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read paper - Geography as a site of co-learning: re-linking research and teaching
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Comments / Threads So Far
- Comments on 'Geography as a site of co-learning: re-linking research and teaching' (from Mick Healey)
- Comments on 'Geography as a site of co-learning: re-linking research and teaching' (from Steve Gaskin)
- Comments on 'Geography as a site of co-learning: re-linking research and teaching' (from Eric Pawson)
- Some quick thoughts on Curriculum Research and Design by Lawrence Stenhouse and relevance to linking research and teaching in geography in higher education (John Bradbeer)
- Comments on 'Geography as a site of co-learning: re-linking research and teaching' (from Ian Fuller)
- Comments on 'Geography as a site of co-learning: re-linking research and teaching' (from Jane Wellens)
- Comments on 'Geography as a site of co-learning: re-linking research and teaching' (from Janice Monk)
- SOME WAYS FORWARD FOR GEOGRAPHERS RE LINKING TEACHING AND RESEARCH (from Alan Jenkins)
Comments on 'Geography as a site of co-learning: re-linking
research and teaching'
From: Mick Healey - University of Gloucestershire, UK
Date: 16 June 2004
Posting: Linking research and teaching through inquiry-based
learning
I enjoyed reading this paper, which by outlining a conceptual framework complements the work previously done in this field, which is reviewed in Jenkins (2000) and Healey et al. (2003). The emphasis on the changing pressures facing higher education is stimulating. Though some of these are global, there are international differences in the way they are played out and there are important nationally specific pressures. This provides a rationale for a cross-national investigation. The changing environment facing higher education is well illustrated by Barnett's (2000) views about a world of 'supercomplexity'.
For me the critical question we need to address is: 'How can our students best benefit from the research which takes place in our departments and institutions in the context of the changing environments facing geography in higher education in different countries?'
Departments and individuals vary in the way that they construct the linkage
between research and teaching. It is possible to design curricula which develop
the research-teaching nexus along three dimensions, according to whether:
· the emphasis is on research content or research processes
· the students are treated as the audience or participants
· the teaching is teacher-focused or student-focused
I would agree that 'our categories, such as research and teaching are being remade around us' (p5), though the territory is a contested one. There is evidence that a broader definition of research is needed, whether argued from the point of view of Boyer's (1990) four scholarships or Gibbons et al. (1994) shift to interdisciplinary 'mode 2' knowledge. There is also evidence of the greater effectiveness of various forms of active learning compared with transmission modes (Prosser and Trigwell, 1999).
This would suggest that the most fruitful areas to explore for developing the research-teaching nexus lie at the right hand end of the above curriculum dimensions emphasising research processes in which students are participants and the teaching is student focused. One form of teaching which has these characteristics is inquiry-based learning (Healey et al., 2003). In its most exciting versions, as the paper argues, 'students and staff are co-learners' (p5). This raises fascinating questions about changing power relationships in the classroom (Brew, 2003).
One of the benefits of seeing teaching and research as 'two different, but overlapping forms of inquiry' (Badley, 2002, 455) is that then research and teaching are inseparable. Bradbeer (2004) makes a similar argument in reviewing the ideas of Lawrence Stenhouse.
The proposed framework in the paper provides an exciting opportunity to explore the research-teaching nexus in greater depth. Key will be to identify specific examples of ways in which the curriculum, modules, individual sessions illustrate the framework. These examples will help to answer the question: 'How does the application of the framework vary between different forms of geography, different types of institution, and undergraduate and postgraduate studies in different countries?'
References
Badley, G (2002) A really useful link between teaching and research, Teaching
in Higher Education, 7 (4), 443-455.
