Doing Research to Improve Teaching and Learning

A Guide for College and University Faculty

Kimberly M. Williams

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2021
• Edition: 2
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000410952
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In this rapidly changing teaching and learning environment, one of the most promising ways for faculty at institutions of higher education to improve their teaching is to capitalize upon their skills as researchers. This book is a step-by-step guide for doing research to inform and improve teaching and learning.

With background and instruction about how to engage in these methodologies—including historical analyses, qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods—the second edition of Doing Research to Improve Teaching and Learning discusses a process of working collaboratively and reflectively to improve one's teaching craft. Full of updated, authentic examples from research studies, student work and instructor reflections, this valuable resource equips faculty with the skills to collect and use data and evidence-based instructional methods in any college and university classroom.

Chapter 1

Introduction

Chapter Learning Outcomes

After reading this chapter you will be able to:

1.Describe the differences between Teaching as Research (TAR) and Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL)

2.Explain the ways TAR and SOTL can be useful in improving teaching and learning

3.Identify some biases and beliefs about different types of research methodology

4.Unearth personal beliefs about teaching and research

5.Refine a research question on teaching and/or learning

6.Use the steps to understand the literature/academic conversation about your research question

7.Consider opportunities for protecting participants and designing inclusive projects

What are “Teaching as Research” and the “Scholarship of Teaching and Learning” and Why Should Everyone in Higher Education Care?

As costs of college and university attendance continue to skyrocket, and more instruction is moved online, calls for accountability of student learning have grown louder—particularly as those paying the bills question the learning that is taking place within online environments. Parents, students and teachers alike ask, “Are students learning as much (or at all) within the new online environment?” or “Is it worth going to college to do most teaching and learning in the virtual environment?” Rather than wonder, this book is designed to show you how to demonstrate learning and collect and analyze evidence about this new environment to determine what kind of learning is (or is not) taking place and consider using data to improve.

Higher education strives to contribute to the generation of new knowledge. Classroom research in higher education settings is not a new idea—the notion of teacher-action research has been around for decades, as has the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. In teacher-action research and teaching as research, the teacher uses research to inform his/her own classroom teaching and student learning in systematic ways. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in higher education currently belongs to no single national association and has no unique campus address. For decades, different organizations have come on board, seeing the value of using research to improve teaching and learning. Recently, a consortium of over 20 US institutions have worked together to create a center called the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL).

In this chapter:

Even without outside calls for accountability, as a professor for over two decades at a variety of institutions ranging from my start teaching at a two-year agriculture and technological state institution to a couple of different institutions in the Ivy League, I, like most of my faculty colleagues, want our students to learn what we believe is important enough to be teaching them. We want them to engage with the material in meaningful ways—we want them to think critically about it. We want to know that learning is taking place, and that what we do as faculty in the classroom matters and makes a difference. We want to be good teachers in the classroom. Even beyond the walls of our classrooms and the ever-growing classrooms without walls, such as online courses and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), the best way to improve our society is to build the knowledge base and critical thinking skills of ourselves and our next generation of the world’s citizens. We hope that future generations continue to build upon existing knowledge to make the world a better place. Higher education strives to contribute to the generation of new knowledge. To do so, we must pass along existing knowledge through teaching to the future generations.

But How Do We Know If We Are Effectively Accomplishing These Lofty Goals?

We have assessments (papers, exams, reports, etc.). We have final course evaluations that our students complete about our performance. Sometimes we have colleagues observe our teaching. But how do we know if our students are learning anything, or if they are retaining it, or how they are being changed as a result of their time with us? And how can we continue to improve our own practice of the art and science of teaching?

The answers to many of these questions are addressed in this book and involve using what we as faculty know best—research. We can draw upon our skills as researchers and knowledge producers to ask questions about our teaching and student learning. We can systematically collect data. We can analyze data and share it. We can use data to inform new ideas we have about teaching and learning and continue the cycle again. As faculty members, we think like researchers. We received our academic credentials based on our ability to do research, whether we conducted research in the humanities, social or natural sciences, and we must demonstrate research skills (or at least the ability to generate new ideas and knowledge) to receive the doctorate.

