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Researchers hooked on teaching: Noted scholars discuss the synergies of teaching and research: A review

Keywords: Frost, André, Gartner, teaching, research, teacher training, academic life, sociology, psychology, gender studies, management

Contents

Description of the book

Editors Rae André and Peter J. Frost
Title Researchers hooked on teaching: Noted scholars discuss the synergies of teaching and research
Publisher Thousand Oaks: Sage
Date 1997
ISBN 0-7619-0622-3
Description Paperback, xviii, 332 pages

Review by Anne Gartner

Introduction

Researchers Hooked on Teaching is a collection of reflections and ideas about teaching which might be overheard in teaching workshops or staffrooms - if time permitted. Recognizing the perceived counterproductive 'tension' between research and teaching in American universities, the editors commissioned a number of academics to write about their work. They chose professors from diverse fields who were known to excel in teaching and research. The professors were asked to 'reflect on why striving for excellence in teaching and research have been professional and personal commitments for them ... to include ways their academic work has nourished and discouraged their own intellectual development ... in whatever style they chose' p.xi.

Some of the nineteen narratives are very confident accounts, others fumble for clarity. The accounts make me wonder what I would write to address the same questions, and I quickly identify professors to agree with, and some violently to disagree with. For the purposes of this review I have selected three accounts which illustrate the range of academic experience captured in this book. The three come from very different cultural backgrounds and provide valuable, but diverse, models of teacher practice.

Nikita Pokrovsky

Nikita Pokrovsky is Professor of Sociology and Social Philosophy in the Department of Sociology at Moscow University, with extensive teaching experience in the USA. His emphasis on the contrasting political contexts facing post-graduate students and professors in the old Soviet Union/Russia and the USA, covering both pre- and post-perestroika periods, make fascinating reading. Until comparatively recently each of his classes in Moscow contained informers and trust between academic colleagues was difficult. To survive politically, different levels of meaning and 'truth' needed to be interwoven through theses and lectures, which has left a legacy in contemporary Russian academic practice. During the 'decades of stagnation' graduates were guaranteed positions with the university. The post-perestroika experience is very different. Moscow University is being commercialised: licensed restaurants take space alongside lecture halls, and flash student cars in university carparks reflect the new free market values. Professors are paid far less than unskilled workers (and often students), they generally work in very cramped conditions, with little access to equipment taken for granted in the West such as computers or photocopiers.

Reflecting on these massive changes, as well as on the comparative advantages of the Russian and American university systems, Pokrovsky develops the following principles of teaching:

  1. Publish or perish - (an unconventional interpretation) to encourage undergraduate students to publish, to go beyond the ability to be a good speaker.
  2. The teacher-student interaction and distance - not to take on the role of 'voluntary confident and confessor' to be popular, but to help students with their professional growth and advancement by facilitating publication, attendance at conferences and study abroad, opportunities to earn money through translation and interpretation.
  3. A focus on champions - challenging students with an interest in learning, but not teaching with the 'entertaining or candy-bar method'.
  4. Breadth of view - an approach influenced by sociologist Robert Merton to encourage students to take advantage of the sociological potential of most subjects.
  5. From curiosity to sustained inquisitiveness - to cultivate a broad worldview.
  6. The Professor's personal involvement in research - to teach by using your own textbooks, for example, as an expression and integration of profession and self.
These principles, which some readers might argue with, are clearly justified with reference to Pokrovsky's academic and political background.

