2005_vprdoc PSpreads2.qxp - University of Akron

Most professors will tell you that teaching is
learning. For Dr. Francis S. Broadway, teaching and learning
seem to be compounding themselves. Broadway, an associate
professor of education in the Department of Curricular and
Instructional Studies, has found that he also continues to be
somewhat of a student as well.
Lately that compounding factor has become even more evident
as Broadway’s research has led him to work with The University
of Akron chemical engineering faculty. For the last three years or
so, he’s been part of a design project that looks at learning about
engineering and teams.
“That work is really fun because I’m working with engineers in
that field,” Broadway says. “I’m not very much of a chemical
engineer, but I’m learning.” Not just because he wants to, but
because he has to. Broadway’s specialty is science education.
“These days, science evolves more quickly than life itself. You
have to keep up.”
With that in mind, Broadway makes sure to incorporate his
research into his teaching, particularly at the graduate level,
though he says he’s begun to do that in undergraduate courses
as well. “My approach to doing research is it’s a way of teaching
and a way of learning,” he says. “In science education, probably
the most popular buzzword right now is ‘inquiry-based
instruction.’ I’m a proponent of open-inquiry: having to pose
questions through structure.”
Broadway likens research to learning to walk, an analogy he
shares with his students. Children, after all, begin learning before
they ever attend a school. They learn to walk, as Broadway
explains it, “without a syllabus saying a certain thing will happen
on a certain day. “They finally learn how to walk,” he adds. “I
find what I get to do is, ask the questions without knowing the
answers. I get to develop
the answers I already
have; to add to the
knowledge base without
simply rehashing it.”
Broadway
Broadway is among the few science
educators using queer theory and critical race
theory as frameworks for understanding
science teaching in the instruction of learning.
With the “No Child Left Behind” policies
mandating more work on reading and
mathematics, Broadway’s goal has been to
incorporate those skill areas into science
classes. “I have to find some way of taking
science teachers and get them to integrate
instruction,” he says. “So, I have decided to
look at science instruction and reading and
how they complement each other, or don’t.”
The ultimate goal is to have primary and early
childhood teachers really understand how to
do quality science instruction and have quality
reading instruction built in. Broadway’s hope
is to create a research base that says that
quality science instruction does demand
quality reading instruction.
Broadway likes to incorporate his students in
his research — for their benefit, not his. He
has found that the more students are involved
in research, the more they will use research
when they finish their educations. “I really like
to have them involved in quality research,” he says.
“I would say what I like the most about working with students in
terms of research is that it gets back to very close to innate
learning,” Broadway says. “As a teacher educator who’s trying
to teach people how to teach, I want people who want to learn.
Research allows me to actually show students how to inquire.”
Halasa
Freeman
Ph.D. candidates Katrina Halasa and
Ramona Freeman have had the benefit of
forging an unparalleled learning
environment with their research adviser,
Dr. Francis Broadway, particularly in this
critical time when they are cutting their
own research teeth.
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“He thinks of you as a colleague,”
says Halasa. I think the thing with
Dr. Broadway is he’s willing to show you
the ropes of how to be a successful
researcher, how to network, how to build
yourself a solid line as a researching
individual, to take you to the next step
from the classroom.”
And it’s in the classroom, says Halasa,
where Broadway encourages his students
to do their research. “We need to do
more classroom research,” she says. “He
helped push me in a different direction
so my classroom work could cross over
into the research.”
From Freeman’s point of view, Broadway’s
instruction is at its best when he
encourages his students to think on their