Barnett, R. (2000) Realizing the university in an age of supercomplexity Buckingham:
SRHE and Open University Press
Boyer, E L (1990) Scholarship Revisited. Princeton University NJ: Carnegie
Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
Bradbeer, J (2004) Some quick thoughts on Curriculum research and design by
Lawrence Stenhouse and relevance to linking research and teaching in geography
in higher education, personal communication 9 June
Brew, A (2003) Teaching and research: new relationships and their implications
for inquiry-based teaching and learning in higher education, Higher Education
Research & Development 22 (1), 3-18
Gibbons, M, Limoges, C, Nowotny, H, Schwartzman, S, Scott, P and Throw, M
(1994) The new production of knowledge. London: Sage
Healey, M. with Blumhof, J. and Thomas, N. (2003) Linking teaching and research
in geography, earth and environmental sciences. Available at: http://www.gees.ac.uk/linktr/linktr.htm#ltringees
Jenkins, A (2000) The relationship between teaching and research: where does
geography stand and deliver?, Journal of Geography in Higher Education 24,
(3), 325-351.
Comments on 'Geography as a site of co-learning: re-linking
research and teaching'
From: Steve Gaskin - LTSN-GEES / University of Plymouth,
UK
Date: 17 June 2004
Posting: I really enjoyed reading this paper, and think that
the group are in a strong position to take forward their efforts at the INLT
workshop in Glasgow. I think that the group has managed to capture some key
issues in the teaching/research debate. The paper covered many interesting
angles which do challenge our thinking about, and management of, the teaching
and research relationship.
I am able to offer the following comments/observations:
· I felt that the first paragraph could be strengthened - I started
to wonder about how it was relevant, until I reached paragraph 2. I would
suggest tightening up paragraph 1, into something more focussed and which
grabs the reader's attention form the first line. This is a very interesting
topic, as the paper very well demonstrates, and one that is surrounded by
considerable debate, so I think you could capitalise on this by a few stronger
opening sentences. The last paragraph seemed to make a clear statement about
what the paper sought to do; perhaps re-word this into an opening punchy paragraph.
· I think that the paper could also draw upon a few more scholarly
references in this area - one good source might be the LTSN-GEES special edition
of PLANET on linking teaching and research, and an article by Roger Lee in
PLANET Issue 12. Both available at: http://www.gees.ac.uk/planet/index.htm
· At the start of each new section, it might be worth providing one
or two sentences providing an explicit signpost about what the section covers.
In a paper that is talking about complicated issues, I believe that some clearer
navigation of this nature would benefit the reader, and do more justice to
the very good coverage of many contested issues in the teaching and research
debate.
Comments on 'Geography as a site of co-learning:
re-linking research and teaching'
From: Eric Pawson - University of Canterbury, New Zealand
Date: 7 July 2004
Posting:There are a lot of stimulating ideas in this paper
and I especially like the political-economic frame within which it is developed,
emphasising how it is that research and teaching practice is 'embedded in
institutions which are rapidly changing'. One element of this is the exacerbation
of the belief that research is a superior good through national research assessment
exercises such as New Zealand's PBRF and the UK RAE. Yet promotion criteria
have long prioritised research and research-based degrees are often referred
to as 'higher degrees'.
Research practices have increasingly mirrored those identified as characteristic of contemporary 'learning', inasmuch as projects that address problems related to the national good are prioritised by funding agencies such as FRST in New Zealand, and the working requirement is that such projects be group-based and outcome-focused. In this sense, (co) learning conducted within the elements identified in the paper is consistent with what will be expected of students as producers once in the workplace. Meanwhile, the emphasis on students as consumers in fee paying institutions is one factor driving 'the importance of learning as a guiding principle', given that it is so readily linked to identifiable outputs.
Whether students and faculty think or act in such instrumental terms is another matter: the emphasis in the paper on 'organisational rationalities' reveals who really drives and benefits from such requirements.
Some quick thoughts on Curriculum Research and
Design by Lawrence Stenhouse and relevance to linking research and teaching
in geography in higher education
From: John Bradbeer - University of Portsmouth, UK
Date: 7 July 2004
Posting:I sent these comments to Richard le Heron and I believe
that they were then circulated to the initial email group. I have been asked
to post them in the wider discussion area. I appreciate that these comments
are just a little tangential but I do feel that they are of interest. I am
now in a School of Education and my colleagues make certain that I am more
aware of currents in education sensu lato. Given that two colleagues were
students of Stenhouse's, perhaps it's not surprising that I finally got around
to reading his work and found it stimulating.
