Case Studies

Example 1
evidence based practice materials

Example 2
building group work skills

Example 3
building research communities

Example 4
project based learning activities

Example 5
research and teaching: an intrinsic link

Example 6
the link between cultural identity and research

Example 7
An inextricable link - theory into practice

Example 8
Teaching connoiseurs of research

Example 9
Exploiting the link in course design

Example 10
innovative practice linking engineering methods and principles to constructing a winning product

Example 11
research and links to critical pedagogy

Example 12
Four examples to promote the synergy in history

Example 13
Students' perspective on linking research and teaching

Example 14
Two students'
perspectives

Professor Simon Ville in History notes:

I think there are a number of important links between teaching and research, which emphasise the synergies that each provides to the other. From my own experience I can cite at least four different ways in which teaching and research are linked together. These include writing a textbook on European transport. The importance here is that the research subject material has been diverse, highly specialised, sometimes quite technical and written in multiple European languages. The textbook provides for students a synthesis of research into that subject and makes it much more accessible in the limited time they have to study the subject at an undergraduate level.

The second way in which there are synergies between the two is where you teach an undergraduate unit in as comprehensive a way as possible covering all possible aspects of the subject. Of course research has not covered all aspectsm which therefore helps the lecturer to identify where the main gaps are in the research and literature and provides an incentive for academics to undertake research to fill those gaps. I found this experience teaching Australian economic history where it seemed to me there were several major gaps in the literature, one of which was about one of Australia’s leading industries in the 20th century – the stock and station agent industry. This led me to then go and write a history of the stock and station agent industry.

The third way research and teaching are linked together is where academics write specific research papers that can be used to give greater depth and focus to undergraduate teaching. Students have the opportunity to focus on particular issues guided by their lecturers who have specialised in a particular research area within the broader subject.

And fourthly, with my background as an historian, I ‘ve found that using historical materials, original documents and so forth I have used in my own research can be applied to undergraduate and of course postgraduate teaching to give greater depth and life and colour. I have just finished writing a book on the development of modern business in Australia, Japan, the US and the UK which includes not only broad surveys of the growth of business in several countries but also case studies of individual companies and original documentary material. Again, students can see the colour, the depth and the breadth of the subject as a whole.

I use my own research papers, and also talk to students about the whole research process what I have done to investigate a particular topic in more detail. For example if this involves going to archives, how it summarises the literature and uses criticisms of the literature. I think it important to give students an enthusiasm, a sense, a taste of what we do as researchers and what actually happened rather than give received secondary material researched by someone else.

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