Distinguishing The Art From The Science Of Teaching Within Research Based Curriculum And Assessment

In order to create a researched-based discipline, the distinction between the art of teaching and the science of teaching must be made. Without this distinction, there can be no dialogue to objectify teaching and allow it to be critically analyzed critically, separate from the content of the subject being taught. For the past two years, the Journal of Engineering Education has trumpeted the need to establish engineering education as a rigorous researched-based discipline, and in the April 2006 edition of JEE, Ruth A. Streveler and Karl A. Smith in the guest editorial 7 described three qualities in the research questions engineering faculty tend to display as they begin to practice engineering-education research. All three qualities have a connecting thread resulting from a lack of understanding of how to distinguish between the art and the science of teaching. Clarification of this distinction will allow engineering educators to objectively see why a research study that analyzes an individual researcher’s classroom practice is difficult to replicate, and why assessment of the quality of a particular teaching method is clouded so that it doesn’t reach the “why” or “how” questions about engineering learning. Lack of clarification will continue allow many engineering educators to conduct context-specific studies that are difficult to replicate and have limited generalizability. Understanding the distinction between the art and the science of teaching is the framework for creating the “big picture” in the efforts to build the research-based discipline. The purpose of this paper is to clearly distinguish the art of teaching from the science of teaching. In doing this, the paper describes the flow of using the science of learning (formed from research in cognitive psychology and cognitive science) to inform the theoretical underpinnings within the science of teaching, which, in turn, informs the art of teaching. Many engineering faculty desire to employ “active” learning methods, such as problem-centered learning or team-based projects, without an understanding of how the performance of these artistic acts of teaching must be fundamentally informed by the sciences of teaching and learning. This results in a lack of rigorous research. The goal of this paper is to distinguish between the science of learning, the science of teaching, and the art of teaching, distinctions that are necessary for continuing the paradigm shift of engineering faculty who desire to be a part of developing research-based, engineering-educational practice. Complications in Creating Rigorous Engineering-Education Research In the April 2006 guest editorial “Conducting Rigorous Research in Engineering Education,” 7 Ruth A. Streveler and Karl A. Smith describe three potentially problematic qualities that engineering faculty often adopt as they conduct engineering-educational research. The first of these is the faculty’s tendency to create research questions that are too context specific to be generalizable and replicable. The second tendency of the research questions is they ask whether one approach is more effective than the next, and this does not answer or establish the hows and whys behind the approaches that created the conclusions. Lastly, the research questions are not well situated in prior research. First Quality: Too Context Specific As educators, we long to try new approaches in developing greater student learning. To this end we test the approaches in our classes, assess their success, and offer stories of encouragement, or disaster, to the next educator who desires to try the approach. I agree with Streveler and Smith that most educators enter the field of educational research through this very natural avenue of following their own interests and using their classes to test their ideas. I also agree “providing one’s students with the very best teaching is admirable, ...[but] the very specific nature of these studies can make their results difficult to replicate and generalize.” 7 In the art of teaching section of this paper, the innumerable amount of variables in instruction that affect student learning and complicate educational research are described. In most science studies, we control all possible variables in order to test one variable. Educational research questions tested in the classroom cannot be separated from its context of variables. For example, consider two professors who are teaching the same class during the same semester and have agreed upon the syllabus. Also assume equivalence in class size and makeup. Any differences in student engagement and learning can be partially attributed to each professor’s art of teaching. If we exaggerate the differences, maybe one professor is charismatic and motivating while the other is disengaged and condescending. Whether we like it or not, common sense (and science) tells us that student engagement (and therefore potential learning) is affected by a professors’ art of teaching. The reason the research questions are difficult to replicate and hard to generalize is because of the multiple variables in the professor’s art of teaching.