Afsaneh Nahavandi

In comparison Afsaneh Nahavandi, Director of the MBA program at the Arizona State University West School of Management, born and raised in pre-Khomeini Iran, develops a very different list of effective teaching behaviour. Nahavandi presents a very integrated image of her academic activities, seeing herself as a 'parent-spouse-administrator-teacher-researcher ... listed in order of time importance' (p.197). She expresses confusion about the way in which teaching and research tend to be seen as mutually exclusive activities. In what might be characterised as a more female approach she describes aspects of her daily life:
Some very fluid boundaries exist among my different roles and activities, and occasionally they conflict. However, all that I do, of which teaching and research are only two parts, coexist in my mind. They all interact to form a whole that is me. I suspect that being married to a business professor who works at the same institution helps with this sense of wholeness. Time spent at home is not compartmentalised, but then neither is time at work. (p.198)
Nahavandi's list of effective teaching behaviour has a more personal emphasis than Pokrovsky's. It includes:
  • Being prepared - to function as an effective role model for students.
  • Being courteous and respectful - to be respectful and tolerant of others views and opinions to allow for exchange of information.
  • Being tolerant and valuing diversity - drawing on her personal experience outside mainstream American culture as an effective teaching device.
  • Showing enthusiasm - passing on a love of the subject to students.
  • Being flexible - in format, deadlines, and content, which led to experimenting with assessment.
  • Making mistakes - to model how do deal with mistakes and learn from them.
Significantly, this chapter is called 'Teaching from the Heart' and it advocates a very nurturing approach to teaching akin to good parenting practice (although Nahavandi strongly denies that a teacher should function as a parent to their students). Ultimately she arrives at a very succinct description of teaching, which perhaps is closer to establishing the rules of the game: that a teacher's role is to 'provide direction and to clarify the rules of engagement that would allow the class to function' (p.210).

Nahavandi's enthusiasm for teaching is obvious in her narrative, as is Pokrovsky's. Both accounts suggest the advantages of a cross cultural heritage in teaching practice. Nahavandi believes that her background in Iran, at a French school, mixing with children in diplomatic circles as well as her undergraduate and post graduate education in USA have given her the insights of a 'marginal person':

This integration of cultures and learning to live with their differences, while still remaining whole, is a recurring theme in my courses. I provide students with many personal examples. I challenge their views of cultural differences and force them to rethink many of their assumptions about culture. (p.200)
In comparison Afsaneh Nahavandi, Director of the MBA program at the Arizona State University West School of Management, born and raised in pre-Khomeini Iran, develops a very different list of effective teaching behaviour. Nahavandi presents a very integrated image of her academic activities, seeing herself as a 'parent-spouse-administrator-teacher-researcher ... listed in order of time importance' (p.197). She expresses confusion about the way in which teaching and research tend to be seen as mutually exclusive activities. In what might be characterised as a more female approach she describes aspects of her daily life:
Some very fluid boundaries exist among my different roles and activities, and occasionally they conflict. However, all that I do, of which teaching and research are only two parts, coexist in my mind. They all interact to form a whole that is me. I suspect that being married to a business professor who works at the same institution helps with this sense of wholeness. Time spent at home is not compartmentalised, but then neither is time at work. (p.198)
Nahavandi's list of effective teaching behaviour has a more personal emphasis than Pokrovsky's. It includes:
  • Being prepared - to function as an effective role model for students.
  • Being courteous and respectful - to be respectful and tolerant of others views and opinions to allow for exchange of information.
  • Being tolerant and valuing diversity - drawing on her personal experience outside mainstream American culture as an effective teaching device.
  • Showing enthusiasm - passing on a love of the subject to students.
  • Being flexible - in format, deadlines, and content, which led to experimenting with assessment.
  • Making mistakes - to model how do deal with mistakes and learn from them.
Significantly, this chapter is called 'Teaching from the Heart' and it advocates a very nurturing approach to teaching akin to good parenting practice (although Nahavandi strongly denies that a teacher should function as a parent to their students). Ultimately she arrives at a very succinct description of teaching, which perhaps is closer to establishing the rules of the game: that a teacher's role is to 'provide direction and to clarify the rules of engagement that would allow the class to function' (p.210).

Nahavandi's enthusiasm for teaching is obvious in her narrative, as is Pokrovsky's. Both accounts suggest the advantages of a cross cultural heritage in teaching practice. Nahavandi believes that her background in Iran, at a French school, mixing with children in diplomatic circles as well as her undergraduate and post graduate education in USA have given her the insights of a 'marginal person':

This integration of cultures and learning to live with their differences, while still remaining whole, is a recurring theme in my courses. I provide students with many personal examples. I challenge their views of cultural differences and force them to rethink many of their assumptions about culture. (p.200)

Peter Vaill

The third selected account stands out for its humility and enthusiasm. Peter Vaill is Professor of Human Systems and Director of the PhD program at George Washington University's School of Business and Public Management, Washington DC. After describing his initial difficulty with articulating his values about teaching, Vaill elegantly discusses his teaching career in a tantalisingly headed chapter 'Meditations on a Poet's Overalls'. He prefers to describe teaching as 'a conversation about individuals in organisations' (p. 262); a sophisticated conversation with three components: firstly problems and issues, secondly theorizing and modelling processes, thirdly resultant working theory.

