of our conclusions and
recommendations.
We believe that the reason the debate between defenders and critics of
the research-teaching nexus has gone unresolved for so long is that the
two sides are debating different propositions: (1) Research has the
potential to support teaching; (2) Research has been shown to support
teaching in practice. Those who argue that research supports teaching
argue for the first proposition, pointing out all the ways that it might
do so, while those who argue the other way base their arguments on the
second proposition, observing that no significant correlation between
teaching and research has been found at the individual faculty level,
and a massive study involving roughly 25,000 students at over 300
universities and colleges found a significant negative correlation
between a university's research activity and many important educational
outcomes.
While the finding that faculty research generally does not promote
better teaching frequently provokes calls for more extensive or
sophisticated analysis of the data, a more productive response may be to
use rigorous scholarship to strengthen the research-teaching nexus by
identifying and testing potential integration strategies. Our study
examined three commonly proposed strategies for building bridges between
undergraduate teaching and faculty research: (1) bringing research into
the classroom; (2) involving undergraduates in research projects, and
(3) broadening the model for academic scholarship. Summaries of our
analyses and conclusions follow.
Bringing Research Into The Classroom
Probably the most common argument in support of the research-teaching
nexus is that faculty with active research programs bring their research
into the classroom, with a variety of instructive consequences.
Unfortunately, there is little empirical evidence that this happens
extensively or effectively. While some students report that discussions
of current research in their classes promote intellectual curiosity and
excitement, others see negative effects of research integration, such as
skewing the focus of courses to accommodate the faculty's research area
or detracting from the instructors' interest in or time for
undergraduate teaching. In addition, bringing research into the
classroom in disciplines such as the physical sciences and engineering
can be difficult for two reasons: hierarchical knowledge structures in
those disciplines put most research well over the heads of most
undergraduates, and rigidly constrained curricula limit opportunities to
bring in new material.
While there is currently little evidence to demonstrate the benefits of
faculty integrating the content of their research into their classes,
faculty may productively introduce students to the research process by
adopting an inductive teaching method (such as guided inquiry or
problem-based learning) that emulates research. In an
inductively-taught class, students are first presented with a challenge
of some sort-a question to be answered, a problem to be solved, or a set
of observations or experimental results to be explained-and learning
takes place in the context of their attempting to meet the challenge.
The potential for this approach to achieve the benefits frequently
claimed for bringing research into the classroom (e.g., promoting
students' research skills and motivating them to pursue graduate study)
seems clear. However, educational research is needed to demonstrate the
effectiveness of inductive methods at achieving those outcomes in
practice.
Involving Students in Undergraduate Research
Engaging students in research projects is frequently cited as an
effective way to link faculty research and undergraduate. Studies have
shown that student involvement in research correlates positively with
curricular retention, and most participants in undergraduate research
programs report that their experiences were both instructive and
enjoyable. Participants in those programs also report gains in
research-related skills, although direct evidence of those gains is
currently lacking, and there are some inconclusive indications that
undergraduate research may have a positive effect on students' content
knowledge and cognitive development. Research involvement may also have
a positive effect on students' plans to pursue graduate study. A major
limitation of undergraduate research is that at most universities it is
restricted to relatively strong students who constitute a small
percentage of the student population, which raises the question of
whether the benefits that may res
ult from undergraduate research justify the cost of that research in
institutional resources and faculty time.
Broadening the Definition of Research
Another potential strategy for building effective bridges between
faculty research and undergraduate teaching is to broaden the definition
of research to include the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL).
Surveys of faculty engaged in educational research suggest that their
doing so helps them integrate their research and teaching, enhances the
campus climate for teaching, and improves student learning. Those
studies are largely based on self-report, however; what is still needed
is rigorous research demonstrating the existence and strength of the
connections between educational scholarship and student learning.
Moreover, it is unlikely that significant numbers of faculty members
will be willing to pursue educational research in their disciplines
unless and until such research counts in tenure, promotion and merit
raise decisions.
Summary
The driving forces behind the heavy emphasis on research in the academic
priority system-the quest for research dollars and the high
institutional rankings that those dollars make possible-are unlikely to
go away in the near future. Rather than simply lamenting the negative
effects of research on education, academicians might more productively
attempt to strengthen the synergy between the two activities whose
existence has been long claimed but never convincingly demonstrated. The
strategies recommended in this review-using inductive teaching methods
that emulate the research process, involving substantial numbers of
undergraduates in research, and pursuing research on teaching and
learning-are intended to serve that purpose. Rigorous studies are needed
to determine how effectively they can do so.
Reference
1. Prince, M.J., R.M. Felder, and R. Brent. 2007. "Does Faculty Research
Improve Undergraduate Teaching? An Analysis of Existing and Potential
Synergies." Journal of Engineering Education, 96(4), 283-294.
<http://www.ncsu.edu/felder-public/Papers/Teaching-Research(JEE).pdf>.
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