June 11th, 2015: Faculty members from across Canadian University Dubai (CUD) have heard from international expert, Dr. Peter Balan, about how university teaching activities can generate new opportunities for academic research.
With a successful background in international marketing and management, Dr. Balan is now a Senior Lecturer in the School of Management at the University of South Australia Business School. Speaking about the challenges of making the process shift from teaching into research, he showcased some of his own academic studies that have been generated from university lecturing activities.
Dr. Balan said there was an immense amount of tacit knowledge in academic institutions and as such, opportunities exist to use new methods to address existing questions. He said, "The key is finding a hook, and once you have that, you can apply a traditional approach to the research - relate it to the literature, collect, process and analyze the data."
With an interest in developing innovative approaches to teaching, Dr. Balan used his own university classes to conduct research into the impact of team-based learning. During the workshop he outlined the techniques, as well as the challenges, of using student-derived data to generate the required quantitative and qualitative findings.
Dr. Balan concluded that there were multiple benefits to conducting research projects of this kind. As well as generating research outcomes on the impact of team-based learning on student engagement and retention, the research, he said, could also be used to support the continuous evaluation and refinement of program delivery, thus feeding back into the teaching process.
Following the workshop, a token of appreciation was presented to Dr. Balan by CUD Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dr. Hakim Khali.
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