Spheres of Influence: Ventures and Visions in Educational Development*

3-6 July, 2002
The University of Western Australia
Perth, Western Australia

Abstract

Research-led teaching and teaching-led research: New ventures and new visions for educational development

Angela Brew, University of Sydney, Australia

There is now a widely held view that efforts should be made to actively bring research and teaching together. This is a response to many changes in higher education together with a number of research findings that have challenged the relationship between teaching and research. One of the consequences is growing interest in what has been called 'research-led teaching' or 'research-enhanced' teaching. But what do research-led teaching and teaching-led research look like? What form do they take? And how can we, as educational developers, encourage them?

In this seminar I present two initiatives I have been involved in as an educational developer where I have been endeavouring to answer these questions. At the University of Sydney, in September 2001, a Showcase of Scholarly Inquiry in Teaching and Learning was held to encourage discussion and debate about research-led teaching. The papers, workshops and posters presented provided a beginning map of the nature and scope of research-led teaching.

Following the Showcase, I visited the UK and built on this map by carrying out investigative work regarding best practice in research-led teaching, talking to academics, educational development personnel and managers in UK universities and in many of the 25 specialist Learning and Teaching Support Networks, and following up examples of best practice.

In the seminar I will present the model of research-led teaching that I have developed as a consequence of this work. I will then encourage participants to share examples of how research-led teaching is being practiced in their institutions, and discuss what we are, and can do, to develop it.

Key words:
Research-teaching relationships; Inquiry-based learning; Research

Objectives, outcomes and activities:
I hope that in this seminar participants might come to more fully understand why the development of research-led teaching is an important venture in higher education and go away with a vision of what educational developers can do to encourage it and why it is important to do so.

Angela Brew has worked in academic development for over 20 years and has researched in the area of teaching and learning in higher education and related fields in the UK and in Australia. Her latest book entitled: The Nature of Research: Inquiry in Academic Contexts was published by RoutledgeFalmer in August 2001. She is President of the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA) and co-editor of the International Journal for Academic Development.

Contact: Angela Brew, email: A.Brew@itl.usyd.edu.au