He argues fervently for case method teaching (in his field of organisational behaviour), which captivated him as an undergraduate at Harvard. Fascination with the subject and collegiality are his motives for teaching. He decries the role of the educator as a therapist or as an entertainer, but takes considerable care to convey his enthusiasm and the breadth of his subject to students. For example Vaill develops exercises based on the diverse life experience of his students, ranging from enrolment delays students may have experienced to their contact with a range of organisations. He teaches, or has conversations about systems theory, by encouraging students to analyse their experiences in serving multi course dinners, playing golf, teaching foreign languages or even training the dog! Vaill also devises exercises which elicit cross cultural knowledge, for example a simple exercise in which students talk about the cultural significance of their names. As a self confessed senior academic Vaill would make a great mentor to less experienced staff.

Overview

The strength of Researchers Hooked on Teaching lies in the personal stories too seldom given consideration in academic circles. For academics starting their careers this book makes clear that there is no single recipe for success, but a challenging process of reflection and experimentation involved in finding one's academic voice. Many chapters describe meandering journeys through academia, commerce and the community, which have encouraged diverse ideas about teaching. The 'permission' from the editors to include weak points and difficult teaching experiences within the personal accounts engages the reader. For example American academics write frankly of their struggles to secure tenure, as in David Boje's 'From Outcast to Postmodernist'. Key turning points, decisions not to take positions, decisions to change presentation of self, identification of mentors, key conversations with students who criticized teaching practice and ways to counter academic burnout are all addressed.

Although the accounts generally draw on organisational behaviour subjects in business and management courses, there is much to offer academics from other fields. For example my own field is Urban Studies, but I came across many suggestions which could be reshaped for my own teaching. Pushkala Prasad's exercise for organisational behaviour classes in which students write their own fantasy obituary could be made into an excellent introductory exercise in many disciplines. Bill Van Buskirk's assessment of students on their formulation of exam questions rather than their answers to the professor's questions, or Nahavandi's move towards group examinations sparked off other possibilities for rethinking teaching practice.

My main criticism of Researchers Hooked on Teaching is that, surprisingly, the relationship between teaching and research is ultimately not well explored. According to the background notes most authors are established researchers, but many focus completely on their teaching practice. Some like Nahavandi write about the central interconnectedness of their work, others assume the relationship. Some American conventions in accepted academic and organisational practice are not necessarily clear to a non-American audience, but this is a minor impediment. Overall this is a very useful book which underlines the importance of finding one's own voice in teaching. Researchers Hooked on Teaching is an especially valuable collection of readings for newer academics (and established academics pausing for reflection), which is immediately relevant and readable.

List of contributors

Howard E. Aldrich, Rae André, Darlyne Bailey, David M. Boje, Beverly J. Cameron, Marcy Crary, Peter J. Frost, Cynthia V. Fukami, Barbara A. Gutek, Donald C. Hambrick, Thomas A. Mahoney, Jeff Mello, Afsaneh Nahavandi, Nikita Pokrovsky, Pushkala Prasad, Duncan Spelman, Peter B. Vaill, Bill Van Buskirk, Karl E. Weick.

Howard Aldrich, one of the contributors listed above, is featured by ultiBASE in an interview entitled A teaching champion: An interview with Howard Aldrich.

Howard Aldrich has also contributed his Recommended Viewing to ultiBASE.

About the reviewer

Anne Gartner
Department of Social Science and Social Work
Faculty of the Constructed Environment
RMIT
Email: mailto:AG@rmit.edu.au
Copyright © Anne Gartner, 1997. For uses other than personal research or study, as permitted under the Copyright Laws of your country, permission must be negotiated with the author/s. Any further publication permitted by the author/s must include full acknowledgement of first publication in ultiBASE (http://ultibase.rmit.edu.au). Please contact the Editor of ultiBASE for assistance with acknowledgement of subsequent publication.
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