Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!sunybcs!oswego!dab
From: dab@oswego.Oswego.EDU (Dave Bozak)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: Re: Research vs TEACHING
Summary: Research is not as rigorously defined as the lay person believes
Message-ID: <1111@oswego.Oswego.EDU>
Date: 14 Mar 89 15:20:56 GMT
References: <345@sagpd1.UUCP>
Reply-To: dab@oswego.oswego.edu.Oswego.EDU (Dave Bozak)
Organization: SUNY College @ Oswego, Oswego, NY
Lines: 53

In article <345@sagpd1.UUCP> eprice@sagpd1.UUCP (Eric Price) writes:
>>I agree wholeheartedly.  I have observed quite a few university faculty
>>who were poor researchers but considered by many students to be good
>>teachers.  In each case, they were actually POOR teachers.
>>...					     ^^^^
>>You can be a fine calculus teacher without doing research, but there is
>>no way that you are going to be a good teacher in junior, senior and
>>graduate level computer science courses without doing research.  As 
>>Dave said, "Period." ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>             ^^^^^^	
>	       rather open minded isn't he  (|^)
>	       not to mention judgemental
>
>I'm afraid I must disagree. I'm an instructor at the University of
>British Columbia, and, so I'm told (by my peers) a good one. I've
>taught courses at every level (right now I'm teaching first, second,
>and third year courses), and do no research. On the other hand, I read
>voraciously. I read a lot of technical journals, texts, and tech
>reports, both in my area and outside it. On the average, about once a
>year I tackle a field within computer science about which I know very
>little.	


Well, yes I do believe I am judgemental, especially when it comes 
to my students and my responsibility towards them.  What is the
problem here is how you define research.  I don't remember my exact words,
but the argument goes something like this:  you don't need to be on a quest
for the Turing award, but you do need to exhibit a curiosity about the
field, and enjoy the process of learning what you don't already know.  The
excitment of that discovery process is what then makes the classroom
experience fun and stimulating.  I would define what you do as "research".
My guess is that when you "...read a lot..." you are doing much more than
staring at the text on the page.  I'll bet you don't take any one author's
approach to a topic as gospel, but rather synthesize many different sources.
I'll bet you share those insights with colleagues and students.  I'll bet
you encourage and work with students as they attempt to master material.

That is "research" in my mind, albeit not the "Publish or Perish" style of
research that leads to lots of words on paper in some journal, whose
content may be minimal, but whose title might be long (so as to take up
lots of space on an academic vita).  And I'd defend that as a valuable
activity, especially in a school where in the big three criteria of 
teaching, service and research, teaching is 1/2, and maybe even service
is a dash more weighted than research.

These are very fuzzy lines, and I'm sure I've offended some.  First criteria
has to be the quality of service delivered to students, and I don't believe
that quality exists where the instructor isn't actively involved in
questioning and learning.  Mind you, communicating that excitement to 
your peers through presentations and articles is also appropriate...

-dave bozak
 dab@rocky.oswego.edu