Teaching fellows - Are we actually supposed to be doing research?

[neverendinglauaundry]

Are there any other teaching fellows here? I'm wondering if there's something I'm missing about how I'm expected to approach my job.
Backstory is that I career changed about 4 years ago. I quit a career as a school teacher and did a masters. When the masters finished one of my lecturers suggested that I apply for an undergrad teaching role which I did and, to my surprise & delight I got it. I've now been a teaching fellow in a non REFable department for 4 years. I get really good feedback for my teaching and have been nominated by students for teaching awards. However, I feel like I'm a bit of a disappointing employee. I'm really happy teaching and keeping up to date with my subject (& learning new subjects when asked to teach them). Other aspects of academia are more confusing and disappointing (the strange politics, the mysterious committees, the precariousness of the work & weird clunky university processes).
Over all its great BUT...
I feel like my bosses are perhaps expecting something else from me that's not specified in my job description. Is anyone else here a teaching fellow - what is expected from you that's not in the job description?
If I was supposed to be doing research I'd feel a bit lost to be honest & would definitely need mentoring.

Our TFs have a 10% workload allowance for pedagogic research to support their teaching.

That's interesting. My boss has encouraged me to get HEA fellowship which I've done & to go to education research meetings which I did a bit, but to be honest, after teaching in schools for many years I found the general approach to educational research at my uni to be quite reductionist and not really worth my time (!) I didn't say that obviously, but perhaps I should start going to the meetings again.

I'm in a new TF post - we're expected to also do research (in subject not about teaching) but I have the option to write instead as that is what I had been doing. I'm thinking about a research project - of course the whole point is TFs don't have research funding so it's tricky and as yet I haven't committed to one and I might not and just do more writing instead. I think it varies a lot at different universities as TFs are becoming more common. I don't think it's necessarily required but where I am - I would be the only TF not also researching which is partly why I'm thinking about it (so like you feel it's an expectation).

HEA has not come up here yet (has before elsewhere - I should have got it done then...) and frankly I'm hoping to dodge it.

On a teaching only contract without a phd, I don't see why you would be expected to do research, to what end?

In many subjects a PhD is an essential requirement for a TF role.

@Acinonyx2 HEA is just a long essay about why you are a good teacher & persuading a couple of people to write an extended reference so once you get going its not too onerous. Can I ask - at your university is the expectation to do research explicit - does your line manager tell you you should be doing research etc?
I do feel like it would benefit my standing as a lecturer to be either doing something practical in my subject or to be doing research, but I don't really have time to take on another job in the area and I'm a bit stumped about the whole process of doing research (and don't really have time for it either as I'm constantly being given new modules to write and deliver, often in areas that are mostly new to me & that takes up a lot of brain space.)

@SavingsThreads - that's sort of what I've been thinking about it - I don't have a PhD, the department is not in the REF etc. I suppose it would look good if everyone was publishing anyway?

To be honest I think I was employed for my teaching abilities, which are strong, but that was by a different set of management aiming to fix a different reputational problem. I also come from a very different background to most of the academic type people so I'm left wondering if there are things they just 'know' that I don't.

Exactly @GCAcademic

Our TFs have 0 research time

I'm not sure anyone here can tell you. Why don't you have a quick chat with your line manager?

That you were hired without a PhD, and to a non-REFable department, would suggest to me that you’re not expected to do research, i.e. to be publishing in your area of particular expertise. In our department TFs must have a PhD and are allocated some time for their research, which is not pedagogic research but their own projects (I’m in a humanities subject). But as others have said, ask your line manager about it.

It depends on your contract. My nephew is a teaching fellow with PhD and insists he does not have to do research. However I think it is a short sighted approach to an academic career. I would think career wise you need to be working towards a PhD

Like others said above, in my uni teaching fellows also have 10% of their time for "scholarship". This could be either scholarship of learning and teaching or subject-specific research, as long as there is some kind of link with the teaching that you do.
I also join in with others who have advised to check your contract. However, I think there can also be lots of expectations sometimes that are not clearly articulated and as such are quite dishonest. In the last year I have seen a few posts being advertised in a specific sub-area within my field, which are 2 or 3 days a week, teaching only with no research duties - but then reading the ad there's an expectation that the teaching will be "research-led", so I imagine they mean that you conduct your research (unpaid) in your free days. In RG Humanities, which is what I am, I don't think that doing a PhD and then a get a teaching-focused position and not doing research ever again isn't a viable career option anymore, unless you are happy to do hourly paid teaching only. However, I understand that in other disciplines/other kinds of institution there might be a need to cover large amounts of teaching that doesn't necessarily will be research-led.

What's in your contract?

At my place we have posts which are labelled as "Education" rather than Education & research, with no allowance for research, except for research related to their teaching. We only have a few, for very specific practical-based subjects, because really, it's hard to provide cutting edge teaching if you don't do original research. I'm in the humanities, and we offer research-led teaching particularly in optional modules in Years 2 and 3..

If you don't have a PhD, the basic training in academic research, then that should be your first step. I'd think that maybe you won't be offered the specialist or research-led teaching, but otherwise, if you're doing a proper load (which should be at least a third more than someone on a standard academic contract), you'll be mostly teaching, with a bit of teaching-related research.

In the usual run of things, a Teaching Fellowship is a fixed-term contract to plug gaps in a department - maybe to cover someone bought out on a research grant, or to cover a maternity leave. They are usually done by people starting out in their academic careers, immediately after completing their PhD. It's a great way to start a career, as you really get to grips with doing a range of teaching. I learnt my job by doing a TF - although mine ran alongside doing my PhD.

