Developing your career : managing the balance between teaching and research Dr Carl Griffin,

1. Developing your career: managing the balance between teaching and research Dr Carl Griffin, School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queens University Belfast

2. Hard truths (or, that which is received) The primacy of research Teaching can too easily fall in the gaps The grand project (and yet grander claims)

3. Bristol Northumbria

4. Teaching as inputs based, research as outputs driven? • Behold, an enemy? • Inputs vs. outputs • A false distinction: both really a similar process

5. ‘The ecology of a university depends on a deep and abiding understanding that inquiry, investigation and discovery are at the heart of the enterprise, whether in funded research projects or in undergraduate classrooms or graduate apprenticeships. Everyone at a university should be a discoverer, a learner. That shared mission binds together all that happens on a campus.’ Boyer Commission on Educating Undergraduates in the Research University. (1998). Reinventing Undergraduate Education: a blueprint for America’s research universities. Stony Brook: State University of New York at Stony Brook

6. GEES teaching as inherently research-led • The field-course • The laboratory • PBL • Dissertations (QAA benchmarking statement)

7. HEFCE (2007) Geography Benchmarking statement

8. Problems (and opportunities) • Teaching (preparation, delivery, marking) is hugely time-consuming • An important foundational experience: teaching essentials, (minor) course administration & working out how institutions really work • Starting to develop a teaching repertoire

9. Things to do… Research-informed/led teaching: 1st rule) students want to be taught be experts – and you are the expert • Synergies (what might you gain from linking your project and possible teaching?) • Avoiding stress/exploitation • Teaching as research (is it truly possible?) • Career-building

10. Synergies • Learning how to communicate complex ideas (this might come in helpful…) • Working out context • Helps to give ‘research’ time more focus • Teach on that which you are able to teach

11. Avoiding exploitation/stress • Take relevant courses at your institution • Payment (make sure you get it!) • Marking – clear criteria saves time • Setting aside blocks of time (days/weeks/semesters) • Don’t be afraid to say NO (be focused … always) – but don’t be afraid to ask… (the door to the world beyond demonstrating is half open)

12. Teaching as research

13. Students as your researchers(or at least your inspiration) • Formal, paid student RAs (e.g. University of Sussex) • Informal student RAs • Class discussion as helping to clarify ideas • Class discussion as wellspring of new ideas/approaches • Team teaching as basis for research collaboration

14. Pedagogical researchopportunities for funding and outputs • Increasingly limited funds • Perhaps looked down upon by HoS’s BUT… - Could lead to research income and outputs (both publications and IMPACT)

15. Career building How much emphasis do interview panels REALLY place on teaching? Not a huge amount (for most permanent posts, though changing)… but quite a lot for temporary posts Either way, something you need to demonstrate competence in… so you might as well be proactive and start thinking about what you might like to teach

16. Career building - All experience good experience, but a(n appropriate) balance best - Evidence of feedback (peer or student) always helpful - In applying for teaching fellow/lecturing posts assert your: experience; competence; flexibility; and… fit