How Teaching Affects Research

I think the more surprising notion is that investing effort in teaching well can actually make us better researchers.  I sometimes find that certain faculty members are too eager to minimize teaching responsibilities in favor of “leaving more time to get research done”.  Now, it is worth acknowledging the source of this angst: many of the administrative aspects of teaching (e.g., grading, responding to student emails, organizational logistics) are incredibly time consuming and do not necessarily offer inherent benefits to research.  Nevertheless, I find that the intellectual aspects of teaching are an indispensable aspect of my own efforts to become a better researcher.  Below, I’ll explain more abstractly why I think teaching makes us better researchers, and, where appropriate, I’ll describe some of my own concrete experiences in this regard.

1.To create new knowledge, we must first master the existing body of knowledge. Research is the process of creating new knowledge.  Making  progress in creating knowledge requires a significant amount of background knowledge, before one can reach the “frontier” of a topic, where the interesting questions are.  Herb Simon once attested that it takes about ten years of experience to get to the point of great accomplishment in any one area, simply because it takes a significant amount of time to accumulate knowledge in an area.  This necessarily implies that we can’t become great researchers in a subject area merely by taking a class (or even a few classes); we must embed ourselves in that topic area.  I find that teaching a subject is perhaps one of the most efficient ways to become embedded in a subject matter, since the process of explaining concepts to students leaves no room for “cutting corners” in my own understanding.  The process of building understanding in a particular area allows us to develop a deep understanding the paradigms and theories that currently exist, and how those paradigms and the existing knowledge base might be extended (or amended).  Teaching Ph.D. students about a particular subject m

On a personal note, I found the process of preparing a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Software Defined Networking over the past summer tremendously helpful in solidifying my own knowledge in this budding topic area.  This particular sub-field has seen rapid developments over the past five years, and I had found it difficult to take the time to deeply understand many of the latest developments.  I found that teaching the course was a wonderful “forcing function” to familiarize myself with new technologies and ways of thinking, and to gain hands-on experience with tools that had been recently developed.  My hands-on experience with development tools helped me in two ways: First, I was able to suggest better tools for my students to use in their own research; in several cases, students who had been “stuck” using older technologies quickly familiarized themselves with technologies I learned well enough to appreciate.  By investing time to deeply understand how new techniques and technologies might be applied, I was able to make connections between problems we had been trying to solve in the research lab and tools that could be useful for solving them.  Second, I was able to make connections between concepts that had recently been developed to help solve some problems that we had been working on that hadn’t yet been solved.   In one case, for example, as I taught concepts about composition techniques for network policies, I realized that the techniques could be applied to help some of our own technologies scale to much larger networks, which provided a breakthrough on a problem that we had been thinking about for years.

2.In the process of explaining an existing phenomenon, you might discover that existing explanations, technologies, or theories don’t actually suffice. According to Thomas Kuhn, research breakthroughs often occur when old paradigms are discarded (or at least amended), thus changing our way of thinking about problems completely.  New paradigms begin with the need to explain or treat facts or situations that existing paradigms don’t handle well.   As instructors, when we attempt to explain various facts or situations to students, we sometimes find that we can’t explain why things are a certain way—our attempts to explain may reveal instances that are not handled or explained well by current paradigms, thus exposing glaring needs to develop new technologies, theories, and paradigms.

I remember my experiences as a teaching assistant for computer networking, as my advisor and I planned lessons to teach Internet routing.  My advisor had long worked on problems where correctness properties and bound were well-defined (e.g., Internet congestion control).  When we came to the topic of Internet routing, however (a topic on which I had some mastery as a result of a summer internship), I found him continually asking me how (or whether) Internet routing offered any guarantees of correct behavior.  How could we be certain that Internet routing algorithms would actually send traffic where it was supposed to go, for example?  We realized in our attempts to codify this in lecture material that no such guarantees existed!  Frustrated by our inability to explain Internet routing correctness, we spent the next several years formally defining correctness properties for Internet routing and developing tools that checked Internet routing configuration for correctness.  The work eventually resulted in tools that were used by hundreds of network operators and a best paper award at a top networking conference.  When I think about that work, I regularly trace its success to my teaching experience with my advisor, and our initial frustrated attempt to explain some seemingly basic concepts about networking to students.  If it weren’t for that teaching experience, I think that research probably would never have happened.

3.Teaching encourages us to think about the long road, the big picture, and what “really matters” about a particular research contribution.  I aim to explain why something is the way it is, beyond simply explaining a concept.  As I explained above, efforts to explain why something is the way it is might sometimes fail to produce a good explanation, opening new possibilities for research.  In other cases, research may offer solutions to a problem du jour, but sometimes research projects or papers are fairly self-contained, and it takes additional thought to really establish why (or whether) a particular result has broader implications that a student might care about.  As an instructor, I strive to think about the big picture, and why a student should care about a particular research result, theory, or concept five or ten years down the road, long after they have left our classroom and received their degree.  This exercise of thinking about broader implications can make classroom material more palatable to students, most of whom won’t specialize in the particular field you happen to be teaching.  But, it also forces us as researchers to step back and think about why the problems we are working on have broad impact and why they matter to society at large.  Explaining to a classroom of students why a particular result matters is perhaps one of the most useful exercises for distilling a research contribution to its essence.

Motivated Students + Inspiring Teachers = Great Research

I admired my university professors and wanted to emulate them; they are one of the main reasons I wanted to become a university professor in the first place.  Teachers can influence and affect a large number of students in tremendously positive ways.  Indeed, giving students the thirst for knowledge to the point that they want to not just consume existing knowledge but make discoveries themselves is a unique opportunity that we have as educators.  And, certainly, developing smart young students into the researchers of current and future generations is yet another way that our efforts in the classroom can pay long-term dividends for research.

