Research as a model for university teaching

Abstract

Forty-nine active researchers in 28 university departments were interviewed about their research and teaching. Though most disciplines were clustered within specific research types, lectures were almost universally prescribed for teaching large and undergraduate classes. Except fo r seminars, commonly chosen for graduate classes in the humanities, teaching methods did not reflect how professors pursued their own learning. A second study replicated the first with 22 English and 18 chemistry professors. Nearly all the chemistry staff did experimental research, and nearly all the English did analytical. Lectures dominated teaching prescriptions of the former, and lectures and seminars the latter; had teaching and research been closely related, there should have been much less overlap and dispersion in the teaching prescriptions. Finally, only a few instructors in either study traced their research directly to experiences involving teaching. Although general methods by which teacher-researchers pursue knowledge do not appear to be reflected in undergraduate teaching, and research does not widely benefit directly from teaching, the strong belief that the two interact may suggest they should, perhaps in more subtle ways, and the implementation of this interaction is not inconceivable.

Chemistry Professors' Perceptions of Undergraduate Learning

“…This study investigated chemistry professors' perceptions of learning as a reference point a quarter-century later based on an earlier report about teaching in the same chemistry department that revealed a widespread transmission mode of teaching (Shore, Pinker, & Bates, 1990). In Shore et al (1990), lectures were the predominant form of teaching method for 15 of 18 (83%) chemistry professors, especially when the class size was over 30 or when students were undergraduates.…”

“…In Shore et al (1990), lectures were the predominant form of teaching method for 15 of 18 (83%) chemistry professors, especially when the class size was over 30 or when students were undergraduates. Several references pointed to lectures as the preferred teaching tool and although good lectures can engage and captivate an audience, they remain an indirect method of involving the learner in the process of knowledge production, similar to reading the travel blogs or traveller notes of an experienced globetrotter.…”

The Teaching--Research--Industry--Learning Nexus in Information and Communications Technology

“…Boyer's [1990] work on the scholarship of teaching introduced the relationship between research and teaching, with learning implied as an outcome of teaching. Shore, Pinker, and Bates [1990] supported this view and proposed that learning, as a shared process of inquiry, is the vital link between research and teaching. Neumann's [1992] analysis of interviews of academic administrators distinguished a nexus between teaching and research where the sum total of knowledge, expertise and skill acquired in the conduct of research of the academics provides the framework for what is taught and offered to undergraduate and postgraduate students.…”

Relating academics' ways of integrating research and teaching to their students' perceptions

“…In undergraduate education in the social sciences and humanities the link is easier to realise, as the degree of specialisation and the rate of knowledge development are lower than in the natural sciences (Smeby 1998). A last factor that academics consider relevant is class size (Shore, Pinker, and Bates 1990). This affects a preference for lecturing versus more interactive ways of teaching in larger groups, and therefore also implies different possibilities for integrating research and teaching.…”