One of Lee Shulman's favorite stories is about an old, retired European professor who said to his wife one day: "If I were the Czar, I would be richer than the Czar." His wife said, "No, if you were the Czar, you would be as rich as the Czar," whereupon he retorted, "No, I would be richer than the Czar because I would have everything the Czar has, plus I could do some teaching on the side."
This story dramatizes in a humorous manner the fact that, while teaching originally was the prime work of professors, it has come to be perceived and rewarded at some institutions as something that "real" faculty members do "on the side." In other words, when many college professors define themselves in terms of their work, they focus on their research. This traditional way of viewing ourselves is easily validated by looking at the curriculum vitae of most professors. How much space in the vitae is allocated to describing one's research? In comparison to everything else, how much space is spent on describing one's instructional activities?
Teaching as scholarship
The writings of Lee Shulman, Ernest Boyer, Gene Rice, Russell Edgerton, Pat Hutchings and others over the past decade have forged fresh ways of viewing scholarship. The benchmark document of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching entitled Scholarship Reconsidered produced a promising new way to view the concept of scholarship. Within this framework, scholarship is defined as a continuum of activities interconnecting discovery, integration, teaching and application. In other words, each of these processes informs, depends on, and impacts the others.
Instead of thinking of scholarship as "research," and teaching as what scholars "do on the side," Boyer's model brings all the important pieces of the academic ecosystem together in a framework that depicts interdependence as well as synergism. Most productive researchers spend enormous portions of their time integrating new and existing knowledge, sharing this knowledge with students, and, in many cases, ultimately serving the discipline, profession, or sponsoring public. Viewing the concept of scholarship as a multi-dimensional, temporal, fluid activity, where no one point within the system is inherently more important than any other, is not only closer to the truth--it elevates the indispensable functions of teaching and public outreach to their deserved places in academe.
Course design
Focusing on teaching as a legitimate part of scholarship prompts one to ask, "What are the fundamental activities that qualify teaching as scholarly work?" The first component, course design, requires deep and serious thought. The scholar's depth and breadth of understanding in his or her content area is vital to the complex process of teaching and learning. What goes into a course that accurately depicts the nature of one's discipline or profession and how this can be learned effectively by students are questions that require critical thinking of the highest order. Constructing a syllabus that will serve as an accurate window into our field requires a level of knowledge, skill, experience and reality equal to that of planning any research project. Engaging in serious dialogue with colleagues about what should and should not be represented in a course should carry with it the same level of intellectual rigor as the discourse that occurs in a laboratory, art studio, or in writing a grant proposal for research. Reflecting on, designing, and communicating to learners the vision, goals and expectations of a course draw upon all the other dimensions of scholarship.
Course implementation
A second component of the scholarship of teaching involves course implementation. In effect, this component involves a sophisticated process wherein the teacher creates a sequence of events that ideally leads to the assimilation of information, the understanding of knowledge, the performance of certain skills, and the acquisition of desired attitudes and values. Ideal course goals also may include the enactment of self-directed problem solving, critical thinking and a commitment to further learning. In years past the process of course implementation was accomplished largely by classroom lectures. Today college classrooms are more interactive, and many options are available as strategies for learning. It is safe to say, and this is certainly augmented by the powerful tools of technology, that the role of the professor is changing from that of disseminating information to that of creating diverse environments in which students can find information, interact with others, and demonstrate their learning in ways that go beyond paper-and-pencil tests.
Assessment of learning
A third aspect of the scholarship of teaching that is being proposed here is the assessment of learning. While this is probably the most challenging of the three components of teaching, it may offer the most hope for the future. Why is this so? For years and years educators have been concerned about the correspondence of the educational experience with the knowledge, skills and attitudes that students need after graduation. There is evidence, for example, that performance in basic science courses in medical school may not correlate as highly as one would expect with the skills needed in the clinical setting. The same concern exists in other fields of professional preparation. Do pre-service teachers with the highest grade point averages make the best teachers? Do graduate students with the highest GRE scores make the best scientists? Does class rank in law or business school foretell who will be the most successful attorney or CEO? One of the most acute challenges associated with the scholarship of teaching is for educators to find new and better ways of ascertaining how well students accomplish educational goals and to what extent these accomplishments are valid predictors of related future efforts.
o be more blunt, the major currency system of instruction and learning in higher education needs to move from "seat hours" and "course credits" to "demonstrated proficiencies" and "quality of experience."
Shared goal of inquiry
The more narrow way of viewing scholarship, that of focusing on and rewarding discovery at the expense of the other dimensions of faculty work, is being seriously challenged, both inside and outside the academy. If teaching is to once again become a genuine part of scholarship in American education, then a focus on learning must emerge as a shared goal of inquiry--learning by undergraduates, graduates, instructors, and colleagues. This means learning as a public activity, where both process and product become community property.
Finally, by looking seriously at the philosophical and theoretical assumptions which undergird our course design, by making our teaching more open to our peers, and by searching for better ways of assessing the quality of student learning, we can boldly assert that teaching at large research universities (where the future professoriate is prepared) is not something done on the side; rather, it is the very essence of what scholars do.
--Ronald D. Simpson is professor and coordinator of the Governor's Teaching Fellows Program, Institute of Higher Education.
