Catalyzing Teaching: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL)

1. Catalyzing Teaching:The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Regan A. R. Gurung A Brief Introduction adapted from a talk given at the 2006 American Psychological Association.

2. The Study of Teaching • Teaching Research • Action Research • Scholarly Teaching • Informed teaching • Scholarship of Teaching and Learning • bring to teaching the recognition and reward afforded to other forms of scholarly work.

3. The Basic Idea • Teacher-researchers raise questions about what they think and observe about their teaching and their students' learning. • …, they also see student work as data to analyze in order to examine the teaching and learning that produced it" • Maclean & Mohr (1999).

4. Basic Definitions • Scholarly Teaching- Teaching that entails certain practices of classroom assessment and evidence gathering; teaching that is informed not only by the latest ideas in the field but by current ideas about teaching generally and specifically in the field; and teaching that invites peer collaboration or review. (Indiana University Bloomington SoTL tutorial). • Scholarship of Teaching-Work on teaching that is public, is critically peer reviewed and evaluated, and used and on by colleagues.

5. A Teaching Hierarchy: Where are YOU? SoTL Scholarly Teaching TEACHING Going Through Motions

6. WHY Do SoTL? • Solve mysteries • Understand • Gain perspective • Inform the Public/Administration • CATALYZE your teaching • Implicit indicator of teaching focus • Involve students in their own learning

7. Getting Starting • What’s my question? • What’s been done? • What’s missing? • Replicate or Innovate? • Design, Conduct, Assess. • Implement • Share

8. The Big Picture

9. What Do I Focus On? • Someone teaches Something to Someone else Somewhere (Schwab, 1973) • Teacher • Scrutinize your assignments • Evaluate your interactions • Material • Textbook evaluations • Lesson study assessments • Students • How do students study? • Context • PICK ONE OF THE ABOVE

10. Challenges - Definitions • What is good teaching? • What is learning? • Exam scores • Perceptions • Applications

11. Major Measures • Learning • Enjoyment • Perceived learning • Actual learning • Multiple choice • Essays • Teaching course evaluations

13. Basic Design

14. Up a Notch

15. Up another notch: Pre-Post

16. Experiments

17. Remember to check if: • You have measured correctly (construct validity) • You have factored in all possible influences (internal validity) • Generalizable (external validity)? • SoTL does not subscribe to the same rules….(see next slide)

18. The teaching and learning that happens in our classrooms is often more qualitative that quantitative. When we study people inside their own culture, we don’t try and generalize from a large population. We don’t look for what is replicable, reliable, or statistically valid. Rather we look for what’s singular, particular and unique. (Chiseri-Strater & Sunstein, 2006, pp.21).

19. Challenges • Time • Coercion • Observer effect • ‘Students as lab rats’ • Randomization

20. Teacher Research is Unique It uses Naturally occurring groups • No random assignment • No comparison group • Use same test items over consecutive years • Use similar test items over time • Compare across different instructors • No random sampling • entire sample used • No pretest • Control key factors

21. What Do You Do With It? Share it with colleagues, publish it, or just use it to teach better.

22. Sharing can be Informal: The KEEP Toolkit

23. Teacher research/SoTL is pragmatic pedagogy Scrutinizing your teaching and student learning can be invigorating Conclusions