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Peer Review, Spring 2004
Doctoral Education and the Scholarship
of Teaching and Learning
By Richard Gale, senior scholar, and Chris
M. Golde, senior scholar, The Carnegie Foundation for
the
Advancement of Teaching |
It is my experience that PhD programs teach students
to become researchers, but do not prepare us for careers in
teaching. Not only is there little formal "teacher training"
available, but also there is no requirement of teaching proficiency
for those of us who plan teaching careers. To get a teaching
job, I must prove an ability to do research. How unfortunate
for my future students. --Geology student, Survey of Doctoral
Education and Career Preparation (www.phd-survey.org)
American academe has long been devoted to excellence
in undergraduate and graduate education; our society
celebrates the benefits of broad-based liberal learning
and integrative undergraduate curricula, and champions
the finest in graduate research and scholarship. And
yet, in many doctoral-granting departments, the undergraduate
and graduate enterprises are separately
administered, conceptualized, and executed. This perspective
ignores the fact that it is graduate school that
prepares future faculty for the challenges of undergraduate
teaching and learning. And the reality is that,
despite the fact that arts and science doctoral students
most often cite "enjoyment of teaching" as the
reason
for their interest in faculty positions, many report feeling
inadequately prepared for their chosen careers (see
Golde article, this issue).
Of course, many departments and universities have
begun offering meaningful pedagogical preparation to
their graduate students, addressing the needs of those
who make up a significant part of the teaching force at
most research universities. But even asking the question,
how can teaching be integrated into doctoral programs?
skews the issue by inadvertently emphasizing
some kind of competition between teaching and
research. A schism between undergraduate and graduate
education remains. Instead, graduate programs
could reframe research and teaching as complimentary,
collaborative, coextensive endeavors by offering graduate
students access to and instruction in the scholarship
of teaching and learning.
Graduate education is fundamentally about inquiry,
and doctoral recipients have developed the habits of
mind that promise a lifetime of learning and knowing.
These habits which are so valuable in the lab or library
can also be brought to the classroom, contributing to
disciplinary knowledge in a way that influences the
teaching of the field. Graduate students are taught to
pursue the disciplinary scholarship of discovery, but
they are rarely asked to turn the same curious and critical
eye on questions of student learning and effective
teaching.
For those who enter graduate education with a
desire to teach, examining their teaching and student
learning in the same scholarly way as they pursue discovery
could offer a valuable bridge between the classroom
and the lab, library, and field. Early encouragement
of these future faculty members would result in a
more coherent doctoral experience; linking teaching
and research as shared forms of scholarship integrates
two facets of intellectual work. Most new faculty members
spend much of their time teaching,
and making systematic investigation of student
learning in the discipline integral to
doctoral preparation provides them with a
new venue for meaningful research. But
even those students who do not self-identify
as prospective members of the professoriate
would benefit from a more scholarly
approach to and awareness of teaching
as a professional activity, and learning as a
site of inquiry.
What Is the Scholarship of Teaching
and Learning?
The scholarship of teaching and learning is
based on several assumptions. The practices
of teaching and learning are rarely
transparent. Both are enormously complex
and poorly understood; they can, but rarely
do, benefit from examination, critique, and
analysis leading to improvement.
Furthermore, teaching is not simply the
mastery of tricks and techniques; it is intellectual
work. But learning and teaching are
fundamentally embedded in the content,
process, and specificity of a discipline and
their investigation requires disciplinary
expertise; they require disciplinary experts
to understand them. The scholarship of
teaching and learning is a rigorous investigation
into classroom practice, how a
teacher teaches, and how (and what) students
learn.
The scholarship of teaching and learning
begins with observation of student
learning and the realization that there is
something happening in the classroom that
we do not understand. An investigator
establishes a hypothesis with clear goals,
prepares for the investigation through literature
searches and other forms of background
research, selects methods of
inquiry appropriate to the discipline and
the circumstances, gathers data in such a
way as to provide significant results, presents
the results publicly, and receives peer
review and critique so that others can build
on the work.
At the heart of all research is the question,
how do you know? How do you know
the construction of national identity is at
work in the plays of the Scottish
Enlightenment? How do you know that
cyclic AMP and LDL trigger enhanced gap
junction assembly through a stimulation of
connexin trafficking? How do you know
that race is the key arbiter of blue-collar
employment outcomes for young black and
white men? The scholarship of teaching
and learning asks similar kinds of questions
and seeks similar kinds of answers. How do
you know whether students gain a deeper
insight into characters when they role-play
and improvise relationships? How do you
know whether students learn more about
the results of individual research through a
poster session in class? How do you know
what works to improve student visualization
of physics concepts in an online environment?
These are questions about teaching
and learning--and about understanding
in the discipline.
How Can This Work Be Done?
The Carnegie Foundation's work with faculty, campuses, and
scholarly/professional societies through the Carnegie Academy
for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (CASTL) (www.carnegiefoundation.org/CASTL)
has taught us that this kind of scholarship can influence
the culture of teaching, improve student learning, and encourage
a deeper understanding of disciplinary knowledge-building.
This has happened for current faculty, and it can happen for
graduate students preparing for the professoriate. To that
end, we propose four steps to scaffold the training of graduate
students: exposure, encounter, engagement, extension.
