One of my highly esteemed senior colleagues, Prof Hamdan Said shared this newspaper article with us. I admit that what the author wrote is happening in UTM. As an example, I find it time consuming to conduct SOTL research and “produce” papers related to teaching and learning. To see an impact or changes of any learning activity takes time. It is quite difficult to see any “major” change within a period of 14 weeks (for normal semester) unless you have the same batch of students and you use the same learning activity in classes that they have to take in the subsequent semesters.
In my case, if I teach a batch of students who are in their first year second semester i.e. Educational Psychology class, it is quite difficult for me to have the same batch of students in the following semester because I only teach few undergraduate classes (other than Educational Psychology, I also teach Fundamental Pedagogy and Research Methodology class. But since there are enough instructors to teach the other two courses, I only end up to teach only Educational Psychology class on regular basis). Thus, how can I conduct a SOTL research when there would be limited opportunity for me to try out new teaching and learning strategies and do research on that? The point is, it takes me longer to collect data from my own teaching practice. It is not easy but not impossible to do.
When I was at school for my LI, I collected lots of data (from my token economy planner/table, students’ reflective notes and my own daily journal notes). I find it challenging to have solid quiet time to analyse the data. I admit that I should prioritise some of my works according to its importance. As a lecturer, teaching at a university, it is important for me to publish, but at the same time I know that I need to improve my teaching.
Now, it is exam period and I am being bogged down with tonnes of marking assignments, exam scripts and whatsnot. When will this end? It will never end. This is one of the common cycles that I have to face as a lecturer at university.
So, it is a little wonder if some might resort to “short-cuts” of publishing even though they might compromise the quality of the paper. It is a challenge to be “the slow professor” who professes, rather than “an empty shell”. It is a paradoxical phenomenon indeed.