| I. Make Research-Based Learning the Standard
Undergraduate education in research universities requires renewed emphasis on a point strongly made by John Dewey almost a century ago: learning is based on discovery guided by mentoring rather than on the transmission of information. Inherent in inquiry-based learning is an element of reciprocity: faculty can learn from students as students are learning from faculty. Important ideas rarely come fully-developed from the brain of a single individual; all scholars work from the grounding provided by predecessors, and few are not stimulated by the observations and criticisms of their peers. It is one of the functions of a university to provide the context in which ideas can be most productively developed. Bruce Alberts, President of the National Academy of Sciences and a member of the Boyer Commission, has referred to the "accidental collisions of ideas" necessary for the continued productivity of faculty, and has suggested that the presence of students provides a "lubrication" that breaks down intellectual barriers between faculty members. When students at every level--baccalaureate, masters’, and doctoral--join with faculty in common inquiry, the opportunities for "accidental collisions of ideas" are optimized. When asked why universities expect that teachers both conduct research and teach well, scholar-teachers are fond of replying that their teaching flows from what they have learned through research, and many also say that their research is affected by their teaching. Wayne C. Booth, Dean Emeritus at the University of Chicago and member of the Commission, expressed what many others have felt: My books would have been quite different—and to me less valuable—if I had produced them in solitude or after talking only with professional colleagues. It was not just that thinking about how to teach students to read responsibly led me to ideas that I would otherwise have overlooked. Responding to students’ rival readings actually changed my opinions about how to appreciate a given novel or work of criticism. For this and other reasons, teaching and publishing have always felt absolutely inseparable. The non-researcher is too often limited to transmitting knowledge generated by others, but the scholar-teacher moves from a base of original inquiry. In a research university, students should be taught by those who discover, create, and apply, as well as transmit, insights about subjects in which the teacher is expert. In reality, however, the undergraduate in our time may have little or no direct contact with established scholar-teachers. Instruction very often comes through the scholar’s apprentice, the graduate student; the academic luminary featured in admissions bulletins appears rarely if at all in undergraduate classes, and then too often as the lecturer addressing hundreds of students at once. The context is intimidating for many, and they turn away in discouragement. Recognizing that discouragement, some research universities have responded by instituting smaller classes (though usually only for majors) conducted by senior faculty, or undergraduate seminars in which senior students are challenged to produce their own research. The inquiry-based learning urged in this report requires a profound change in the way undergraduate teaching is structured. The traditional lecturing and note-taking, certified by periodic examinations, was created for a time when books were scarce and costly; lecturing to large audiences of students was an efficient means of creating several compendia of learning where only one existed before. The delivery system persisted into the present largely because it was familiar, easy, and required no imagination. But education by inquiry demands collaborative effort; traditional lecturing should not be the dominant mode of instruction in a research university. The experience of most undergraduates at most research universities is that of receiving what is served out to them. In one course after another they listen, transcribe, absorb, and repeat, essentially as undergraduates have done for centuries. The ideal embodied in this report would turn the prevailing undergraduate culture of receivers into a culture of inquirers, a culture in which faculty, graduate students, and undergraduates share an adventure of discovery. Involving Undergraduates in the Research Process Because of the unique character of a research university, the process of discovery is essentially a public one; the results of research are, through both teaching and publication, offered publicly for critique, correction, and extension. Undergraduates need to become an active part of the audience for research. In a setting in which inquiry is prized, every course in an undergraduate curriculum should provide an opportunity for a student to succeed through discovery-based methods. The basic idea of learning as inquiry is the same as the idea of research; even though advanced research occurs at advanced levels, undergraduates beginning in the freshman year can learn through research. In the sciences and social sciences, undergraduates can become junior members of the research teams that now engage professors and graduate students. In the humanities, undergraduates should have the opportunity to work in primary materials, perhaps linked to their professors’ research projects. As undergraduates advance through a program, their learning experiences should become closer and closer to the activity of the graduate student. By the senior year, the able undergraduate should be ready for research of the same character and approximately the same complexity as the first-year graduate student; the research university needs to make that zone of transition from senior to graduate student easy to enter and easy to cross. For those who do not enter graduate school, the abilities to identify, analyze, and resolve problems will prove invaluable in professional life and in citizenship. A Mentor for Every Student Generations of experienced scholars have known and acted upon the knowledge that the intellectual development of their graduate students is most effectively guided in one-to-one relationships. Essentially the same techniques of tutorship have been practiced at the undergraduate level in areas like art and music, where individual performance is