Research and writing and conferences: The other side of academia.
If you are a student or a teacher reading this, you may mostly see, through what I share here and on Twitter, the teaching side of being a professor. And, being at a teaching-focused university, rather than a research-focused university, I spend the majority of my time, teaching and planning for teaching (and grading and the many other things that go along with teaching). But, a good portion of my time is spent doing research, writing about my research, and attending conferences to stay current in my field and share my research. This is the part of academia that was a black box to me prior to entering my doctoral program (actually I think it took me a good year into the program to fully understand). A PhD, more than being comprehensively knowledge about the content and practices of a field, is really about contributing knowledge to that field. The research that you read in textbooks comes from this type of research!
This past week, I spent a lot of time on a variety of research projects. I'd like to discuss each here as a means of reflection.
If you are a student or a teacher reading this, you may mostly see, through what I share here and on Twitter, the teaching side of being a professor. And, being at a teaching-focused university, rather than a research-focused university, I spend the majority of my time, teaching and planning for teaching (and grading and the many other things that go along with teaching). But, a good portion of my time is spent doing research, writing about my research, and attending conferences to stay current in my field and share my research. This is the part of academia that was a black box to me prior to entering my doctoral program (actually I think it took me a good year into the program to fully understand). A PhD, more than being comprehensively knowledge about the content and practices of a field, is really about contributing knowledge to that field. The research that you read in textbooks comes from this type of research!
This past week, I spent a lot of time on a variety of research projects. I'd like to discuss each here as a means of reflection.
- Blended learning in higher education- I work with a colleague at the University of Cincinnati on this research. We study her blended classes in which both online and on-campus students meet together at the same time, what is termed blended synchronous instruction. We study the experience of the students and professor in an effort to understand how to improve it. We have one article out for review right now. We have also started analyzing data from a small group of doctoral students that had a blended synchronous experience in preparation for a conference presentation planned in November.
- STEAM education and 360 video- I received an internal grant to improve my classes. I am using this grant to implement a STEAM module in science methods. The grant allowed me to attend a STEM conference to understand best practices and to purchase materials to be used in the STEAM module. I received permission from the IRB (Institutional Review Board that approves all research on human subjects) to conduct research on this STEAM module. This past week, I put the final touches on the STEAM module, purchased materials, enlisted the help of a colleague to get consent from students and administer surveys, and finalized the 360 degree video in collaboration with Cincinnati Educational Television. I will be presenting this work at THREE conferences in the next two weeks. (I'm already tired.) When the semester is over (it's important that I not know who participate in the research until grades are submitted, so that I remain unbiased), I will analyze the surveys and begin to write up the research for publication.
- Internationalizing the curriculum- This is not my research, but I am helping out a colleague by co-writing a chapter on internationalizing the curriculum with a teacher. This work came out of a Fulbright grant that included a trip to Peru for a group of teachers. This past week, I edited the chapter, added a more academic portion on critical pedagogy, and met with the teacher to review.