26 | JADE
ARTICLE #2 | 27
ANGELO LEONE ET AL.
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The teacher’s research is also beneficial when presented
and opened to challenges from students. This could, in turn,
stimulate new research directions.
Teaching could be a recruitment platform for attracting
students with a passion for research. Such integration
is especially important in the science and engineering
fields where students form the backbone of the research
undertaken.
E) Teaching and research synergy at student level
Synergy at the level of students exists both at undergraduate and
postgraduate levels. At the postgraduate level, the synergy is very
rich as the learner is in a transition towards the status of a qualified
researcher. However, at the undergraduate level, the student
participation in research is more limited and, therefore, the synergy
is at a lower level, being done in principle with the main purpose
to train students to become independent learners. The most used
forms of involvement are students’ participation in research events
(e.g. seminars, lectures, conferences and colloquia) and students
are taught postgraduate involvement in staff research;
However, some authors, like Jenkins, consider that it would be a
mistake to expect students to engage too early in research (Jenkins
et al, 2007).
The assumption that teaching diminishes research quality is reflected
widely in graduate programs in the sciences, says Mark R. Connolly,
a researcher at the Wisconsin Center for Education Research, at the
University of Wisconsin at Madison, who commented on Feldon’s
findings (Feldon et al, 2011). Actually, science-faculty members are
rewarded largely on the basis of their research, notes Mr. Connolly.
That reality naturally leads faculty members to place more value on
time spent advising their graduate students on research than on
teaching.
It is Important to note that many teaching and learning activities
may incorporate one or more of the 4 categories.
Discussion
A good balance between the 2 entities should be sought in the
competency based USA medical school teaching. For the past 6-7
years, may academicians and academic leaders felt the necessity of
synergism between teaching and research among medical school
faculty members. The usual trend was to hire the faculty members
TEACHING AND RESEARCH SYNERGY IN A COMPETENCY BASED EDUCATION ERA
that have the large research grants, and whose salary was basically
paid through the research grants. Such faculty members did not
invest much in teaching; they wanted the least involvement in
teaching, giving priority to research, to publications, and having
the grant renewed. After reviewing the situation, academic leaders
opted to create a new faculty tract for teaching faculties, supported
completely by school budget and trained for teaching and medical
education. For these teachers, research was not considered as a
priority and a measured element in their promotion, while teaching
was highly valued, periodically assessed, and evaluated. This trend
attracted a large number of faculties in the medical schools to be
devoted to teaching with partial commitment to research. While
there are many differences between the disciplines, the greatest
convergence seems to occur when we consider the goal of student
learning in higher education (Healey, 2005; Hay, 2010).
Rather than keeping research and teaching separate, Barnett (1997)
and others advocated that undergraduate teaching should parallel
research. Relating the learning of the methods used to carry out
research in their discipline to inquiry-based or research-led learning,
in particular courses could bring benefits for both students and
academics. Students would become involved in the processes and
language of inquiry at a much earlier stage than now, and staff could
support student engagement applying the skills and knowledge
that make them distinctive in their fields.
In an effort to strengthen research-teaching-scholarship relationship,
one window of opportunity or a starting point that might be open
for both teachers and researchers, might be the conceptualization or
review of priority curriculum selected from the early undergraduate
years. Such curricular modifications could improve learning design
developments, which could in turn involve both research informed
content as well as research-led learning, and might lead to new
“ways of doing things”, as Elton suggested. They could also go
further to “doing things no one else is doing” or even “doing things
that otherwise can’t be done (Smith, 2002).
The re-emphasis of undergraduate education is probably the
most pressing issue that universities must face in the next decade.
The challenge is to demonstrate that the learning and research
environments, at the undergraduate level, are not competitive but
complementary (Piper, 2001).
The teaching literature suggests that, if there is to be a solution
to the research-teaching problem then there must be radical