The use of research to inform teaching seems so elegant in its simplicity, and yet can be so difficult in actual practice without some basic assistance. We have so many students and so little time. We have so much content to cover, and we have so many committees and, of course, our commitment to our own disciplinary research. How can we possibly have time for this additional research that will not necessarily help us in obvious ways toward promotion or tenure? The truth is that by improving teaching, you improve your odds of promotion and tenure. It is possible to do this kind of research within the context of the work you are already doing. This book will give ideas and practical examples to guide you through a process that will make the task manageable as you juggle the many demands of academe.

What Is Teaching as Research and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning?

Classroom research in higher education settings is not a new idea—it has been around for decades. In fact, the Carnegie Foundation started an initiative in 1998 called the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) that was based on the scholarly report published in 1990 called Scholarship Reconsidered, by Ernest Boyer, calling for the use of research to inform and improve teaching in the college and university classroom. Pat Hutchings, Mary Taylor Huber and Anthony Ciccone (2011) have published a book called The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Reconsidered: Institutional Integration and Impact. Moreover, a consortium of several universities nationwide has been working collaboratively under the name of Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (CIRTL), funded by the National Science Foundation. The movement has been gaining momentum as students, parents, taxpayers and faculty themselves are clamoring for ways to improve learning in the college classroom.

What exactly do we mean by “Teaching as Research” and “Scholarship of Teaching and Learning?” These terms have become quite popular in higher education. What do they mean exactly? For the past couple of decades, this field of inquiry has been known as “the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.” The notion of “teacher-action research” (a phrase more associated with teacher-conducted classroom research in K–12 education) has been around for decades, as has “the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning.” In “teacher-action research” and “teaching as research,” the teacher uses research to inform his/her own classroom teaching and student learning in systematic ways. Using qualitative research methods (e.g., interviews, journals, observation, open-ended surveys), quantitative research methods (e.g., numeric surveys, pre- and post-tests, control/comparison groups etc.) and assessment strategies (e.g., formative and summative assessment of student learning), teachers collect data about their own classrooms, as researchers collect data, to inform and improve their teaching and ultimately student learning. The notion is that good research will result in good teaching. The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) typically encompasses teacher-action research and teaching as research, but is broader and beyond just the teacher or professor doing research on his/her own classrooms, and includes the whole scholarship of the enterprise of research on teaching and learning—not focused as specifically on one’s own classroom research.

FIGURE 1.1

Truth is, good teachers use research (or variations of it) to inform their teaching every day, sometimes without knowing it. They are constantly reviewing assessment data, making critical observations of their students and themselves, and collecting qualitative and quantitative data. Teaching as research formalizes the process—that is, makes data collection and analysis more purposeful and grounded in specific learning outcomes for students. In addition, it considers deeply the existing research on teaching, as well as considering how their work may contribute to the improvement of teaching in general and in one’s own discipline.

Higher education is perfectly positioned to make this shift to a culture of teaching as research and embracing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning because research is such a major part of the responsibility of the faculty member, and as part of their intellectual preparation for academic work, faculty members have been prepared in research skills. One challenge, however, is that faculty have been trained in discipline-specific research strategies and rarely have been explicitly taught pedagogical/teaching strategies or research strategies outside of the ones they use regularly. Making the leap between a faculty member’s discipline-specific research skills and research strategies (ways of producing new knowledge) that can be used to inform and improve teaching is not quite as much of a stretch as one might think, but it does require some background knowledge and effort.

Bridging this gap is the primary goal of this book. In short, this book seeks to provide examples of college and university faculty who have taken their skills from their research worlds, expanded them and learned new strategies outside of their discipline-specific strengths, and applied the tools of research to their teaching to inform and improve learning in their classrooms by using “teaching as research” as a model.

What Is the “Scholarship of Teaching and L...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• List of Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1 Introduction
• Step 1 Study History and Understand Your Historical Context
• Step 2 Set Goals and Hypotheses for Student Learning
• Step 3 Know and Use Your Best Methodological Options and What Does Your Data Tell You?
• Step 4 Reflect and Close the Loop
• Appendix A Additional Resources: Possible Publication Venues and Organizations Supporting Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
• Appendix B Syllabus for Teaching as Research Course: ALS 6016 Teaching as Research in Higher Education
• Index