24 | JADE
ARTICLE #2 | 25
ANGELO LEONE ET AL.
C) Teaching and Research synergy at institutional level
A number of universities, especially those that claim to be researchled are directing their attention to ensuring that links between
teaching and research are made explicit, and are incorporated
into undergraduate as well as postgraduate courses. It seems that
institutions are increasingly seeing the potential for using research
in various forms as a way to improve teaching and learning. Actually,
some of them have already a clear strategy for this purpose that
includes a variety of measures such as:
• evidence-based teaching and research;
• learning environment which values research;
• greater emphasis on the project element of the undergraduate
programs;
• research training for undergraduates and development of
taught postgraduate programs within research centers;
• pedagogic research and its use in planning teaching and
learning;
• formation of research centers of Excellency;
• formation of teaching and learning centers.
Addressing institutional strategies to link teaching and research,
Healey and Jenkins in 2006 emphasized the need to link the two
entities together. They provided evidence-based recommendations
as to the way institutions “can and should act systematically to
integrate staff research and scholarship with student learning”. Such
a relationship between the two entities needs good management at
the institutional level. Jenkins and Healey developed a framework to
analyze the link between teaching and research in order to reach an
understanding of the nature of this link (Healey and Jenkins, 2006).
Accordingly, they suggested at least 4 categories of teaching:
1) research-led, 2) research-oriented, 3) research-based, and 4)
research-informed.
When teaching and research are organized in the same institution
(i.e. in Universities), from the logistic viewpoint, very often,
equipment and other infrastructure elements that were developed
for research purpose were transferred to the teaching process
after the research objectives have been reached or sometime even
before. This is a kind of synergy that is very often taken into account
and planned even from the early stages. The synergetic effect is
clearly measurable in terms of funds that are saved in the area of
teaching and become available for other purposes. This synergy
allows teaching and research sharing some costs that otherwise
could perhaps prevent some research to be funded or the teaching
to benefit from the appropriate infrastructure. Such an approach is
already a practice in some universities that, when seeking approval
TEACHING AND RESEARCH SYNERGY IN A COMPETENCY BASED EDUCATION ERA
for redesigned courses, the teaching teams have to demonstrate
how the synergy between research, teaching and learning is
achieved at various levels (Berret, 2011).
D) Teaching and research synergy at the teacher level:
the dual nature of an academic
At the teacher level, the synergy between teaching and research is
nowadays very questionable. It seems entirely plausible that heavy
involvement in research and publication takes time and effort away
from teaching undergraduates. Consequently, a balance between
the two activities should be practically sought and defined.
Unfortunately, in most cases, as soon as the research results are
excellent, the way staff involvement in research enhance quality
or effective teaching, and the issue of what is quality or effective
teaching, is left implicit (Jenkins et al, 2007).
Most often the academic staff is facing an eternal dilemma that is
best expressed by the question, “Teaching and Research or Research
and Teaching?” Indeed, even making only a qualitative choice is a
matter of crucial strategy for a teacher. In any case, the teacher is
very often unhappy about the unavoidable unbalance between the
two aspects. Perhaps instruments, like sabbatical year, are meant
just to help re-establishing the balance between these two natures
of an academic. In some other studies in 2002 Linking Research
and teaching, it was suggested that a good practice would be to
“… encourage staff to use sabbaticals to develop research based or
research-led teaching”. “… Although curricula may offer students the
chance to be taught by eminent researchers, pressures to maintain a
research profile may well limit student access to these researchers”
( Linking Research and teaching- “Exchange” Magazine, 2002).
Balancing teaching and research is a very challenging task.
According to Adeyeye in 2004, optimization of staff time can be
achieved only if there is an explicit management strategy that
promotes the interdependence between teaching and research. The
effective allocation of time could stimulate a synergistic relationship
between teaching and research by enabling staff to engage in each
activity at a level, which enhances both activities. Accordingly,
some of the main advantages of integrating research into teaching
include:
•
The teacher is able to give accurate and up-to-date
information to students with relevant examples rather than
second-hand knowledge from textbooks.