Lawrence Stenhouse was an influential figure in UK schools education in the 1960s and 1970s. He worked on some innovative curricula for the secondary schools (especially the Humanities Project for 14-16 year olds) and later was a founder member of the Centre for Applied Research in Education at the University of East Anglia. The Humanities Project sparked two innovative approaches in Geography school curricula, the Geography for the Young School Leaver CSE programme (14-16) and the Schools Council A Level Geography programmes (16-18). Stenhouse sets out much of his philosophy in his 1975 book Curriculum Research and Design.
To some degree one could look back at the period when Stenhouse was writing as a golden age, although as one educated before the innovative curricula of the 1960s appeared, I would be careful not to extend this golden age for very long nor to suggest that it was uniformly golden! Stenhouse revealingly feels that it is necessary to explain to his (presumably mainly British) audience what a curriculum is and contrasts the very thin outlines that passed for curricula in the UK with the voluminous and detailed statements that were curricula in mainland Europe. Central to his argument is a passionately held belief that curriculum and teaching strategies are intimately related and need to be co-developed. He is critical of the naïve view that subject matter structure must determine what is taught, in what order and how it should be taught. Curriculum is far more than a list of things to be learnt and tricks of the trade as to how they should be learnt. For Stenhouse, disciplines are central and the whole learning process (for teachers as well as for students) should endeavour as closely as possible to mirror disciplinary processes of enquiry and of the testing of claims against evidence.
Predictably, Stenhouse is highly critical of the behavioural objectives model of the curriculum. Chapter 6 of his book is a powerful critique of this approach and makes uncomfortable reading thirty years later when fairly mechanical lists of learning outcomes are now regarded as the highest of best practice. Stenhouse is adamant that we need to be clear about what we try to do with and for our students but he is sceptical that we could specify anything more than general aims. Learning is to some degree opportunistic and the most important things to be learnt cannot always be specified in advance or in direct ways. Measurement is the enemy of the humane curriculum.
So Stenhouse advocates a process model for(of) curriculum. In essence he argues for an approach to learning and teaching that mimics as closely as possible the actual pattern of enquiry in the discipline being learnt. Making, contesting, comparing and validating knowledge is what research and learning are all about. Even with a limited amount of knowledge and with fairly limited intellectual development Stenhouse insists that this approach can be used with school children. If 14 year olds were held able to cope with this approach in 1969, surely 19-25 year olds should be able to cope 35 years later!
Stenhouse suggests that a school operates with at least 4 processes:
· Training: or the acquisition by students of skills
· Instruction: or the transmission of propositional knowledge to students
· Initiation: or the acquisition and internalisation in students of
social, cultural and disciplinary values and norms
· Induction: or the introduction of students to disciplinary ways of
working and thinking
I guess that the university of the early twenty-first century is similarly working with these processes. Stenhouse allows that the behavioural objectives model works for the first two of these processes but falls flat for the latter two. He goes on to say: "Education as an induction to knowledge is successful to the extent that it makes the behavioural outcomes of the students unpredictable." (p.82). Later he says, in language quite likely to appeal to geographers: " Knowledge is primarily concerned with synthesis. The analytic approach implied in the objectives model readily trivialises it." (p.83).
Stenhouse argues, then, for a curriculum built around enquiry. He stresses
that the teachers too must be involved in enquiry. They must enquire into
the subject matter being taught so that they understand it in personal terms
(presumably we would now term this scholarship?) but equally they must enquire
into the learning of their students. Teachers must both model and employ disciplinary
forms of enquiry as they teach their students and as they devise learning
environments for their students.
So in a Stenhousian model of geography curriculum students would from the
outset encounter geography as a discipline that creates and contests knowledge.
They would see and experience at first hand the notion of the social construction
of knowledge and they would learn how geographers go about creating knowledge.
