Splashing in Puddles? What my Teaching and Research Tell Me About My Teaching and Research

Some entities, such as sport, can be measured in terms of higher, stronger, faster. With the arts, however, such as music, opinion may be more divided on whether they have improved, deteriorated, or simply changed in the past century or so. It seems to me that teaching has elements of both, with some constituent elements measurable and others not, and the boundaries between the measurable and the unmeasurable are themselves difficult to define.

Like (I imagine) all teachers, I am keen to improve my practice. While on leave, I conducted research into the effectiveness of a Graduate Certificate in Teaching Studies of Asia (GCTSA), which I coordinate. Customarily, during such leave periods, one tries to escape the demands and distractions of the office. It is equally customary for colleagues to ask, upon seeing an on-leave staff member on campus, “what are you doing here?” There is a certain irony, in that this self-study has prompted me to ask at a much more existential level “what am I doing here?” I will present the story according to the narrative traditions of orientation, complication, resolution, and coda (Derewianka, 1990).