Writing up your own work
Topic: Writing up research into teaching
What do you think...
Is your students’ work your data, or is it their contribution, when you are writing up your classroom research?
Consider the ideas of the vice president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching:
“…the scholarship of teaching and learning might well be framed not as a particular kind of faculty research, with attendant methods and ethical guidelines, but as a commitment to a different role for students in shaping the education they are a part of… There’s an interesting next step in this logic. If students can contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning (not simply serve as its “subjects”), we should perhaps be concerned not only about protecting their privacy but about acknowledging their contributions.… A number of scholars... argue that we have an ethical responsibility to acknowledge and cite student work as we would that of any scholar who contributes to our thinking…This approach will appeal more in some fields than others and is not without its problems …” (p.32) Hutchings, P. (2003). Competing goods: Ethical issues in the scholarship of teaching and learning. Change, 35(5), 27-33.* |
Focus questions
- What in your view would constitute academic integrity, when academics include their students’ work in published research into their own teaching?
- How would you interpret “This approach will appeal more in some fields than others and is not without its problems”?
- Who would you consult if you wanted further advice on this aspect of your own writing and publishing?
* Used with the permission of Heldref Publications.