Not a few education researchers, along with others in psychology and related fields, maintain that we are more efficient and productive when we focus on one task at a time. While there are more tasks for university professors than research and teaching, these are by far the primary functions. Would both research and teaching be improved if a professor could choose to devote full-time to teaching one semester and full-time to research the following semester?
A minor negative impact would be on the department chair scheduling classes. As a former department chair I can confirm that this would be a minor "headache" for me; in fact, I enjoyed working out these "puzzles."
Imagine that you're in your lab or office and you have an epiphany, a brain storm, a brilliant idea or breakthrough right before class. You have to mentally put that on the back burner and try to focus on your teaching. However, during class whether consciously or not, you are using only a portion of your mental faculties on teaching (thereby diminishing your classroom effectiveness) and a portion of your thought processes on your research "bright idea" (again, diminishing effectiveness due to lack of full attention).
Now that I think about it, I recall this happening to me more than once. I would think out word for word a paragraph for an article or book. I'd go to class and was able to focus entirely on teaching (because it was enjoyable, fun, restful, and not nearly as mentally taxing as thinking about "deep" stuff). By the time I got back to my office I'd forgotten most of my "brilliant" paragraph I had mentally written before class, hence, not very efficient or productive.
In short, do you think teaching quality and research productivity/quality would be improved if professors were allowed to choose the alternating research/teaching semester model? Bring it up at your next faculty meeting!
Firstly, we also need to take into account that apart from the teaching and research role, there is an increasing admin workload for academics (anything from funding proposals to networking to paperwork related to evaluation and Q/A), which some recent literature estimates to be as much as 30% of an academics' time, especially if you consider that a post of responsibility such as Head of School/Department will entail a greater deal of admin work.
As for the teaching and research nexus, is there an argument to be made about creating two different pathways, a research and a teaching role, separate of each other? After all, a great teacher/educator can't necessarilly be a great researcher and vice versa. When i was doing my physics degree, some top researchers were lecturing, but they were very poor at it; it was obvious that teaching was a torture to them but they were forced to go it by there instirutions.
If two clear pathways is a step too far, maybe academics can be allowed to swap (buy out) some of their time in teaching or research to better suit their needs and preferences.
Firstly, we also need to take into account that apart from the teaching and research role, there is an increasing admin workload for academics (anything from funding proposals to networking to paperwork related to evaluation and Q/A), which some recent literature estimates to be as much as 30% of an academics' time, especially if you consider that a post of responsibility such as Head of School/Department will entail a greater deal of admin work.
As for the teaching and research nexus, is there an argument to be made about creating two different pathways, a research and a teaching role, separate of each other? After all, a great teacher/educator can't necessarilly be a great researcher and vice versa. When i was doing my physics degree, some top researchers were lecturing, but they were very poor at it; it was obvious that teaching was a torture to them but they were forced to go it by there instirutions.
If two clear pathways is a step too far, maybe academics can be allowed to swap (buy out) some of their time in teaching or research to better suit their needs and preferences.
Our university has a system of providing work equivalent credits or "deloading" to faculty members who teach, research and administer altogether within a school year. It works to many (they have research assistants), although not all are happy with it.
My caution to the "this semester-next semester scheme" is that researches, unlike teaching, are not fixed within a semester, they last for one year and longer.
Afew researchers maintain that we are more efficient and productive when we focus on one task at a time. Nicely said, but, there are many researchers or businessmen who can work better under pressure.
I want to ask a question. Is it more efficient for you to give a lecture to 3 students or to 30 students?
John,
Smart question!
I think we need to focus on one task of any University to begin with and know what that task exactly is, which I really do not know myself: teaching or research?
Dear Kamal I agree with you that the main 4 pillars for academicians are: (1) Teaching (2) Research (3) Administration (4) Service (consultation, surgery, community services, etc..). But in general there are only three Main pillars: teaching or lecturing, scientific research and community services. and i also agree that concentrating on one pillar might give you the opportunity to be more productive. at the same time many people love to work and produce more under pressure and I am one of them and also dr. Mahfuz because I know him very well.