At the heart of the curriculum would be research and enquiry, both in the
sense of learning about methodology, of learning a repertoire of methods and
techniques and of contesting and debating claims to knowledge. Geomorphology,
glacial geomorphology and the periglacial geomorphology of southern England
would then become vehicles for the application of these critical research
and enquiry skills rather than 101 interesting and 205 rather more boring
facts to be learnt. Instead of a core being propositional knowledge, the geography
curriculum would have as its heart the ideas of methodology and would culminate
in a real experience of enquiry in the dissertation. On the way, active learning
approaches like problem-based learning would support the notion of the geography
student as apprentice scholar and enquirer. There would be no distinction
between teaching and research as both use exactly the same approaches of critical
enquiry and testing of claims against evidence.
Reference:
Stenhouse, L (1975) An Introduction to Curriculum Research and Development. London: Heinemann
Comments on 'Geography as a site of co-learning:
re-linking research and teaching'
From: Ian Fuller - Massey University, New Zealand
Date: 23 July 2004
Posting: I would like to suggest that the paper challenge
more strongly the notion of separation of teaching and research in a University
context (which is introduced on page 2-3). To my mind teaching at university
level must be informed by and linked to research, otherwise the education
ceases to be "Higher". Similarly, research undertaken in a University
context ought to be communicated to learners in that situation who are engaged
in study of the subject at the highest level. Perhaps this is an oversimplification,
but I believe this is an important point to make in an environment which has
sought / is seeking to separate the two, and which has led, for example in
the UK, to labels such as "teaching universities" and "research
universities" being proffered. This is clearly a generic issue, and not
specifically related to linking teaching and research in Geography, nevertheless,
perhaps the point should be made, as this is the context in which we endeavour
to work?
To this end, I think that John Bradbeer's points drawn from Stenhouse are
well made - "at the heart of the [geography] 'curriculum' should be research
and enquiry". Geography is a distinctive discipline in creating and contesting
knowledge, which is learnt in experiential mode (not least through further
distinctives such as fieldwork), which in turn provides the perfect platform
for linkages between teaching and research to be made.
Comments on 'Geography as a site of co-learning:
re-linking research and teaching'
From: Jane Wellens - University of Leicester, UK
Date: 23 July 2004
Posting: I found the framework used in this paper a really
useful one to consider the linkages between research and teaching. For me
a key issue is that we really start to make the benefits of these linkages
real and move on from merely paying lip-service to them in mission statements
and strategic documents. In this respect the discussion about the elements
of an emerging educational landscape was particularly useful and an area that
I think could be expanded - it also clearly links to areas being explored
by the other groups.
Jenkins and Zetter (2003) provide a very useful discussion of how the Teaching/Research nexus is central to Higher Education. A key point that they raise is how the linkage between the two is not automatic and has to be developed. They highlight findings from a report delivered to the UK Higher Education Funding Council (HEFCE) as part of the Fundamental Review of Research.
This "found little evidence to suggest that synergies between teaching and research were managed or promoted at departmental or institutional level…. Some strategies may be having the unintended consequence of driving research and teaching apart for some staff." (J.M Consulting (2000, 36)
Following from Eric's point about the belief that research is the superior partner in the nexus, I think that Doring (2002) offers some interesting perspectives on this issue. For example, he argues that
"Whilst the dual roles of teaching and research within a university are considered complimentary (Astin & Chang, 1995; Ramsden, 1998), the quality assurance process, in its search for accountability measures, favoured research because attainment level were more easily identifiable through publication rates and grant success"
and that
"Rather than support a balance between teaching and research, it seems that a largely unquestioned aim of most universities became an improvement of their reputation in quality and thereby standing in the academic pecking order." (p.141)
Winston (1994) also offers some interesting observations regarding the way in which research and particularly undergraduate teaching are valued:
"The local, ephemeral, personal, real-time nature of good teaching versus
the durable portable atemporality of good research - reduces the value of
teaching in the faculty market" (p.11).
With those who make the judgements about teaching being locally-based "naïve
undergraduates" and those who judge research "sophisticated scholars"
who can be based anywhere (p12)
He goes on to explore how this may have knock on effects in the undergraduate
curriculum, with courses being offered because they address the research interests
of the academic rather than serving the interests and needs of the students:
"if she can teach an undergraduate course in her research speciality,
the new PhD may baffle and bore her students but she will have turned that
course into something much more like discretionary time1"(p. 13)
All of these are generic issues rather than geography or geographer focussed,
but I think they provide an interesting approach to considering the realities
of linking teaching and research.
