Putting Research Into Practice: Pedagogy Development Workshops Change the Teaching Philosophy of Graduate Students

Oct 15, 2026

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Teaching competence is presented as a key prerequisite skill for graduate students and a potential foundation for future academic careers. A multi-day pedagogy development workshop was assessed by surveying 200 graduate students, 79 workshop attendees and 121 non-attendees. No group differences appeared in beliefs about in-depth core concept learning or rejection of memorization as an effective strategy. Attendees, however, emphasized more student-to-student interactive discussions and less lecturing, indicating clearer ideas for effective teaching.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages14

Reading Time35 min

AccessFree to download

ABSTRACT

RÉSUMÉ

Background and context

Teaching competence and workshop rationale

Effective in-class teaching characteristics

CSSHE SCÉES Canadian Journal of Higher Education Revue canadienne d’enseignement supérieur Volume 42, No. 1, 2012, pages 98-111 Putting Research Into Practice: Pedagogy Development Workshops Change the Teaching Philosophy of Graduate Students Peter J. T. White Michigan State University David Syncox McGill University Audrey Heppleston Natural Resources Canada Siara Isaac Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 Brian Alters Chapman University ABSTRACT Teaching competence is an important skill for graduate students to acquire and is often considered a precursor to an academic career. In this study, we evaluated the effects of a multi-day teaching workshop on graduate teaching philosophies by surveying 200 graduate students, 79 of whom had taken the workshops and 121 who had not. We found no difference between groups (workshop attendees versus non-attendees) in their beliefs that (a) it is important to focus on in-depth learning of core concepts when teaching and (b)“memorization” is a poor learning strategy for students. On average, however, respondents who had taken the workshop allocated more in-class time for student-to-student discussions (interactive engagement) and placed less em CJHE / RCES Volume 42, No. 1, 2012 Putting Research Into Practice / P. J. T. White, D. Syncox, A. Heppleston, S. Isaac & B. Alters 99 phasis on lecturing. These results suggest that graduate students are generally aware of the importance of conceptual learning, but workshop attendees have clearer ideas on how to teach for effective learning. RÉSUMÉ La capacité d’enseigner est une compétence importante pour les étudiants en formation doctorale et est souvent considérée comme un attribut nécessaire à lapoursuited’une carrière académique. Lorsdecette étude, nous avons évalué les effets d’un atelier de développement pédagogique de plusieurs jours sur la philosophie d’enseignement des étudiants en thèse en interrogeant 200 sujets -79 qui avaient assisté aux ateliers et 121 qui n’y avaient pas participé . Nous n’avons trouvé aucune différence entre les groupes (ceux qui ont participéà l’atelier par rapport aux non-participants) dans leur croyance que (a) lors de l’enseignement, il est important de se concentrer sur l’apprentissage en profondeur des concepts principaux et (b) la «mémorisation» est une mauvaise stratégie d’apprentissage pour les étudiants. Cependant, en moyenne, les répondants qui avaient participé à l’atelier ont consacré plus de temps à des discussions entre étudiants (engagement interactif) etont accordé moins d’importance aux cours magistraux. Ces résultats suggèrent que les étudiants de niveau doctoral sont généralement conscients de l’importance del’apprentissage conceptuel, mais que ceux qui ont participé aux ateliers ontdes idées plus claires pour faciliter un tel apprentissage. Over the last decade, North American universities and colleges have taken a new direction in graduate education by implementing professional development programs for their graduate students. In 2008, the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies (CAGS), the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, and the Canadian federal government’s Tri-Council funding agencies supported this initiative by starting a discussion of priorities, necessary skills, and actions to move the dialogue forward. This group promotes the development of programs for graduate students to ensure they acquire by the end of their degree the skills to perform well in what has become known as the knowledge economy (CAGS, 2008) . In a 2010 benchmarking activity (Jenkins, 2010), more than 30 institutions were surveyed to assess the support for developing such skills. It was found that each of the schools surveyed had initiatives that ran parallel to the academic program and aimed at improving the graduate student skills identified by CAGS. Many of the institutions offered activities to help graduate students build the teaching skills enumerated

FAQs

What was the main focus of the study?

The study evaluated how a multi-day teaching workshop affects graduate students’ teaching philosophies, using survey responses to compare attendees and non-attendees.

Did workshop participation change beliefs about learning strategies?

No. Attendees and non-attendees showed no difference in their beliefs about focusing on in-depth learning of core concepts and viewing “memorization” as a poor strategy.

What differences did the researchers find between the two groups?

On average, workshop attendees allocated more in-class time to student-to-student discussions (interactive engagement) and placed less emphasis on lecturing.

Oct 15, 2026

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