Scholarship of Teaching: An Introduction

BioQUEST Workshop 2007

Exploratory Evolution Education

Margaret Waterman June 11, 2007

SoTL Fellows Program At Southeast Missouri State Unversity

Teaching in a Scholarly Fashion

vs.Scholarship of Teaching

Teaching Scholarly: thoughtful deliberation about the teaching / learning process

Scholarly Teaching: using research findings to made pedagogical decisions

The Action Research Cycle

Identify Innovation

Gather Data

Analyze DataInterpret Data

Develop Action PlanDesign the Study

Be thinking about the following questions DESIGN From whom are you gathering data? When will you gather data?

METHODS How will you gather data? Where will you gather data?

Linking Study Design and Methods

Suppose the design is on one class (the who), pre and post test (the when)

How and where the data will be gathered are METHODS questions.

Pretest Do new thing Post test

Action Research Often Uses These Kinds of Methods to Gather Data

Surveys

Observations

Interviews

Artifact Analysis

Three Ways to Gather Data

Make observations of behaviors

Ask questions

Examine and Score Artifacts

ObservationsMethods:

Use a class map to keep track of who asks questions, answers questions, makes comments, where students go to get resources.

Make an audio or video recording of class discussion, Analyze for types of questions asked and student responses.

Goals

Understand discussion dynamics/ resource use.

Find out patterns of questions and effects of questions.

Methods: Questioning with Surveys Examples:

A survey of attitudes toward science

Rankings of importance of course elements

Student ratings of instruction

May include open-ended questions, e.g., what element of this course most helped you to learn?

May include some content, but if it is only about content, it’s a test (an artifact of the course).

Methods: Questioning with Interviews Advantage over surveys: can ask follow-ups,

more personal contact. Disadvantage: need to be consistent, go

through training and pilot process. Examples:

Sort readings by usefulness, giving reasons Solve a genetics problem aloud, explaining

thinking A focus group interview Interview of team members in small groups

Sample from Interview

Method: Examine and Score Artifacts Examples of artifacts:

Diagrams of cells before and after instruction Wear on computer keys to see which are hit most Answers to a test question Term papers Analyses of scientific papers Case analyses Research proposals

Methods: Artifact Analysis

Decide what you kinds of materials you want to collect

Justify why the artifact you are choosing is a good choice given your research question

Create a scoring rubric (guide) to assign points

Good for pre-post designs

A KEY TO SUCCESS: Pilot Test Your Instruments

Give a small group of people (not in your class if you can) your survey or interview

Collect sample artifacts to see if your grading scheme works

Try out your observation scheme to see if it needs to be tweaked.

Other Keys to Success

Talk about your design and instruments with Teaching Associates, SoTL Fellows, other colleagues.

Keep your data collection focused. Try to keep the project reasonable in scope

for the time you have available.

To create your own plans answer the questions below: From whom are you gathering data?

More than one class, subgroups? When will you gather data?

First week of classes? After the new thing has been introduced? Fall? Spring?

How will you gather data?Questions, artifacts, observations?

Where will you gather data?Classroom, online forum, dropbox survey?

Human Subjects

Because SoTL is work with humans, researchers must submit a Human Subjects form to their college.

Most projects are Category I - what one might do in the normal course of teaching.

The ways data will be collected and how individual privacy will need to be described.

It is not necessary to get student permission in most cases.

OK, I’ve got a project, now what? Present it!

http://www.sotl.ilstu.edu/sotlConf/ Examples for 2007

September 3-5 15th Improving Student Learning Symposium"Improving Student Learning – For What?"Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland, UKhttp://www.brookes.ac.uk/services/ocsld/isl/isl2007/

October 11-13 International Society for Exploring Teaching and LearningSheraton Atlanta Hotel, Atlanta, GA http://www.isetl.org/

November 15-18 International Lilly Conference on College TeachingMiami University, Oxford, OHhttp://www.muohio.edu/lillycon/http://www.muohio.edu/lillycon/

And Then What? Publish It!! http://www.sotl.ilstu.edu/pubOuts/index.shtml or

http://www.indiana.edu/%7Esotl/bandj.html for sample lists.

Academic Commons: online Electronic Journal on Excellence in College

Teaching International J. of Teaching and Learning in

Higher Ed

Discipline-specific Publications for SoTL American Biology Teacher

Bioscene: The Journal of College Biology Teaching  *Cell Biology Education-Life Sciences Education

Journal of College Science Teaching

Journal of Microbiology and Biology Education

Research in Collegiate Mathematics Education

College Mathematics Journal 

Learn More about SoTL Some universities and organizations have

support for SoTL (also see your professional organization’s web sites)

http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/archive/cl1/ National Center for Science Education

Illinois State University http://www.sotl.ilstu.edu/sotlConf/

Indiana University, Bloomington http://www.indiana.edu/%7Esotl/index.shtml