The College Classroom Wi16 Meeting 8: Teaching as Research

The College Classroom Meeting 8:

Teaching as Research

February 23 and 25, 2016

Unless otherwise noted, content is licensed under

a Creative Commons Attribution- 3.0 License.

Peter Newbury

Center for Engaged Teaching, UC San Diego

[email protected]

collegeclassroom.ucsd.edu

Morning vs. Afternoon

Teaching as research - collegeclassroom.ucsd.edu 2

An instructor thinks the time-of-day affects student

learning. In the Fall Quarter, he teaches at 9:00 am. In the

Winter Quarter, he teaches the same course at 1:00 pm.

He uses the same final exam for both courses.

To test his hypothesis, he’ll compare the final grades of the

Fall and Winter classes.

Take a few minutes to discuss this with your group. Is it a good experiment?

When you’re the instructor, is it something you would do? could do? should do?

3

Scholarly

Teaching

Evaluate document observations summarize evaluation

Deliver deliver learning experiences * assess

learning outcomes * conduct observations

Design formulate big questions * identify learning

outcomes * plan assessment * design learning experiences

Adapted from Gabriele Wienhausen

Teaching as research - collegeclassroom.ucsd.edu

4

Scholarly

Teaching

Study identify key issues * analyze and synthesize

results * put results in context * solicit peer review * publish, present, disseminate






Scholarship

of

Teaching

and

Learning

(SoTL)



5

Scholarly

Teaching

Study identify key issues * analyze and synthesize

results * put results in context * solicit peer review * publish, present, disseminate






Scholarship

of

Teaching

and

Learning

(SoTL)



Teaching as Research (TAR)

Teaching as research

collegeclassroom.ucsd.edu 6

At the core of improving teaching and learning is the need

to accurately determine what students have learned as a result of

teaching practices. This is a research problem, to which instructors

can effectively apply their research skills and ways of knowing. In

so doing, instructors themselves become the agents for change in

teaching and learning.

Teaching-as-Research involves the deliberate, systematic,

and reflective use of research methods to develop and implement

teaching practices that advance the learning experiences and

outcomes of students and teachers.

CIRTL Network [1]

Note: CIRTL’s description of TAR describes STEM instructors teaching STEM

courses. I removed “STEM” because the description can be applied to all disciplines.

Categories of Educational Research[2]


Theoretical research

Action or practitioner research

Evaluative Experimental

'Cause and effect' research

Case study

Systematic review Exploratory

Comparative

Grounded theory

Ethnography

The Effect of Interactive Instruction[3]


1 2

3 4

What is the value of course-specific learning goals?[4]


Research informs the

instructors about

how students are

responding

what’s working (or not)

what to use again (or

not)

Helps instructors become

better educators.


Active learning increases student performance

in science, engineering and mathematics[5]

established active learning

has positive impact on

learning

advances field of education

research: no need to

continue to replicate study

(in STEM)

Your education research posts


What can you study?


Students’ knowledge and skills

what are students able to do now that they couldn’t do

before taking the course?

are students thinking more like experts?

Students’ attitudes

what are they initially?

how did they change after you did X?

Depth of knowledge


A professor wants to find out the depth of his students’

knowledge. He classifies each question on the final exam as

basic, intermediate, or advanced.

After the exam, he’ll look at the students’ success rates on

the 3 levels of questions.



PowerPoint or Video?


A professor wants to determine which is better for

supporting a flipped class: PowerPoint slides or video.

In a certain week, students whose last names begin A – L

read through PowerPoint slides before class; students

whose last names begin M – Z watch a video of the

instructor going over the PowerPoint slides. He’ll compare

their performance on the exam questions related to that

week’s material.



Human Subjects Research[6]


a living individual about whom an investigator conducting

research obtains

1. data through intervention or interaction with the

individual, or

2. identifiable private information

Human Subjects Research[6]


a systematic investigation, including research development,

testing, and evaluate, designed to develop or contribute to

generalizable knowledge

a living individual about whom an investigator conducting

research obtains

1. data through intervention or interaction with the

individual, or

2. identifiable private information

Ethical principles for research involving

human subjects (Belmont Report[7])


1. Respect for Persons

Individuals should be treated as autonomous agents and

people with diminished autonomy are entitled to

protection.

