Teaching As The Scholarship:Institutional Reconstruction Of Teaching Reform In Chinese Universities

Teaching reform is an eternal topic in Chinese higher education.Currently,the quality of our undergraduate education has been seriously questioned,but teaching reform is faltering.This situation reflects that teaching is no more attractive to faculty and umdergraduate teaching is in jeopardy.Faculty are the direct designers and promoters of classroom teaching reform.By exploring their real experience,we could help to uncover the difficulties in teaching reform and reconstruct the institution.This stUdy takes the perspective of faculty,follows qualitative research paradigm,and adopts“the scholarship of teaching(SOT),and "new institutionalism,as two theoretical frameworks.The SOT explains the academic nature of teaching and advocates research-based teaching as an effective way to coordinate conflicts between teaching and research which conforms to the inherent requirement of our undergraduate education reform.Also,its four-dimensional research system offers a comprehensive lens to analyze faculty's teaching work.New institutionalism brings culture into institutional research and provides a concrete framework for institutional analysis.Through interviews with faculties who have involved in teaching reform at different levels,supplemented with interviews with administrators and students,this study finds that most teachers in Chinese universities are facing with "four crises" in teaching reform.First,in the dimension of legitimacy,many teachers have a wait-and-see attitude toward teaching reform,and difficulties in teach:ing reform have not been effectively reflected and exchanged.Teaching is more like "walking alone" rather than community property.Even,some teachers have a "just no demerits" philosophy in teaching.Thus,teaching is far from a kind of "scholarship".Second,in the dimension of inter-subjectivity,there is a mutual estrangement between faculty and students.To what extent teaching reform has improved the learning outcomes still needs to be verified.Obviously,faculty and students have not yet become "teaching and learning community".Third,in the dimension of relevance,the combination between teaching and research has practical difficulties,"Chinese?style" scientific research has brought huge pressure to faculty,also social works oriented by economic benefits may be harmful to teaching.Eventually,teaching is increasingly marginalized in academic work.Four,in the dimension of guarantee,faculty development centers now face many obstacles,and those support and incentive policies for teaching reform of colleges and universities are not enough.The most important thing is that teaching evaluation is a missing part in faculty review and promotion system.At last,culture of the SOT is lost.The root of these difficulties in teaching reform in China is that faculty's engagement and efficiency in teaching reform cannot be recognized and rewarded in the promotion system,the SOT lacks of essential institutional guarantee.American experience in institutional and cultural construction of the SOT could help us with Chinese teaching reform.Although faculty from different types of universities express different understandings of undergraduate education and research universities also attach more emphasis on research than teaching,faculty in American universities usually follow basic teaching norms and guarantee their engagement in undergraduate education.Behind this,their faculty evaluation and promotion system plays a guiding role.Teaching evaluation is "crucial" and the core part in faculty promotion at California State University,while its requirements on research are relatively broad.Teaching evaluation is "indispensable" in faculty promotion at University of California,satisfactory teaching is necessary but not sufficient in promoting to tenure.In teaching evaluation,American universities ask for multiple groups' participation,including faculty themselves,students and peers,in which discipline experts' opinions are more valued.Quantitative and qualitative data are both used in teaching evaluation,while qualitative materials that reflect faculty's teaching growth are more emphasized.In addition,American university insure the procedural justice of teaching evaluation.Finally,American universities have formed their own culture of the SOT.Ability training of the SOT begins in graduate education,norms of the SOT are demonstrated in teaching regulations,ideas of the SOT spread through school/college and university levels teaching communication platforms,and finally this culture is manifested by the recognition of excellent teaching.Based on Richard Scott's new institutionalism analysis framework,teaching reform in Chinese universities nowadays encounters three types of institutional deficiency.Firstly,teaching regulations are failure to exert their imperative effect.To be specific,those requirements are too low to reveal the academic nature of teaching,teaching management system is not effective,and teaching is invisible in faculty's review.Secondly,the normative elements of teaching reform are insufficiently to motivate faculty.The outcomings of teaching reform could not be effectively evaluated,faculty promotion system usually only considers teaching awards,and rewards on teaching reform and its scope of influence are limited.Thirdly,the culture of teaching reform is far from being formed.There are few leaders who really attach importance to undergraduate teaching and make a difference.Primary academic organizations are dysfunctional in teaching research.Also,faculty development centers have not reveal their impact on developing the SOT.As a conclusion,we can reconstruct the institutions for teaching reform in Chinese universities drawn from the successful experiences from both the U.S.and some universities in China.Firstly,the SOT should be clearly demonstrated in teaching regulations.The bottom-line requirements on teaching should be raised up,elements of teaching reform and related safeguard measures should be written,and the accountability mechanism on misconducts of teaching should be improved.Secondly,excellent teaching should be inclined to during faculty promotion.Teaching evaluation should pay more attention to actual classroom outcomes than teaching awards,respect the experts' opinions and university should enhance material and title incentives for teaching reform.Thirdly,culture of the SOT should be built through school/college and university levels teaching communication platforms.Schools and colleges should establish their regular mechanism on teaching research activities.Faculty development centers should fully play their roles as the SOT support and service institute.And doctoral education also need to bring teaching train into their projects.Through the institutional reconstruction,we could promote teaching reform in China and make teaching to be the scholarship again.