1Winston defines discretionary time "as time free of undergraduate teaching
obligations that can be devoted, instead to one's own work" (p.11)
Astin, A. and Chang, M. (1995) Colleges that emphasise research and teaching: you can have your cake and eat it. Change 27(5) 44-49
Dorling, A. (2002) Challenges to the Academic Role of Change Agent. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 26(2) 139-148
Jenkins A and Zetter R ( 2003) Linking Teaching and Research in Departments, Learning and Teaching Support Network, Generic Centre, York http://www.ltsn.ac.uk/application.asp?app=resources.asp&process=full_record§ion=generic&id=257 (accessed 23rd July 2004)
Ramsden, P. (1998) Managing the effective university. Higher Education Research and Development 17(3) 347-370
Winston, G.C. (1994) The decline in undergraduate teaching: moral failure or market pressure. Change, 26(5) 8-15
Comments on 'Geography as a site of co-learning:
re-linking research and teaching'
From: Janice Monk (University of Arizona, USA)
Date: 25 July 2004
Posting: As I work my way through the papers, I am struck
by the extent to which the issue of the changing context of higher education
in relation to the state,permeates or at least is raised, across most pieces.
Perhaps we should have some space for reflection on the cross-cutting themes,
as well as discussion of individual papers.
SOME WAYS FORWARD FOR GEOGRAPHERS RE LINKING
TEACHING AND RESEARCH
From: Alan Jenkins - Oxford Brookes, UK
Date: 10 August 2004
Posting: As someone who has recently spent much time on the
issue of teaching /research relations I found it challenging and salutary
to read the comments so far: for they forced me to stand back and rethink
what I have learned - and I hope they have made me - and you - think forwards
.
They leave me with suggestions for FIVE possible directions for an INTERNATIONAL approach to embedding effective /teaching research links in geography . All of them are present in various ways in the papers so far -but which are the ones the 'group' should prioritise in its discussions and actions is not for me to decide _ When you are in Glasgow I will be working and playing in Norway !
ONE
Developing a more sophisticated understanding of the largely generic literature /research on teaching /research relations and then thinking through what this means for ones own teaching and department organisation .There is nothing intrinsically geographic about this - nor is there anything intrinsic to an international organisation doing this . But without such effective understanding - little can be achieved by INTL . Here I thank John Bradbeer for sending us 'back' to Stenhouse , Eric Pawson for exploring and questioning PBL …But these are largely generic issues . .
TWO
Such generic issues are often best explained and developed through seeing them in the immediate context of courses in the discipline . Much of what the GEES subproject that Mick Healey …and I led http://www.brookes.ac.uk/genericlink/! was doing that -and that I think benefited from international examples -even though it only had UK based funding ! One way forward would be for the group through its various contacts with national organisations to take that project forward - but if so in what ways ? Or is that project reached its geographic end ?
THREE
And this relates strongly to what Richard Le Heron opens with and with Jan Monks comments -: internationally higher education and geography per se is being re-structured ….Individual staff , departments and national organisations need to be aware of -intelligent to -these developments and need to draw on the expertise of geographers /and their professional organisations worldwide in seeking to shape these developments .Thus sadly I think that New Zealand geographers faced with new national funding for research - the Performance Based Research Fund - should learn from what we in the UK have learned from the impact of the Research Assessment Exercise , on which the PBRF is modelled . ( Oh and if only 'we' could learn from the New Zealand system wide audit of institutional teaching /research links in 2000-2001; and what impact that is now having on New Zealand geography in 2004 …) Again there is probably nothing specifically geographic about this -but the impacts on the discipline and more critically student learning and staff lives are and will be immense . We need international intelligence on this , even if much of the action has to be 'local'.