Dear @John, in my country we have no opportunity to alternate full-time teaching and research semesters! You do have to teach every semester, while research is fund dependent and it is not related to semesters. Universities,thus have two major activities as @Kamal have stated, the very first two out of four : Teaching and Research!
Dear Mahfuz
For me its more efficient for to give a lecture to 30 students than 3 student only.
Yurgos, your dual path suggestion is innovative and interesting. Of course there would be squabbles between the two sections over whose work is more important, who is paid more, etc. But there are always such problems in departments. If the university/departments were large enough they could divide into two more or less separate sections or departments--Social Science Research and Social Science Education, for example. Other than being able to focus on only one task at a time as an advantage, another could be letting researchers do research and teachers teach because my experience and my daughter's who is in 3rd year of biomedical engineering is like yours--the pure researchers can't teach worth a darn! With sincere apologies to my researcher colleagues and friends!
Eddie, your university's work equivalent program appears to be very forward-thinking. Yes, the research part of the equation gets to be a little sticky due to the time factor. But under my original proposal the researcher could accomplish perhaps the bulk of his research during the non-teaching semester, then fine-tune it during the next semester when he's back to teaching. Some in social sciences, humanities, and the fine arts can more or less complete a project (a journal article, for example) in one semester so they would probably be happy with the alternating duty system. And your comments made me realize that it would work as well or better for experimental sciences, engineering, technology that are lab/experiment intensive, in spite of the fact that most projects in these fields can't be completed in a semester. Having one's reading or "thinking" interrupted by going to teach a class is not such a problem compared to what it would be like to have a full-blown experiment going in a lab when it's necessary to shut it down to go to class. Frustrating!
Thank you my dear friend Kamal for your "four pillars" metaphor. Pillars is an excellent choice of words and so apt. I think indeed you could benefit from the alternating system considering the vast number and intensity of areas you're involved in. Yes, I've studied (studied, not just glanced at) your profile; if I'm going to follow someone I prefer that he be "the real deal".
Please tell me they cancel your classes when you're in surgery! I can visualize the alternative--you say to a patient on the table (pretending for a moment he's awake during surgery), "I'm sorry, I have to go teach a class. I'll put your liver back in when I get back. Here, why don't you read this magazine while I'm gone." Just because we're academic types doesn't mean we can't have fun!
Dear Mahfuz and Shafig, may I join the club? Like you, the more I had to do the more productive I was. And I also felt better physically and mentally. I can't answer the question about number of students. I taught Spanish and ESL; language teachers have the luxury of small classes.
Ljubomir, can you apply for a university grant of some kind that would give you a semester off (of teaching) to devote to research?
Marwan, I remember some colleagues referred to "research universities." I still don't know to which universities they were referring or what that means. Universities that do just research? That poses an interesting question--what if in addition to the current system we had mutually exclusive research universities and teaching universities?
I'm sorry to monopolize the conversation with all the above answers/comments. I do consider these conversations and it's considered rude not to respond to others.
Thanks, dear John! I, in turn, repeat the question: what, in addition to the current system, if we had mutually exclusive research universities and teaching universities?
I know several "institutions" which would qualify as "research universities". Think about the famous Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, where students = researchers. There are several of such institutes in the US. I also know about such an institute in the Netherlands: NIAS - Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study. They have all one thing in common: to provide a highly stimulating research environment, including discussion and optional collaboration, for established scholars on sabbatical leave. But as is well-known in the case of Princeton, several scholars stayed there for the rest of their lives... (Einstein, Gödel, ...)
Dear @John, regarding your question :"Ljubomir, can you apply for a university grant of some kind that would give you a semester off (of teaching) to devote to research?", the answer is YES! The supportive decision must be brought by my University for semester OFF, and a substitute/replacement professor for my classes has to be determined a priori!
Dear Ljubomir: I'm glad you can be given a semester off for research. That seems to be the case for a number of universities, including mine. I wonder how many universities providing such grants for time off do so only after several years of service (possible semester off in the fifth year at my university). The passage of several years between research semesters renders this model almost meaningless.
I don't think that's as effective and productive as the alternating research/teaching model. Of course, the alternating model would be optional and voluntary for those who prefer to work that way. Since universities are all about accountability and productivity it would seem that this crazy idea would be worth considering.
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