issues for staff and students in mainstreaming inquiry based learning

Issues for staff and students in mainstreaming inquiry based

learning

Associate Professor Angela Brew

The University of Sydney

Australia

Overview

Why is it important to integrate research and

teaching?

What does inquiry-based education look like

in practice?

What gets in the way?

Higher education in the future

What is higher education doing to prepare students for the complex

and challenging decisions that they are likely to encounter

throughout their lives?

“What is required is not that students become masters of

bodies of thought, but that they are enabled to begin to

experience the space and challenge of open, critical

inquiry (in all its personal and interpersonal aspects)”

(Barnett 1997: 110)

Research-based learning: students

Opportunities are provided for students at all levels to:

a) experience and conduct research

b) learn about research throughout their courses

c) develop the skills of research and inquiry

d) contribute to the University’s research effort.

At arm’s length

What is knowledge and how is it generated?

Generic Graduate Attributes Learning disciplinary knowledge Doing research to learn about research

A community of scholars?

Collaboration in inquiry Problem based learning Interdisciplinary inquiry Understanding how disciplinary

knowledge is defined Research as social practice Involving students in the community of

researchers

Research-based learning: staff

Staff and students engage in scholarship and/or research in relation to understanding learning and teaching. Evidence-based approaches are used to establish the effects and effectiveness of student learning, teaching effectiveness and academic practice.

Brew, A., & Sachs, J. (Eds.). (2007). Transforming a University: The

scholarship of teaching and learning in

practice. Sydney: Sydney University

Press.

Why confine critically

reflexive inquiries to the teaching and learning

domain?

What gets in the way?

Tendency to redefine existing practice

Ethics in teaching

Campus planning

Involving the research community

What gets in the way?

Economies of funding regimes Separate evaluation of teaching and research Hierarchical levels Academic mindsets Student mindsets Modular course structures Clearly prescribed course outcomes

Scholarship

What is scholarship? Who are the scholars?

Research

What is research?Who does it?

Teaching and Learning

What kind of teaching? What kind of learning?

From: Brew, A. (2006). Research and Teaching: Beyond the Divide. London

PalgraveMacmillan.

Inclusive scholarly

knowledge-building

communities? Knowledge- Building

What kind of knowledge? Who builds it and how?

Community

What kind of community is a university?

Relationships

How do people relate to each other?

What must we do?

Reflexivity brought about by engaging in the scholarship of academic practice

View teaching as a form of research

Expanded ideas about who is capable of doing research.

Expanded ideas of the nature of research

Change the discourse of higher education

What strategies are you employing to develop and enhance research-based

learning and teaching in your department?

Are you working in partnership with students to inquire into the best ways to do this?

Brew, A. (2006). Research and Teaching: Beyond the Divide. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Jenkins, A, Breen, R., & Lindsay, R. & Brew, A. (2003). Reshaping Teaching in Higher Education : Linking Teaching and Research. London: Kogan Page.

Brew, A. (2001). The nature of research: inquiry

in academic contexts. London, RoutledgeFalmer.

Brew, A., & Sachs, J. (Eds.). (2007). Transforming a University: The scholarship of teaching and learning in practice. Sydney: Sydney University Press.