Integrating the Academic Life

1. Integrating the Academic Life How “everything influences everything else in the here and now.” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) Jeffrey Trawick-Smith Phyllis Waite Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Education

2. Simplistic World View Life is composed of unidirectional, linear relationships between one thing and another.

3. Important Intervening Life Events • Losing my mind (trying to teach, conduct research, perform service) • Discovering in my research that nothing seems to cause anything else. • In my parenting, realizing that my children would turn out the way they would regardless of what I did. • Deciding to be an anthropologist.

4. Integrated World View “Everything influences everything else in the here and now. The best any researcher can hope for is writing a thick description of all the possible factors that influence one another and finding their relationships.” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985)

5. Everything Influences Everything Else in Academic Life Leads to a mindboggling model:

6. Everything Influences Everything Else in Academic Life • When I write an academic paper, I consider . . . How can this become a unit of instruction for a class? • When I prepare for a class, I think . . . How can this be expanded into a scholarly paper? • When I present at a conference, I think . . . How it could be reworked into a publication—even a book? • When I plan a research study I consider . . . How can I involve at least one student whom I can mentor?

7. Story from an Integrated Academic Life • Students were performing poorly on measures of cultural diversity and assessment. • I design a project for a course: An assessment of children’s play in culturally diverse preschools. • Students share what they’ve learned. • I revise and enhance the project. • Students offer new insights.

8. Story from an Integrated Academic Life

9. Story from an Integrated Academic Life • I ask: How can this interesting student-collected data complement my own research? • I guide several students in analyzing their own findings. • I invite them to present with me at a national conference. • Students learn a lot. So do I! • I write a theoretical chapter for a book, based on the conference presentation.

10. Story from an Integrated Academic Life

11. Story from an Integrated Academic Life • Back in my classroom, more students are asking new questions about play and culture. • I add a student research component to a research grant, which is funded. • Five undergraduate students became research assistants on the grant—something only doctoral students dream of! • Our findings become part of my play course. • Students and I write two articles together and present at a national conference. • I include this research in a book chapter, and three national papers. • One student and I win an award for outstanding research article in my field (and we split the $1,000 prize!).

12. Story from an Integrated Academic Life

13. Story from an Integrated Academic Life • Students who worked on grant funded study carry out a toy investigation with little guidance. • Based on the play course and the assessment project, these students ask: How do the effects of toys vary across culture and SES? • Professor beams with pride! • The students present emerging findings to my play course. • One student co-presents findings to a professional organization in the community. • They have had a paper accepted at a national conference. • Professor does back flips and cartwheels!

14. Story from an Integrated Academic Life • Professor weaves all of this into a presentation he is asked to conduct at a new faculty orientation. • That’s what is happening right now.

15. Story from an Integrated Academic Life

16. Story from an Integrated Academic Life The end of the story: Everything has influenced everything else in the here and now.

17. Conclusions • Integrating your work makes life easier: Every minute spent on one thing contributes to another. • Integrating your “academic agenda” gives greater meaning to each element: You teach what you research, you research what you teach. • Including work with student researchers (teaching!) has remarkable rewards!

18. Integrating the Academic Life How “everything influences everything else in the here and now.” (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) Jeffrey Trawick-Smith Phyllis Waite Endowed Chair in Early Childhood Education