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order Brand Kamagraorder Brand Cavertaorder Generic Prilosec The Teaching-Research Nexus (TRN) - TRN & Academic Careers

TRN & Academic Careers

Though the TRN website is focused in the main part on the potential benefits of the TRN for student learning, in this section we shift the focus by looking at the possible benefits for academic staff and the ways in which the TRN might assist academic staff to develop their academic expertise and careers.

To begin with, it is worth briefly examining the contemporary context for academic work and academic careers. Three international trends are particularly significant:
1. Academic work and academic careers are changing
There appears to be a widespread trend towards diversification in academic work and careers. This is manifest in many ways: in the increasing casualisation of academic employment; in the rise in some nations of teaching-only and research-only appointments; and in the blurring of academic and administrative positions and roles. These trends are forcing the reconsideration, albeit slowly, of conventional ideas about academic roles and academic career development. It is possible that the standard pathways for academic career building and the standard canons on which academic careers are judged are being brought into question. For example, while research and publication seem sure to remain the defining elements of academic work, the nature of these is changing significantly in a globalised environment in which new forms of online publication have emerged.
2. There is a new understanding of the optimum conditions for student learning
The weight of evidence from educational research now demonstrates that students learn best through inquiry-based or research-oriented modes of teaching and learning. In short, ultimately it’s what the students are doing that counts, whether individually or collaboratively, and less what the teaching staff are doing. This is not to deny the significant leadership role of teaching staff in establishing and supporting the conditions for the kind of active engagement in inquiry that leads to effective learning — this is an essential ingredient — but it does suggest limits to the effectiveness of ‘telling’ as a teaching and learning method. These conclusions have implications for conceptions of the inter-relationships between teaching, research and learning, especially in undergraduate education.
3. Ideas about the nature of knowledge and the role of the university in knowledge production are changing
Significantly, the relationships between universities, knowledge generation and the utilisation of knowledge are in a state of flux. Most obviously, the academy now holds less of a monopoly on knowledge creation, storage and dissemination as a result of the information and communication revolution. As well, the research emphasis in on Mode 2 knowledge production (Gibbons et al.) — research that is context-driven, problem-oriented and interdisciplinary. Interdisciplinary research has become the focus of attention in recognition that many of global problems and challenges cut across traditional boundaries of the academic disciplines. Within universities there is more attention to community engagement or knowledge transfer, sometimes described as the ‘third stream’.
These three trends are influencing the ways in which academics conceive their work, build CVs and develop careers in higher education. They point to a convergence of the fundamental strands of academic work and highlight the importance of the subtle relationships between research, teaching and knowledge transfer, which increasingly are seen as a complex web of two-way interactions rather than as independent or mutually exclusive activities.

For these reasons the Kellogg Commission on the Future of the State and Land-Grant Universities (2000) in the USA proposed a new paradigm of ‘learning, discovery, engagement’ that was argued would more accurately described university responsibilities than the classic formulation of ‘research, teaching and service’.

Seen in this light, the TRN is simply one of a number of two-way, mutually informing interactions between the three basic strands of academic work. Teaching and research converge, for in essence they are both about establishing the conditions for learning and discovery.

The ideas above represent far more than abstract theorising, for they offer insights into the contemporary character and challenges of academic work. They also help to identify ways in which individual academics can enhance the quality of their work, develop synergies between the strands of their academic activities and build their academic CVs for career development and promotion purposes.

As with all aspects of academic work it is wise to keep careful records of all activities and achievements. This is especially true of the more intangible activities that might nonetheless define the essential character of your work, such as a commitment to exploring and optimising the TRN.

With the suggestions to follow it should be noted that the possibilities vary considerably across the academic disciplines — the points of convergence or connection between teaching and research differ according to the knowledge structures and methods of inquiry of particular disciplines.
Thinking in terms of the TRN and career building, there are three principal suggestions to be offered:
  1. Develop a personal pedagogical approach or philosophy that optimises the relationship between teaching and research.
  2. Give attention to documenting the ways in which your personal research program and your wider academic scholarship is used in your teaching and in the design of curriculum.
  3. Take a leadership within your departments in exploring and implementing strategies for bringing undergraduate students closer to the research character of the department and the university overall.
Other suggestions for consciously embedding the TRN in your academic career are covered elsewhere in this website and include:
  • Drawing on contemporary research findings and research questions in planning student activities.
  • Being explicit with your students about the ways in which you see research and their learning to be interwoven, being explicit about what you are trying to achieve and what you want them to achieve.
  • Developing inquiry-based or research-based approaches to student learning, including ways to involve students in small-scale research projects (these are commonplace in some disciplines of course).
  • Looking for opportunities to publish descriptions of the ways in which you utilise TRN for the benefit of other academics.
  • Locating teaching and learning in the context of the development of knowledge in the field.
  • Developing inquiry-based or research-oriented exercises and projects for students
  • Allowing students to analyse raw data (this may include analysis of your own data, if handled ethically with the student benefit —students should not be treated as unpaid research assistants)
  • Develop class exercises that might lead to publication. This may include literature reviews or new analyses of existing data.

Will the TRN lead to improved results from student evaluation of teaching?
Here there are no guarantees, of course, for student attitudes towards teaching and their judgements about the quality of teaching are influenced by many factors and are highly dependent on the context and on their own backgrounds and expectations. However, putting these caveats aside, the TRN may enhance student evaluation. Deliberate attention to the TRN may help create a rich, challenging and stimulating learning environment for students — if implemented with care and consideration for student, and with appropriate attention to other aspects of the teaching and learning environment, the student evaluation of teaching should be positive.

Will the TRN help in securing promotion or tenured academic appointments?
On balance it should do, but it would be sensible to be strategic nonetheless. In promotion applications and position applications it is wise to make explicit the ways in which your teaching is informed by research and scholarship and the ways in which you construct the TRN for your students. It is important to construct an argument for your case and to explain the way in which you have captured the TRN, bearing in mind that the promotion criteria of many universities tend to treat research, teaching and service or administration as independent activities and require them to be addressed separately in promotion applications.

One distinctive interpretation or manifestation of the TRN is the conduct of research into teaching and learning. While this is a quite legitimate conception of the TRN it has not been incorporated elsewhere in the website simply because the focus has been on the direct benefits of the TRN for student learning. Research into teaching and learning may indeed benefit student learning but the benefits are less direct and immediate.

Research into teaching and learning, and more specifically research into the effects of teaching on student learning, is often described as being one element in the scholarship of teaching. Research of this kind can be highly valuable in enhancing the quality of teaching, learning and curricula. If done rigorously it might also be highly publishable. Some disciplines have journals devoted to educational research in the discipline concerned, other journals publish special issues or occasional articles on teaching and learning. There are therefore many opportunities to publish educational research.

Some academics conduct a program of educational research as an adjunct to their disciplinary research programs. A smaller number build their entire research programs around educational research. Of course, these career directions will not be relevant and appropriate for all academics and individuals need to make decisions about how they wish to position their overall academic career and their research activities. Also, with the limits on time and resources, individuals need to make personal ‘cost-benefit’ decisions on where to invest their research energies.

For people wishing to undertake educational research for the first time the prospect of researching and publishing in a new field might be daunting. Academic colleagues who are educational researchers might assist people who are unfamiliar with methodologies or the wider educational literature.

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