This mean the person involved must be capable or

making an informed decision on whether or not to

participate.




2. Beneficence

Persons are treated in an ethical manner not only by

respecting their decisions and protecting them from

harm, but also by making efforts to secure their well-

being. Actions must

do no harm

maximize possible benefits and minimize possible

harms




3. Justice

Who ought to receive the benefits of research and bear

its burdens?

An injustice occurs when some benefit to which a

person is entitled is denied without good reason or

when some burden is imposed unduly.

Teaching as Research Scenarios


With others in your group, try to determine

1. Is it (interesting) research?

2. Does the method uphold the ethical principles of

respect for persons, beneficence, and justice?

3. If not, are there ways to revise the research question

and/or the experimental design so the research can

proceed?

Gender and Math


A professor knows there is a belief that women aren’t as

good at math as men. He wants to demonstrate women do

as well as, if not better than, men in math. On the final

exam, men are instructed to solve a certain problem,

women are instructed to solve a different, slightly harder

problem. The professor will compare the men’s and

women’s scores on their problems.

1. (interesting) research

2. respect, beneficence, justice

3. revise research question and/or design

Recognizing students’ diversity


An instructor recognizes he has a diverse class and wants to

figure out how to adjust his teaching to support each

student. He asks students to complete a background survey

giving their gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation,

first language, and whether or not they are the first in their

family to go to college. At the end of the Quarter, he’ll

look for correlations with their final grades.

1. (interesting) research

2. respect, beneficence, justice

3. revise research question and/or design

If you suspect your research could involve 1. or 2.,

you might need to apply for IRB approval or an

exemption from IRB review.

Humans are involved in TAR


Mission of the Institutional Review Board (IRB):

1. Protection of human subjects from physical harm.

2. Protection of your students’ privacy and students’ success.

UCSD IRB grants exemptions to…


(1) Research conducted in established or commonly accepted educational

settings, involving normal educational practices, such as (i) research on

regular and special education instructional strategies, or (ii) research on

the effectiveness of or the comparison among instructional techniques,

curricula, or classroom management methods. [8]

Things a scholarly, reflective instructor

might and should do anyway.

Summer Graduate Teaching Scholars


You’ll have an opportunity to design, execute, and analyze a teaching-as-research project in your course.

Teaching for the first time can be extremely busy so the Center for Engaged Teaching will support you via

Education Research coordinator to help you make it happen in your class with your students, your context

CIRTL Associate Practitioner Scholar

guidance on how to expand study to the level you could present at your discipline’s annual meeting (and receive CIRTL Associate Practitioner Scholar)

References


1. Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching and Learning (2010) Teaching as Research.

www.cirtl.net/CoreIdeas/teaching_as_research

2. Lambert, M. (2012). A Beginner's Guide to Doing Your Education Research Project. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE

Publications Inc. via Tomorrow’s Professor cgi.stanford.edu/~dept-ctl/tomprof/posting.php?ID=1233

3. Prather, E.E, Rudolph, A.L., Brissenden, G., & Schlingman, W.M. (2009). A national study assessing the teaching and

learning of introductory astronomy. Part I. The effect of interactive instruction. Am. J. Phys. 77, 4, 320-330.

4. Simon, B., & Taylor, J. (2009). What is the Value of Course-Specific Learning Goals? J. College Science Teaching, 39, 2,

52-57.

5. Freeman, S., Eddy, S.L. McDonough, M., Smith, M., Okoroafor, N., Jordt,. H. & Wenderoth, M.P. (2014) Active

learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. PNAS 111, 23, 8410–8415.

6. Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative, Module 2 “Students in Research” (CITI) citiprogram.org

7. Belmont Report (1979). The Belmont Report: Ethical principles and guidelines for the protection of human subjects of

research.

8. Exemption from IRB Review, UCSD Human Research Protections Program, retrieved from

irb.ucsd.edu/Exempt_forms.shtml 24/2/ 2014.

The College Classroom Wi16 Meeting 8: Teaching as Research

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Transcript of The College Classroom Wi16 Meeting 8: Teaching as Research