student engagement and teaching-research links: opportunities and challenges

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learning . teaching . higher education research

Student Engagement and Teaching-Research Links :

Opportunities and challenges

Kerri-Lee Krause Robert Gordon University, March 2009


Overview •  About student engagement

•  About teaching-research links

•  Putting the two together through the curriculum

•  Implications for you

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GIHE learning . teaching . higher education research

What does student engagement mean to you?

Are you engaging your students this year? If yes, how? If not, why not? How do you know?


What role does curriculum play?

...all the planned learning opportunities offered by the organisation to learners

and the experiences learners encounter when the curriculum is implemented.

(Print, 1993)

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Curriculum as battleground The concept of the undergraduate curriculum is fraught with ambiguity. The curriculum is an intellectually rich concept that may be viewed and analysed from many different vantage points. One can look at purposes, experiences, or outcomes of the curriculum. There is the formal and the informal, or hidden, curriculum. The political left and right have made the curriculum a veritable battleground …

There is the curriculum offered by the university, taught by the academics, and learned by the students. Ideally, all these various views of the curriculum would be similar, but, alas, it is not necessarily so…

(Gaff et al., 1996, p.1)


Curriculum planned/offered

by university

Curriculum taught by academics

Curriculum learned by students

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Dimensions of engagement with curriculum in 1st year


Relationships among engagement scales

Transition engagement scale

Academic Peer

Student-staff

Intellectual

Online

Source: Krause & Coates (2008) Students’ engagement in first year university, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 33(5), 493-505

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Academic Peer

Student-staff

Intellectual

Online

Source: Krause & Coates (2008) Students’ engagement in first year university, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 33(5), 493-505




Academic Peer

Student-staff

Intellectual

Online

Beyond-class engagement scale

Source: Krause & Coates (2008) Students’ engagement in first year university, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education

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Transition engagement What would have helped you in making the transition?

(to students from low SES backgrounds)""

•  Uni-start assisted me tremendously"

•  Academic advisors with the RIGHT info "

•  Being more aware of university terms and the process of enrolling ""

•  Better bus routes"

First impressions of uni?""

•  You were kind of shoved into it, you were just meant to understand this whole new approach straight away and in a couple of weeks we were meant to be handing in assignments, but you don’t know anything and you don’t know what it’s meant to be…(rural student at metro uni)""" Sources: Qld government funded survey of Qld uni students from LSES backgrounds; Interviews with 1st year students from rural/regional areas at metropolitan universities (work in progress)"


Intellectual engagement ""There are so many opportunities, so many ways you can make connections to get yourself ahead in the world."

""I think in first year, because there’s not an immediate goal, like VCE… it’s not pivotal or crucial…"

""First impressions of uni?"

"

"Lack of challenge within my course"""I just like being at uni. Like sometimes I sit in the classes and I think ‘cool, I’m at uni’!"

Sources: Interviews with 1st year students from rural/regional areas at metropolitan universities; Qld government funded survey of Qld uni students from LSES backgrounds (works in progress)"

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GIHE learning . teaching . higher education research Sources: Interviews with 1st year students from rural/regional areas at metropolitan universities"

Beyond-class engagement "You can walk through uni … and you would see no one who knew you. Like in our town it takes you half an hour to walk down the street because you see so many people you know. So that was kind of a real shock … you were just one of a million.(rural student at metro uni) "

"""The societies that link you to businesses to make sure that at the end of your degree there is at least some opportunity to find employment.(rural student at metro uni)"

"""

"


Curriculum implication 1: Be wary of making assumptions that are not evidence-based

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Reality check: what assumptions are you making in your curriculum?

First year students’ use of ICTs for learning

Source: First year students’ experiences with technology: Are they really digital natives? Kennedy et al., 2008, p.116

Item To assist me with my studies I want to be able to use…

% Agree (n=2000)

A computer for general study 94%

The web to look up/search for information (eg Google) 93% The web to access a learning portal (eg Blackboard) 81% A mobile phone to access web-based information or services 46% A computer to create webpages (eg Dreamweaver) 38% Social networking software (eg MySpace) 32% The web to keep a blog/vlog 32%


Curriculum implication 2: Respect and prepare students for disciplinary differences and their implications for curriculum design and assessment

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The academic voice: features of my curriculum Chemistry""I see first years tied to the lower order level of questions where you ask students … what is a gas? Whereas at second and third year we expect them to have a deeper understanding and then we can ask questions like how or why. "

!History""It’s not about learning a particular thing, it’s about an understanding of how things might connect, so people can have different views."

"Mathematics!!… is a language … it is fundamentally hierarchical. What you’ve learned in first year must be remembered for second year … for third year." (Source: ARC Discovery Study, James & Krause, Disciplinary cultures and undergraduate education)


Curriculum implication 3: Challenge first years with ideas, cutting edge, new discoveries

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Achieving Teaching-Research Connections Resources and Ideas The project team (and special thanks to our Reference Group!) Griffith University Kerri-Lee Krause (Project Director) Ali Green University of Melbourne Sophie Arkoudis Richard James Claire Jennings (Project Manager) QUT Ros McCulloch


Achieving Teaching-Research Connections Launching New Resources and Ideas

The Teaching-Research Nexus: A guide for academics and

policy-makers in higher education

http://www.trnexus.edu.au

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Do you believe there is a place in higher education

for universities that are predominantly

‘teaching only’ universities?

If so, why (or why not)?

Question 1

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Question 2

In your discipline/area of responsibility,

what does ‘research’ in the

‘teaching-research nexus’ mean to you?

ie how do you define research?

(5 minutes with a partner, then feedback)


Question 3: Where do you stand? Why?

TRLs are an inevitable characteristic of universities – it goes without saying.

TRLs require conscious nurturing and explication.

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The academic voice on TRLs in practice: Opportunities for students

Teaching-research links can:

1: Deepen students' understanding of the knowledge bases of disciplines and professions, including their research methods

and contemporary research challenges and issues

2: Build students' higher-order intellectual capabilities and enhance their skills for employment and lifelong learning

3: Develop students' capacity to conduct research and enquiry

4: Enhance students' engagement and develop their capacity for independent learning


The academic voice on TRLs in practice: Opportunities

Teaching-research links can…

•  Set universities apart from other forms of tertiary education - marketing tool in competitive market

•  Provide professional benefits for academics – eg promotion, awards

•  Streamline use of academics’ (increasingly) limited time

•  Build student-lecturer relationships –  Students see academic as a person who talks about their own

research – brings the subject alive

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Four Challenges 1. Draw the strands together for academics:

–  eg if applicable, look for connections between TRLs, WIL and ‘community engagement’ (public scholarship)

2. To achieve change, focus primarily on department level 3. The curriculum is the key to practical implementation 4. Align reward and recognition systems, including

criteria for tenure and promotion


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learning . teaching . higher education research Examples downloadable

in pdf format


Thank you

http://www.trnexus.edu.au

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An analysis of: •  definitions and interpretations of the TRN •  research into the TRN •  the relationship with the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SOTL)


In this section we present our case for the four principal benefits of the

TRN for student learning

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An analysis of the broad possibilities (and pitfalls), plus an examination of disciplinary differences and year level differences


What does the TRN mean for academics these days? Where does the TRN ‘fit’ in academic career building?

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Dozens of examples, including: by discipline by year level by strategy


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• Embedding the TRN in institutional policy • Faculty and department strategies • Recognising and rewarding the TRN • The Self-Review Framework

student engagement and teaching-research links: opportunities and challenges

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