Co-Learning: Re-linking Research and Teaching in Geography

Abstract

What might geography in 'the universities' look like if geographers seriously confronted the growing dichotomy between research and teaching? This challenge goes to the heart of 'the university' as a site of learning. The authors argue that the globalizing character of higher education gives urgency to re-charting the university as an environment that prioritizes co-learning as the basis for organizing educational activities in geography and potentially beyond discipline boundaries. By co-learning is meant systematic approaches to maximizing the synergies between research and teaching activities to capitalize on prior learning and experiences of all involved. The authors' argument is that feedback gained through co-learning will reshape the nature and quality of both research and teaching environments as we know them. Four methodological framings of co-learning, derived from established practice in geography, are presented, to highlight possible directions of development that are especially strategic in the current context of globalizing higher education. It is suggested that with strategies that explicitly maximize co-learning, the development of geography could occur in distinctive ways that would not happen if research and teaching were progressed in isolation.