CTCH 604 Chapter I & II: SoTL

1. CTCH 604Chapter I & II: SoTL Responders: Gao, Jay and Dean

2. Three Concepts of Teaching (p. 9) • Good Teaching: • Promotes student learning and other desired student outcomes. • Support department, college and institutional missions and objectives. • Scholarly Teaching: • Involves taking a scholarly approach to teaching. • Scholarly teachers view teaching as a profession and the knowledge base on teaching and learning as a second discipline in which to develop expertise.

3. Three Concepts… • Scholarly teachers use classroom assessment techniques, discuss teaching issues with colleagues, try new things and read and apply the literature on teach and learning in their discipline – it is closely linked to reflective practice. • SoTL: • Goes beyond scholarly teaching. • Involves systematic study of teaching and/or learning and the public sharing and review of such work through presentations, publications or performance. • Focuses on teaching and learning at the college level, and is primarily classroom and disciplinary based.

4. Personal Comments about these 3 Concepts • In NOVA, it would be very difficult to use the last two concepts: scholarly teaching and SoTL. In my classrooms, I often get a few students, who didn’t graduate from High schools, but only got GED’s. Some of these students didn’t know how to do mathematical multiplication or division properly, so I had to spend some of the valuable class-time to go over these basics before the real materials. • Some of the classes require prerequisites and students just somehow ignore these. Without these students, we wouldn’t be able to meet the class quota to have a class, so I have to spend a lot valuable class-time to go over the prerequisites.

5. Cont… • In some of my classes, there are some handicapped students, whom, by rules, I have to give 2 times more than normal students. Sometimes, I have to go over all the materials for those students, and these certainly take all and some cases more than my office hours. • NOVA full time teachers in my department are very overwhelmed. Because of the budget cuts in the last several years, each teacher would have to teach more than their share. How would they find time to do scholarly teach or SoTLwhen they can barely find the time to rest?

6. Comparison between SoTL and Assessment (p. 11) • SoTL • Is public mostly. • To be widely shared with an external audience. • Very much discipline based though. • Occurs primarily at the classroom/course or program levels. • Must have Institutional Review Board review at some level due to the intent to make the work public via presentations. • Assessment • Primarily for internal use • Very limited for external use. • May have either disciplinary or broader focus. • Occurs at classroom, course, program/department, college, and institution levels. • Do not have Institutional Review Board.

7. Functions of SoTL (p. 13) • Can serve many functions for disciplines, departments and institutions, faculty, staff, and students. • Improve student learning. • Use the process to do following: • Help with classroom and program assessment efforts • Use in program review and accreditation • Revitalize some senior faculty members • Strengthen faculty development efforts • Involve new networks and partnerships among faculty, staff, and students

8. Functions… • Strengthen K12-higher education connections • Provide research opportunities for students • Bring in outside funding • Add publications, presentations, and performances to faculty accomplishments • Improve refection on teaching and learning • Become involved in a national/international higher education initiative • Strengthen budget requests for operational or personnel funds • Broaden graduate student training and preparing future faculty • Increase faculty credentials for major internal and external teaching awards. • Demonstrate to faculty job candidates that you value teaching.

9. Tangible Values & Benefits of SoTLCollected from a Survey (p. 18) • 83% agreed or strongly agreed that those who do SoTL in their discipline make a valuable contribution to the college and profession. • 93% believed that being aware of SoTL in the discipline is important for good teaching. • 60% agreed/strongly agreed that faculty who do SoTL are valued and supported. • 52% agreed/strongly agreed that their institution have broadened the criteria for evaluating teaching in accordance with the idea of SoTL.

10. Personal Comments about SoTL • I have no doubts about the real benefits and values of SoTL. But to implement SoTL successfully, I believe we need to have a top down approach. The senior management needs to provide guidance, direction, time and money to encourage middle management to do SoTL. The middle management needs to consistently push the teachers/professors and constantly make SoTL available for everyone to join – staff and students. Teachers/professors need to be trained properly to implement SoTL. This requires three-tier approach to be successful.