Research-informed Teaching and Learning

‘…we want all students to access the benefits exposure to teaching informed by research can bring…This will take many forms including pure and applied research that feeds curriculum development; but also research and development that tackle the challenging questions facing professional business, regional and local employers now and in the future. We’re doing this because we believe an understanding of the research process – asking the right questions in the right way; conducting experiments; and collating and evaluating information – must be a key part of any undergraduate curriculum.’

Bill Rammell MP, Minister of State for Lifelong Learning, Further and Higher Education, 2006

One of the aspirations of the University's Teaching and Learning Strategy is to more closely align teaching and research activities. We discussed how this might apply in our division, under four headings:

1. Research informed learning content
Good practice
Read relevant research literature
Attend relevant academic conferences
Work current research into module design, e.g. new module in Mobile App Development
What can we do?
Encourage colleagues to become active in following and engaging in research in relevant areas
Subject groups could include discussion of research led content when looking at new/updated modules

2. Research informed teaching methods
Good practice
Read the L and T research literature, e.g. ALT-J
Attend events organised by local and national level, e.g. recent HEA-ICS workshop on Teaching in Computing at SouthBank.
What can we do?
Frame innovations in teaching methods as action learning research projects

3. Developing students as researchers
Good practice
Involving final year project students in current research projects
Encouraging research activity by students, e.g. in Andrew and Graham's L6 module.
What can we do?
Encourage research active colleagues to suggest projects related to their research in S2 and on studentcentral
Explore more active learning approaches
Encourage students to write up their work as conference papers, e.g. for UCLAN's British Conference of Undergraduate Research.

4. Involving students in our research
Good practice
Students have contributed, e.g. to Locomatrix project
Students have been involved as research subjects, e.g. in usability and design activities
Poster display on 6th floor ensure students know about some current projects
MSc mini-conference presented current research to students
Faculty research conference was open to students
What can we do?
Explore ways to involve students in research projects
Encourage students to attend research seminars (and make them attractive to students)
Update research posters on floors 4 and 6

There was also discussion on the relevance of academic research to our relatively vocationally-oriented discipline, with industry links seen as possibly more valuable for some aspects of our students' development.

Some references:

• Graham-Matheson, L. (2010) Research Informed Teaching: Exploring the Concept
• UCLAN's Centre for Research Infrormed Teaching: http://www.uclan.ac.uk/information/services/ldu/research/research_informed_teaching.php
• Healey, M. & A. Jenkins. (2009) Developing undergraduate research and inquiry. (HEA)