FOUR
And here those of you who know my enthusiasms for things electronic and utter incapacity to easily use them ( my wife concurs ) will no doubt utter deprecatory remarks :But perhaps One way forward would be to seek funding for some international funding for some electronic ? project that effectively supports effective international teaching /research links in the discipline . Indeed there are beginning projects doing that - in particular the UK/USA JISC /NSF - funded DialogPlus project . Certainly as universities create semi privatised links with particular partners, should there not also be projects and spaces for international collaborations so that students internationally -and really internationally to include Africa …. Luton and Slippery Rock ..…( ie places and spaces outside the rich /research elite) …. - have access to current research based …learning in the 'discipline'.
FIVE
The dog that is yet to bark -though there are murmurs and rumblings in Richard's
paper . What are the distinctive features of geography as a discipline - or
collection of related disciplines that shapes the nature of teaching /research
relations in the discipline? What does primary research tell us on this issue
?
At present most of the international research on teaching /research relations
has been generic . There are now some research projects that have opened up
the particular teaching /research relations in some disciplines . I include
in an appendix below a recent review I have done of that research . Mick Healey
et al in a paper on the GEES web site http://www.gees.ac.uk/linktr/ltringees.rtf
opens up thjs issue re the particularity ..of geography but .. I think that
paper like much I have written is in largely approaches one and two outlined
above . I think there is a lot more to be done in exploring and understanding
through primary research, teaching /research relations in geography and how
they are being restructured .Such research could and should in part be international
. What do you think of that idea ? Is it feasible to conceive of an international
project -that could realistically be funded etc ? Or would your efforts be
better focused on ????
APPENDIX 1
From Jenkins A ( 2004)- A guide to the research evidence on teaching-research relations: York : LTSN Academy
7: RESEARCH ON DISCIPLINES
( Note this version before final copy editing ; final publication c Sept 2004)
One of the central research themes in recent years has been the extent and nature of how teaching /research are shaped by disciplines. As academic disciplines are generally organized in institutions at department level, some of this research is closely linked to issues of departmental organization.(Section 6)
How Disciplines Shape Teaching -Research Relations
Research cultures and practices There is now a strong research strand that identifies different research cultures/practices and disciplinary types; in particular the work of Biglan (1973 and Becher and Trowler (2001). This focus on disciplinary types has also been extended to discussions of how disciplines shape pedagogic cultures and practices.(Healey 2000, Neumann and Becher 2002).
Research organisation and scholarly/research connections
Colbeck's (1998) study of 12 academics in physics and English showed that:
in physics the links lay in the way that undergraduates and postgraduates
could be involved in (staff) research for much of the research was team based:
ie the (potential and actual) links lay in the organisation of research and
pedagogy; for much of the pedagogy was inquiry based.
English: here the connections between research and scholarship were strong:
indeed the distinctions between 'research' and scholarship were hard to draw.
In English the teaching/research connections lay more in the content of the
curriculum.
The Role of Professional Societies: In some of the professional disciplines, professional requirements for accreditation may support or obstruct staff drawing connections between teaching and research. (Griffiths in press)
Student Perspectives. Students vary in their attitudes to research (See Section 10). It is possible that students with different conceptions of knowledge /the role of universities and obtaining a degree will choose different disciplines and thus shape the disciplinary pedagogic culture. A study of staff perceptions of teaching /research relations in business studies in the UK; showed that staff who wished to emphasis the value of research, experienced students (and colleagues) who wanted a much more applied practical curriculum, and questioned the value of a 'research based approach. (Harrington and Booth,2003). A study of student motivations in one UK institututiion showed significant disciplinary differences re how (staff) research affected student motivation -see Section 10. (Breen and Lindsay 2002).
Where are the research frontiers re the curriculum ?
In some of the sciences, staff research may be so far 'ahead' of the undergraduate
curriculum as to make strong connections between staff research and student
learning very difficult -and indeed in some disciplines /research areas also
at postgraduate level (Ben David, 1977;Jensen, 1998).
Hierarchical disciplinary knowledge structure
The key role of the discipline in shaping the relationship, and the linked
issue of how staff perceive both teaching and research, was a strong feature
of research by Robertson and Bond (2001, p.11) in exploring staff at the University
of Canterbury (New Zealand) perceptions of teaching/research relationships.
