Workshop for SLTI Workshop series

1. Research Informed Teaching
Tansy Jessop
2 November 2016
@solentlearning
Demystifying Research Informed
Teaching:
Do R & T occupy parallel universes?
Tansy Jessop
SLTI Workshop
4 November 2016

2. 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?

3. The workshop
1) Scoping out the territory
2) What are universities for?
3) History, paradigms, models
4) Debunking four myths about RIT
5) So why bother with RIT?

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

5. 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)

6. Medieval Universities in Europe (1100
to 1500)

7. 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

8. But has
anything
changed
since the
middle ages?
And is it
working for
student
learning?

9. A ‘facts first’ approach prevails…

10. Research informed teaching challenges
facts first

11. Why we need to demystify RIT
A slippery elusive thing always
changing shape? How do we get
to grips with it?
A pointless task? Risky
for standards? Risky for weaker
students?

12. So what is RIT?
Teachers active
Students activeIt’saboutcontent
It’saboutprocess
Research-tutored
Research-orientedResearch-led
Research-based
(Healey 2005)

13. 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?

14. RIT as practised (my untested
hypothesis)
Teachers are active
Students are activeWhat
How
Students generate
research
Teach research
methods
Teach using
research
Students
conduct research

15. Myth 1: RIT works best in research-
intensive universities
• Sciency
• Competent and capable researchers
• Great research environment
• Lots of dosh
• Loads of PhD students

16. But does it?
Research
excellence
Teaching
excellence

17. 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)

18. Brew’s argument: paradigm wars?
Brew (2003)

19. “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).

20. 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?

21. Students don’t rate it
HEPI Student Academic Experience Survey 2015

22. 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)

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

24. 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”

25. 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!”

27. 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

28. 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

29. Intellectual Development of Students
Third Year
Commitment Teacher as endorser
Second Year
Relativism Teacher as enigma
First Year
Dualism Teacher as expert

30. 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:

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

33. References
Brew, 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 Journal
Perry, 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.