Early exposure to the scholarship of
teaching and learning is a vital first step
and could appropriately be included in all
doctoral programs. Indeed, part of developing
the habits of mind unique to and
representative of stewards of the discipline
is understanding the ways in which that
discipline and those habits are cultivated,
communicated, and transferred to the next
generation of scholars. In the first year of
study, many doctoral programs provide
exposure to the important questions and
problems of the field, often in courses
devoted to exploring the span, history, and
pressing problems of the discipline. What
better time for a discussion of the implications
of scholarship in and of teaching and
learning? Another appropriate time and
place for this work would be as part of the
pedagogical training provided to graduate
students preparing for the teaching assignments
included in their departmental
responsibilities.
A specific and guided encounter with
the scholarship of teaching and learning,
the next stage, provides graduate students
with opportunities to examine and critique questions and projects.
It is important for
future faculty to develop a familiarity not
only with the scholarship but also with how
that scholarship is manifested in various
forms and functions. To this end, it is
important for faculty mentors to provide
examples of scholarly projects, in process
and completed, along with the framing
observations, initial inquiries, question-narrowing
processes, data collection and
analysis, and peer review. Instruction in the
scholarship of teaching and learning during
or immediately following appointment as
teaching assistants, graders, lab assistants,
or instructors would prove invaluable to
those who provide first contact between
undergraduates and the disciplines.
Once graduate students understand what such inquiry might
entail, it is vital that they be given opportunities for engagement
in their own design process; specifically, they should be
mentored in the process by which investigations are conceived
and implemented. This step is best accomplished in groups,
with serious attention to support and critique; it is the
beginning of going public and of peer review, but it is also
an opportunity for the development of a new way of seeing,
thinking, teaching, and asking questions about student learning.
Following close upon this engagement, students would need
mentoring (albeit less rigorous) in more autonomous projects.
Thus, engagement is a two step process moving from collective
to individual inquiry (although engagement could also continue
as a collaborative effort).
Indeed, we have learned that it is CASTL's collaborative
features that best support individual inquiry; thus, a structure
providing individual graduate students with opportunities
for collective projects could prove most fruitful and would
fit well with departmental initiatives. For example, a department
faced with dropping lower division enrollment or looking to
revamp approaches to integrative general education could work
through graduate students to investigate issues of student
learning within and between courses. Such projects could target
persistent disciplinary questions as well as crosscutting
issues, with dissemination through conferences and publications
as one ultimate outcome.
Extension is the final stage, not necessary
but important as an option for graduate
students pursuing this kind of scholarship.
Extension involves graduate students
becoming mentors for the next cohort,
extending their understanding through aid
and support; they become not experts in
the scholarship of teaching and learning
but informed assistants in ongoing lines of
inquiry. Additionally, after pursing initial
projects these graduate students would be
well placed to continue this kind of inquiry
in faculty positions, extending their influence
to others on campus. They would also
be able to take advantage of the intellectual
support of colleagues and collaborators
around the globe. As graduate students
embark on this path, they will be able to
contribute to forums in their fields and
participate in cross-disciplinary meetings
like the American Association or Higher
Education/CASTL Colloquium, the
International Society for the Scholarship of
Teaching and Learning Conference, the
Association of American Colleges and
Universities (AAC&U) Network for Academic Renewal meetings,
and numerous
other disciplinary and interdisciplinary
venues.
Individual departments could encourage
this work through the doctoral program
and as a part of teaching support
services. Faculty buy-in and mentorship
are vital to success and communicate a
dedication not only to teaching as a worthwhile
activity but also to teaching excellence
and deep learning as a valued goal.
Departments whose graduate students routinely
do a lot of undergraduate teaching
(e.g., fine arts tutorials, English composition
classes, science labs) are particularly
well situated to capitalize on this structure.
Groups of committed departments might
work collaboratively; indeed, allied departments
are important in this regard for both
campus coherence and interdisciplinary
support. Natural allies include disciplines
with long associations--such as theater and
communications, biology and environmental
sciences, or ethnic studies and
American studies--as well as disciplines
with similar course structures--such as
chemistry and physics labs, or history and
literature discussion sections.
Disciplinary and interdisciplinary centers,
especially in science and technology
fields, also could support this work.
Humanities centers abound, and the best
are attuned to the needs of both teaching
and scholarship. Ventures such as the
University of Wisconsin's Center for the
Integration of Research, Teaching, and
Learning and Georgetown University's
Center for New Directions in Learning
and Scholarship provide opportunities for
collaboration and for connections between
teaching and research. Likewise, centers
for teaching and learning, which have
become important trading zones for the
discussion and improvement of practice,
could be instrumental, especially those
already working on TA training. There are
other important precedents, most notably
the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program,
cosponsored by the Council of
Graduate Schools and AAC&U, which was
profoundly influential on many campuses
and continues to influence the training of
graduate students.
What's Next?
The good news is that models and methods for approaching
the scholarship of teaching and learning in graduate education
are already taking hold, and the students who are creating
and executing research projects are realizing tangible benefits.
Participation in the scholarship of teaching provides doctoral
students with a heightened awareness of their charge and responsibility;
they are able to transform their love of teaching into skills
built on knowledge that allow them to contribute to their
discipline and transmit their passion to another generation
of students. Involvement in the scholarship of teaching and
learning makes students better researchers in their own field;
they are able to develop the habits of self-reflection and
assessment of their own practice and its impact that translates
directly into work in the lab or manuscript. Furthermore,
these students are better prepared to enter future careers,
more ready for the rigors of college teaching, and more aware
of the realities of student learning. But perhaps most importantly,
by improving teaching and learning through scholarly inquiry
we make students' engagement with the material more visible,
and hence more fruitful. It is an important step towards enriching
and expanding the conversation between graduate and undergraduate
education.
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