Research Informed Teaching

 'No issue is more basic in modern higher education than the relationship between research and teaching’ (Clark, 1997) 

During the academic years 2006/7 to 2008/9, the University is supporting initiatives designed to meet HEFCE’s strategic aim of ‘ensuring that teaching is informed and enriched by research’.  These are supported with funding gained from HEFCE’s Teaching Quality Enhancement Fund and overseen by the Research and Teaching Steering Group.

‘We are all researchers now…Teaching and research are becoming ever more intimately related… In a ‘knowledge society all students – certainly all graduates – have to be researchers.  Not only are they engaged in the production of knowledge; they must be educated to cope with the risks and uncertainties generated by the advance of science’ (Scott, 2002) 

The Research Informed Teaching web pages are intended to help you to find out more about research informed teaching (RIT) and Northumbria’s Research Informed Teaching Initiatives.

'Involving students in inquiry – in research – is a way of improving their learning, motivating them more.  After all, what motivates large numbers of academics is engaging in the excitement of research.  Bringing research and teaching together is a way of enhancing the motivation of both academics and students’ (Brew, in Jenkins et al, 2003)

The last round of competitive bidding for Research Informed Teaching Project Awards has now been completed.  Lists of the successful project award winners from all three rounds of the initiative can be viewed in the panel to the right.

‘…Universities should treat learning as not yet wholly solved problems and hence always in research mode’ (Humboldt, 1970, quoted by Elton 2005)

The page links to the left focus on the individual School-based projects, dissemination events and resources created to support research informed teaching at Northumbria.  The last link provides examples of potential funding sources for pedagogic research, e.g. HEFCE, HEA, SEDA, JISC.

'It is not teaching but the student experience that should be the focus of the teaching research nexus’ (Prosser, 2006)