We have a teaching-focussed career track that goes right up to Professor. People on that are explicitly expected to also conduct and publish research.

It is written in their job description that they should be able to undertake independent research to inform their teaching, although they are not necessarily expected to be REF-able. They are supposed to have a 10% workload allocation for research and it is explicit in the promotions criteria that people cannot progress up the teaching-focussed career track without meeting a set of research-related requirements appropriate to their level.

It is different for people who are on hourly-paid or other short-term, fractional teaching contracts.

Thanks all, for this. It does make my position a bit clearer to me. I was originally employed fixed term to fill teaching for someone who left to do a PhD and my contract hours were based on others in the department who are hourly paid. I'm now on an open ended contract, but funding is likely to dry up I think. My contract has no time allocated for research or scholarship and doesn't specify doing research. I obviously have to do a lot of reading to keep up with the field which is broad & multi disciplinary. I don't think research focused teaching would be appropriate in the case of our department as we are an add on to many different degrees (humanities add on to a range of STEM degrees) so the whole area is new to students initially. If I did do any research it would likely fill half a lecture within a much broader scheme of work.
Thanks again, it's really interesting to hear what other places do.

I'm on the education track. I was hired from industry because of my professional skills and qualifications, I have no academic background. As part of my contract I'm undertaking a PhD and so have a 40% research allocation (it's bloody tough, do not recommend). Typically here, those on the education track have a 10-20% allocation for scholarship of teaching and learning. This doesn't have to be to the level of peer reviewed academic research and can constitute pieces in professional magazines etc.

Given your background, I bet you could run a couple of workshops on techniques from school classrooms that work well at university level, how to tweak for the different learning expectations etc. That would look good.

@neverendinglauaundry it was mentioned at interview and I said I'd probably opt to continue writing without further empirical research. Hasn't been mentioned since but it's very clear that it would be helpful. Our TFs are all PhDs and many are biding their time to get a more research-oriented post (I think I'm past that point). I'm a bit ambivalent as term time is pretty frantic as it is. It doesn't sound to me like you are expected to do subject research - but as suggested - something education-oriented would probably be good. I've also taught 6th form and there's a lot of good classroom practice that could be brought into higher ed in the trend away from the 'sage on the stage'. (Although the move towards global lecture recordings is actually a limitation on that.)

No doubt I will suck up the HEA thing if it's put to me.

What contract are you on teaching and scholarship or teaching and research? It matters.

@JenniferBarkley That is a good idea & something that would be well within my comfort zone, thank you. I have contributed similar to staff meetings, but could float it higher up.
@pompomdaisy Its a 'learning and teaching' contract

I think what I'm trying to weigh up is do I want the job enough to start doing unpaid research from scratch or to do a PhD which I likely wouldn't finish until I was in my 50s. Really, I think you need to have a real passion to do that and my passion is more for teaching and learning (both my own learning and the students).
The other option is keep my head down and hope funding for my job continues and that it actually is alright to just do the work given. Several people have said the TF job is stepping stone job for those who want a more research focused career & that does seem to be a thing where I am in other departments, but our dept is a bit of a cinderella and I've realised it is a bit odd in a lot of ways.

If you decide to do a PhD I would definitely do something heavily pedagogical. But it's a big undertaking, I'm not even though differentiation and regretting it in truth.

Do you have access to job profiles for teaching fellows, is there a promotion track? That would give you an idea of what's expected.

I'm on a 100% teaching only contract, that was meant to just be teaching cover for someone on research leave (then added a load of extra, completely unrelated to the advertised specialism, teaching on top).

My last teaching 'only' contract had 10% research time (and a hell of a lot less work overall! That 10% research assumption really changed the nature of the post) and I was expected to (and did) engage in international level research.

So the nature of your job will make a big difference to what you are expected to do, and just plain can get done.

In my current contract there is no expectation that I will have any time to do research, and it's sadly true that I don't. I barely have time to think about anything to be fair.

But I am also aware that this makes me unemployable in (my area of) academia after this post. So, I don't really have any advice, but I guess just wanted to reassure that teaching only can really mean teaching only for that post. Colleagues who don't have teaching only contracts rarely realise how demanding they can be, so can be surprised at a lack of publications. And where it leaves you for the future is sadly a whole other ball game.

I was just thinking about this - I'm on a 10% type contract. So if our taught masters spend about 6 months on a project - that would take me 5 years. A full M project - 10 years - and a PhD (if I didn't have one) - 30 years! Yikes! That's a bit depressing. Realistically it can only work if you add in A LOT of your own extra time. I'm just planning the research component and trying to make the time schedule realistic yet still do something sufficiently substantial. Very tricky.

@DinkBoo yes, I think that's what I'm realizing - any job I want to go for after this one would expect publications but the contract and amount of teaching I do doesn't require it or leave time for me to do it.
I'd be happy staying in this job and doing it well but it does leave me vulnerable to layoffs.
Just the thought of another career change is tiring!

@neverendinglauaundry it's exhausting isn't it! If you get to repeat modules enough that prep becomes minimal than it does get a lot easier to get some research done, but it's just not possible to keep up with peers who are doing no, or a couple of hours a week teaching.

I'm currently enjoying the precarity head wreck of being so knackered I can't wait for this contract to end, whilst realising that means no job, no money and no purpose which I really dont want.

Add in strikes potentially making a massive hole in the little months I have left to make decent money and it is a real joy right now ;-)