watched, corrected, assisted, and encouraged. In the process, an undergraduate student and instructor can develop a supportive relationship not unlike that found between doctoral candidate and advisor. This kind of mentoring needs to be emulated throughout universities. In every discipline, field work and internships should be fostered to provide opportunities for original work. In professional schools, these experiences can occur on campus or externally through linkages with businesses, hospitals, associations, governmental agencies, etc. Professional schools operate primarily at the graduate level. Some, especially law schools, place an emphasis on breadth of background, and some medical schools follow the same kind of practice. But emphasis on breadth is seldom found in graduate schools of business and engineering. Graduate professional schools need to re-cast their admissions procedures to recognize the importance of the kinds of abilities that will be produced by integrated inquiry-based learning. When they do so, they will find their students more adaptive, more resourceful, and better able to accommodate the challenges of specialized training and professional life, as well as the relation of such training to social responsibilities. Those professional schools that train undergraduate students need to accept the same goals that obtain in the arts and sciences. Undergraduate engineers and business majors, as much as their colleagues in literature and political science, will benefit from the educational model being proposed. Particularly in the first years of university life, students in the professional schools should share the common experience. In the model the Commission proposes, scholar-teachers would treat the sites of their research as seminar rooms in which not only graduate students but undergraduates observe and participate in the process of both discovery and communication of knowledge. Those with knowledge and skills, regardless of their academic level, would practice those skills in the research enterprise and help to develop the proficiency of others. Even though few researchers ever escape the human temptation to compete for rewards, this model is collaborative, not competitive. It assumes that everybody--undergraduate, graduate student, and faculty member alike--is both a teacher and a researcher, that the educational-research process is one of discovery, not transmission, and that communication is an integral part of the shared enterprise. Internships Internships can offer an invaluable adjunct to research-based learning by allowing the student concrete contexts in which to apply research principles. Whether a student has an internship in a physics lab, a news room, a hospital, or a business office, the experience can provide learning that cannot be replicated in the classroom. For undergraduates in the arts and sciences as well as in professional schools, these experiences provide useful, often interdisciplinary, learning and real-life problem solving. When students need to work to support their education, internships can make that economic requirement a valuable part of university experience. Specific recommendations to implement this model include:
| SIGNS OF CHANGE University Case Study Problem-based Learning University University of Delaware Problem-based learning was adopted in all basic science classes at the University of Delaware to promote active learning and connect concepts to applications. Students are not given all the information they need to solve the open-ended "real-world" problems, but are responsible for finding and using appropriate sources. They work in teams with access to an instructor; trained graduate or undergraduate students help lead some groups. SIGNS OF CHANGE University Case Study Undergraduate Research, URECA University State University of New York at Stony Brook Any interested undergraduate at the State University of New York at Stony Brook may enter the URECA (Undergraduate Research and Creative Activities) Program, in which students work with faculty researchers and artists on selected projects of shared interest, on projects they devise themselves, or on an ongoing research project from one of the academic departments, professional schools, or research centers. Students may also find projects with Brookhaven National Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, or North Shore University Hospital. Projects require faculty sponsorship and earn academic credit and expense allowances. SIGNS OF CHANGE University Case Study Peer Instruction University Harvard A Harvard professor, Eric Mazur, has developed a peer instruction technique, first used in introductory calculus-based physics courses, in which a third of class time is given to asking conceptual questions; student responses are recorded on classroom computers. Students are then asked to discuss their answers with classmates and, if necessary, revise their answers and levels of confidence in them. Finally, clarification of the concept is provided by the instructor, guided by original class responses and later reconsiderations. SIGNS OF CHANGE University Case Study College Research Opportunities Program (CROP) University University of Chicago Undergraduate students at the University of Chicago may participate in a wide variety of research projects in many disciplines, for which the students receive either academic credit or a salary. Positions are available with the university’s on-campus research centers, including the Yerkes Observatory, the Ben May Institute for Cancer Research, the DNA Sequencing Facility, the Center for Medical Genetics, the Film Studies Center, the ARTFL Project (an on-line database of French texts from the 17th to the 20th centuries), the Council for Advanced Studies in Peace and International Cooperation, and the National Opinion Research Center, as well as with affiliated research centers such as the Fermi National Accelerator Lab. SIGNS OF CHANGE University Case Study Block Scheduling University Duke University First-semester Freshmen at Duke University may enroll in one of about 14 interdisciplinary, thematically-designed programs, in which they take two Focus seminars, a writing course, and a non-Focus elective. Enrollment in each is limited to 30; students in a program live together in a residence hall and meet weekly for dinner. |