Dear Professor, Mutasem Z. Bani-Fwaz , I think yes both are complementary but still research can be done without literary education by which scientific analysis is not possible and learning is possible without research but the effectiveness is the question.

Thanks

Dear Viji Viji,

Yes I think you are correct that it depends on the ability of thr academicians . Moreover it depends on the type of the education, the level of the education of the teacher, types of the students, students quality, their motivation, etc.

There is not always a direct relationship in this simultaneity. There are good teachers and bad in research and good researchers and bad teachers. The ideal condition is the congruence between researching and teaching efficiently. In this way the student will feel very safe by the guidance of his supervisor. This condition of good researcher and teacher should always be sought by all interested in toiling in the art of education. The world will be grateful.

Francisco Sávio Gomes Pereira ,

Research is not always a formal issues or a formal thing or a process. Not a teacher but people of all walk of life are in action research ! Still I think a person involved in his research in the working process can do better in the works.

Thanks for the answer. Happy new year.

Professor Barbara,

Happy new year ! Yes research is much essential for the development.

Yes that's right.

Each with its own characteristics and capabilities, but their integration into the teaching of new generations will inevitably lead to greater innovation and scientific development

Some researchers are hopeless teachers. Here the art of communication (after assessing the students level) is the problem. BUT i think that a researcher would be able to answer the question in a more logical way; same as a swimmer that swims compared to the who teaches and not swim.

A good teacher is someone who teaches well and give crucial, truthful and current content knowledge via modern, time-tested teaching strategies. This is only possible if the teacher is an astute lover of research!

The art of communication involves listening and speaking as well as reading and writing. Teachers need to be highly skilled in all these areas to excel in their profession. Proficient communicators receive information, understand and synthesize it and express themselves at a high level. They make excellent teachers because they are able to transmit knowledge, skills and values at the same time they communicate their caring for the students entrusted to their care. They help motivate students to learn.

REGARDS

There is positive correlation between teaching and. research so both are complimentary

The mission of a teacher is not only to promote the significant learning of their students, but also to stimulate their creativity in the generation of new knowledge, and this is achieved only with training in scientific research.

Professor sadar-uddin Siddiqui

Still I believe there is no hopeless teacher is anyone success in research and research may not be a structured process. a illiterate farmer may also be a researcher , he may also be a teacher. Problem is that s/he cannot deliver the thing formally.

Thanks for your answer.

Professor Dickson Adom,

Yes, I think you are correct a good teacher is someone who teaches well (by any means). Adoption a modern technology, truthfulness, honesty and time-tested teaching are the other characteristics of a good teacher. But the main thing are :

1. A teacher must find out the strategies to motivate the all level of students in the class.

2. S/he mus have to adopt the techniques to attract all students as his/her best level of efforts.

3. Definitely the are some slow learners , irregular, less-motivated students. For these, the teacher must find out the ways , examples for fast-learning , regularity and to develop the commitment of the students.

4. For all the processes described above , a widen research is a must.

Thanks for the answer.

Dear Professor José Luis García Vigil,

Yes, potential learning is the fact which will be an outcome-based with the best effort of the faculty members with creativity for learning. That's why teaching not an easy process at all. But a dedication can makes the thing easy to the faculty members and the learning processes for the learners which requires an intensive research.

Thanks Sir for your kind answer of the question.

I agree with Dr. Mutasem.

“The objective in academic research is to produce new knowledge but for most teachers doing research, the purpose is to improve practice while being informed by theory at the same time.

When they do literature review, they don’t have to be exhaustive. The purpose is to look for literature that pertains specifically to the classroom teaching strategy that they wish to try or explore,” Hairon explains.

“The need for professional development is important,” Hairon says.

“The advantage of teacher research is that it brings teacher learning and teaching really close together.”

– Hairon on the benefit of doing research

http://singteach.nie.edu.sg/issue46-bigidea/

Research is about expanding the boundaries of knowledge. Teaching effectiveness is about the act of transmitting knowledge. Therefore, even the best teacher will have very little to transmit if he/she ignore new developments in their fields and/or pursue research.

Dear Professor Dr Subash Chandra Kundu,

Thanks for your very informative and analytical answer .

It really helped me and I am inspired for this.

Dear Professor Amir W Al-Khafaji,

Yes, I think research is about the expanding the boundary of knowledge and a teacher must go for research if s/he wants to be a good teacher.

The research may be included the following things:

1. Teaching methods

2.Learning outcomes

3.Motivation about the irregular

4. Steps for the slow learners &

5. Assessment criteria

Thanks

I'm very happy to see teaching methods and related items in your definition of research. I know plenty of outstanding teachers who do not partake in disciplinary research (by which I mean mathematics) but are very conscious of their teaching and trends in the industry. They frequently attend teaching-related workshops and conferences and, I would say, are very active in research. Thank you!

On the other hand, as others have observed, there are plenty of examples of brilliant researchers who are terrible teachers. No one can imply the other.

Dear Professor Colton Magnant ,

Thanks for your elaborated answer and I think its a guideline for me for the future research I believe .....'' plenty of outstanding teachers who do not partake in disciplinary research'' and teaching related workshops seminars symposiums are very essential.... I hope we the ResearchGate members can go for arrange and attend this type of workshops.

Thanks

Professor Paul,

I think it is not true in Bangladesh. Here good teacher means good researcher.

Professor Akhilesh,

Right you are. Thanks.