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What is TAR?
What is TAR?
Teaching-as-Research (TAR) is a reflective teaching cycle that begins with addressing a student learning challenge or interest. Participants design a small-scale, classroom-based study to see if they can improve student learning outcomes or experiences using a small teaching intervention. They collect data to evaluate their intervention's effectiveness, analyze the data, and reflect on how what they learned can inform their future teaching. The process is designed to model the kind of inquiry- or curiosity-based approach to teaching that is centered on students and their learning.
TAR is one of the signature programs in the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL@Arizona). See the video to the right to hear from fellow CIRTL institution Texas A&M's graduate students about what interested them in TAR as future faculty members.
The TAR inquiry cycle
The TAR inquiry cycle
On this website, you will find various projects conducted by graduate students around the University of Arizona. The main goal of the TAR project is to pick a learning outcome that students are curious about and find a means to study that outcome.
On the left, you will see the TAR inquiry cycle that students progress through during the semester. Students follow this cycle, week by week, as they go through their project development, implementation, analysis, and reflection.
Meet the facilitators
Meet the facilitators
This is a list of all faculty who have previously taught this course or contributed in a significant way to its design or ongoing improvement. We are grateful to each one of these wonderful faculty members for their knowledge, expertise, and mentorship of our TAR participants!
Dr. Kristin Winet
Dr. Kristin Winet
Dr. Kristin Winet is an Associate Professor of Practice in the University Center for Assessment, Teaching, and Technology (UCATT) and the Institutional Co-Lead (along with Dr. Elfring below) for CIRTL@Arizona. In addition to starting the TAR program with Dr. Hempel, she facilitates and teaches in the CIRTL Postdoc Pathways Program, teaches in the Graduate Interdisciplinary Program (GIDP) in College Teaching, and researches best practices in mentorship, co-teaching, and how fostering relationships among learners creates stronger and more resilient communities of practice.
Dr. Byron Hempel
Dr. Byron Hempel
Dr. Byron Hempel received his PhD in Environmental Engineering at the University of Arizona in 2019, having received his B.S. in Chemistry at the University of Kentucky in 2014 and Masters in the Chemical and Environmental Engineering Department at the University of Arizona in 2017. Working under Dr. Paul Blowers, his focus was on improving the classroom environment in higher education by working in the active classroom by using evidence-based teaching practices to improve student learning. This semester, he loves to rock climb, plays on the "Fierce Price" co-ed soccer team, and enjoys acro yoga. Dr. Hempel helped design and teach the first iterations of this course.
Dr. Lisa Elfring
Dr. Lisa Elfring
Dr. Lisa Elfring is the Vice Provost for Assessment, Teaching, and Technology. In this role, she collaborates with university leaders, instructors, academic staff, and students to promote excellent, evidence-based, learning experiences and assessment of learning outcomes. She co-leads the University Center for Assessment, Teaching, and Technology (UCATT), the university’s comprehensive teaching and learning center. In her faculty role, she is a specialist in biology education in the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and a professor in the BIO5 Institute.
Dr. Erin Galyen
Dr. Erin Galyen
Dr. Erin Galyen is a Professor of Practice with the University Center for Assessment, Teaching, and Technology and the Co-Coordinator of the College Teaching GIDP program. Her responsibilities include teaching and administrative support. She also provides general teaching support services, such as instructional workshops and mini-courses, observations, focus groups, and individual consulting to instructors. Her scholarship has focused on college teaching professional development, science teaching and learning, and quantitative reasoning across the curriculum.
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