the focus of work on the research-teaching nexus is directed on developing Evidence Based Teaching and on how we can enhance the links between research and teaching activities in practice.
The posting available at https://tomprof.stanford.edu/posting/1619 looks at six different categories that promote teaching-research linkages (Griffiths, 2004; Healey and Jenkins, 2009; Visser-Wijnveen et al. 2010): teaching can be research-led, research-oriented, research-tutored, research-based, research-informed and research can be teaching-influenced. For each category the teaching aim, the teacher role and the typical learning activities are presented. The posting is from Chapter 6 – Connecting Research and Teaching in Practice, in the book, Academic Practice – Developing as a Professional in Higher Education, by Saranne Weller.
Evidence Based Teaching involves the use of evidence to: (1) establish where students are in their learning; (2) decide on appropriate teaching strategies and interventions; and (3) monitor student progress and evaluate teaching effectiveness. The use of evidence in developing teaching and learning strategies can also help identify or debunk possible myths in education and distinguish between practitioners' beliefs about what works in their practice as opposed to research evidence emerging from systematically assessing a specific teaching approach. A characteristic example is the “Learning Styles” myth while there is no consistent evidence that considering learning styles can improve learning outcomes (e.g., Rohrer and Pashler, 2010; Kirschner and van Merriënboer, 2013; Newton and Miah, 2017). As in medicine evidence-based teaching involves more than the implementation of practices that have been shown to be effective in controlled research studies; it involves the understanding of what we know about their effectiveness, of what evidence exist showcasing impact on learning, of how each pedagogy accommodates the vision of the twenty-first century skills development, innovation aspects and current levels of adoption in educational practice and finally depends on the integration of reliable, local, practitioner-collected evidence with evidence from systematic, external research.
The literature is consistent in supporting that active and collaborative learning techniques can result in higher performance and longer information retention compared to the traditional methods; and integrating technology into classroom instruction can result in increased retention and comprehension of presented course material.
Amongst the most effective teaching approaches are the provision of feedback, development of metacognition and self-regulation, and mastery learning. Field tested approaches are formative analytics which is defined as “supporting the learner to reflect on what is learned, what can be improved, which goals can be achieved, and how to move forward” (Sharples et al., 2016, p.32); teachback which is a means for two or more people to demonstrate that they are progressing toward a shared understanding of a complex topic; place-based learning which derives learning opportunities from local community settings, which help students connect abstract concepts from the classroom and textbooks with practical challenges encountered in their own localities; learning with robots which could help teachers to free up time on simple, repetitive tasks, and provide scaffolding to learners; learning with drones whic is being used to support fieldwork by enhancing students' capability to explore outdoor physical environments; citizen inquiry which describes ways that members of the public can learn by initiating or joining shared inquiry-led scientific investigations (Herodotou et al., 2019). These evidence based approaches are relevant to effective educational theories including experiential learning, inquiry learning, discovery learning, and self-regulated learning, all of which are interactive and engaging ways of learning. In addition, the review of existing evidence showcases their potential to support learning processes and desirable learning outcomes in both the cognitive and emotional domain.
Research always target the areas where problem exist. I think that if we make a research in areas of teaching where problem exist will definitely enhance the process of teaching and will be better utilize.
Research utilization is possible if research findings are made available to the practitioners. There is need for a collaborative effort form researchers and practitioners for effective utilization of research findings
Research is like catching fish in a deep sea and teaching is like cooking this fish and serve it. So in my opinion good fishing will definitely help the chef.