Principle 6
Teachers who are scholarly and professional
Teachers who are scholarly and professional
Trigwell, Martin, Benjamin, Prosser (2000, p.159) define five conceptions of scholarship in relation to teaching. Each one builds on and extends the other. The five conceptions together represent the most sophisticated view of scholarship in teaching:
- Conception 1: Knowing the literature on teaching by collecting and reading that literature
- Conception 2: Improving teaching by collecting and reading the literature on teaching
- Conception 3: Improving student learning by investigating the learning of one's own students and one's own teaching
- Conception 4: Improving one's own students' learning by knowing and relating the literature on teaching and learning to discipline-specific literature and knowledge
- Conception 5: Improving student learning within the discipline generally, by collecting and communicating results of one's own work on teaching and learning within the discipline
From the 2008 Australian Learning and Teaching Council National Teaching Award Guidelines the key descriptors of activity relating to scholarship in teaching excellence:
- showing advanced skills in evaluation and reflective practice;
- participating in and contributing to professional activities related to learning and teaching;
- coordination, management and leadership of courses and student learning; conducting and publishing research related to teaching; and
- demonstrating leadership through activities that have broad influence on the profession.
The Australian Learning and Teaching Council emphasises the importance of leadership as a key dimension of scholarly endeavours.
Meaning of the nexus between teaching and research, Trowler & Wareham (2007, p.5) raise the following possible relationships:
- Link?
- Inform?
- Support?
- Enhance?
- Add value to?
- Integrate?
Trowler & Wareham (2007, pp.3-5) list the meanings of the nexus as follows:
- Learners do research
- Teachers do research
- Teachers and learners research together
- Research embedded in curriculum (research influences the what and the how of curriculum design)
- Research culture influences teaching and learning
- The nexus, the university and its environment
- Teaching and learning influences research
References
Trigwell, K.. Martin, E., Benjamin, J. & Prosser, M. (2000). Scholarship of Teaching: a model. Higher Education Research & Development, 19(2), 155-68.
Trowler, P. & Wareham, T. (2007). Re-conceptualising the ‘teaching-research' nexus.
In Enhancing Higher Education, Theory and Scholarship. Proceedings of the 30th HERDSA Annual Conference [CD-ROM], July, Adelaide, Australia.
