James O’Meara’s Blog

Producing higher quality research outcomes while improving standards of learning outcomes, is an essential element of effective teaching and learning in higher education. This could involve adopting a scholarly approach to your teaching. Scholarly approaches are more than reflecting on classroom practices . They represent a structured approach for generating and disseminating new knowledge to wider audiences. Academics adopting a scholarly approach are improving teaching outcomes by continually discovering new ways of knowing about what their existing practices. They are also enhancing learning outcomes by testing assumptions about how learning is occurring in their classroom. Finally, academics adopting this approach are reducing the gap between their teaching and researching activities, as well as creating a complementary research strand that will be useful for maintaining discipline specific research activity in the current economic climate .

Around this time of year you begin to think about 2010. While there are so many things you could do , the challenge is to take some time to think about the things you need to do in 2010. Distinguishing between opportunities and necessities is best done when you have the time, before you get back to work. I look forward to seeing how closely my intentions match my action in 2010

A challenge to being scholarly in today’s university is the fact that I have little time to be scholarly. For me to be scholarly involves reflecting on premises, in my case premises on how I learn and teach in a university setting. In times when there are increasing expectations for academics and their students to complete things in a timely fashion it is so easy to reflect in a timely fashion. The challenge for me is to resist this temptation and make time for the things that should matter most. Currently I am working on projects involving Cultural Competency and Blended Learning. Rather than treat them as separate things I am hoping to integrate these tasks so my reflections are more deliberate and my professional learning becomes more self directed.

Universities are collective of individual learners all working towards generating a new theory or concept that will help other in their field better understand a problem or challenge within their discipline.  While generating new learning at an individual level may influence the observations or actions of colleagues within that field how does such knowledge help shape the world views or routines of colleagues who work at your university. There is a need for a culture shift among academics that involves the introduction of an expectation that academics spend some time generalising their learnings for the benefit of their university’s community. Moving beyond the collection of publication through ERA to include collections of how an academic has contributed to knowledge generalisation at his or her university may help transform an academic from someone who works at a university to someone who works for a university  

In a recent survey of  American Provosts ( a.k.a. DVC’s) leading and fostering innovation ranked third in the most important aspects of their job. As leaders rush to introduce and implement change how often to revert to what we know rather than take time to explore what could be ? Is it time time for leaders to slow down to the speed of life so they have the time to see the light?

Earlier this year Inside Higher Ed published an story about a book advising academics about how to use Facebook and other social networking tools with students . Does such a book exist for social networking with academics. Given the push for internationalisation, the time is right to explore how academic can network and collaborate socially in a sustainable way. Considering this important point before we focus on the output (publication or grant)  could be a good place to start.

Professor Andrew Oswald suggests that it is possible for less-celebrated departments to be involved in world-class research. As funding for HE institutions decreases, the thought of attracting external funds for conducting world class research is attractive. However, it appears to me that this type of research often requires collaborative rather than individual projects. Is there a way to efficiently identify suitable collaborative partners apart from viewing research track records? What strategies do we employ to prompt the changes necessary for facilitating the collaboration? What can we do to enhance the sustainability of such collaborations so they continue beyond the life of a single project ? These are the things that occupied my mind today. Working on the answers begins tomorrow.