Thus for (some of) their interviewees 'in disciplines with a very hierarchical
(knowledge) structure the relationship between teaching and research can only
be activated at postgraduate level. These staff perceived that at undergraduate
level students lacked the disciplinary framework to engage in inquiry'.
In a later more intensive and extensive study, Robertson and Bond (2003) explore through detailed interviews the metaphors and understanding by which staff explain their conceptions of knowledge, teaching and teaching /research relations. In part, they in effect concur with Brew that how individuals see knowledge that shapes the teaching /research relations they perceive and construct. But Roberson and Bond see these relations as shaped by disciplinary cultures and conceptions of knowledge. They conclude
"We suggest that it is our participants' epistemological and ontological beliefs that shape their understandings of the research, teaching, learning experiential field and hence of the research/teaching relation. In particular, beliefs about the nature of knowledge - what it is, how we create it, how we share it -determine the spatial relationship of research to teaching … In high paradigm consensus or 'hard' disciplines … knowledge is generally understood to be cumulative, hierarchical, and concerned with universals, quantification and discovery … The prevailing disciplinary epistemology …. means that research and (undergraduate) teaching occur on different 'planes' in a hierarchical relation one to another and that teaching is conceptualised primarily in terms of transmission of research-informed knowledge down to the recipient. By contrast, in low paradigm consensus or 'soft' disciplines scholars use new lenses to explore territory mapped by others and knowledge is concerned with particulars, qualities and understanding. The disciplinary community (teachers and students together) participate in the (de)construction of knowledge. The emphasis is on shared participation and engagement, even at undergraduate level. (Robertson and Bond, 13).
The key role of practice in shaping knowledge and the curricula:
the case of Health Care and Education
In both education and health care(McKee 2002) (and medicine) there are major
discussions within these disciplines as to the nature of knowledge necessary
to be an effective practitioner and how such knowledge is best 'learned';
For example is teaching effectively an 'apprenticeship' discipline and is
such knowledge effectively 'craft or practice based- or does effective practice
need to be clearly based on research ?
While what type of 'research' is most likely to have profound implications
for practice and how is that research best connected to practice ? Put crudely
there are some who value small scale practitioner research and others who
value large scale scientific studies (Hammersley 1997, Hargreaves 1997, Slavin
2002): While others value the development of professional knowledge of practice,forged
through personal and group reflections.
The Role of Mode 2 Knowledge in Professional Disciplines
Gibbons et al., (1994) argue that much 'knowledge' and 'research' is developed
and used in application, and the increased importance of what they term as
'Mode 2 knowledge'….
"In a knowledge- society, research is context specific and multi- disciplinary
rather than pure and discipline- based; it has social relevance rather than
hypothesis led; it uses fuzzy, rather than empirically- based data; it is
problem solving rather than deductive. In what might be termed the commodification
of knowledge, how knowledge is managed, synthesised and adapted become as
important as knowledge itself. ….Employers will increasingly demand that
graduates have the skills to conduct appropriate research, the capacity to
formulate solutions to problems based on awareness of research evidence, and
the ability critically to assess that evidence: in other words knowledge creation
and use (Jenkins and Zetter, 2003, p11)
Mode 2 Knowledge and The Case of Built Environment: 15 Points from
Project LINK
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/planning/LTRC/about.html
4. In a knowledge- based society, research and consultancy skills are key
attributes in vocational and professional fields like the built environment.
Graduate professionals increasingly need core skills in managing, synthesising
and deploying subject- based knowledge to derive solutions to real- world
problems; integrating teaching with research helps to embed these cores skills.
5. Graduates with the skills and ability to conduct research in operational
settings are more likely to have the capacity to formulate problem- solving
solutions based on an awareness of where to find or collect evidence, how
to critically test the reliability of that evidence and how to present the
conclusions and findings.
See also Griffiths (in press)
Conclusions : At the Disciplinary Level
There is increasing research which indicates that there are important disciplinary variations in teaching research relations. These variations are shaped by how disciplinary communities conceive the nature of knowledge, research and teaching; the forms of pedagogy /curricular in different disciplines; and for some disciplines the impact of professional organisations and perhaps student interests on the content and practices of the disciplines.
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