Scholarship of Teaching: An Introduction

1. SoTL Fellows Program At Southeast Missouri State Unversity Scholarship of Teaching: An Introduction BioQUEST Workshop 2007 Exploratory Evolution Education Margaret Waterman June 11, 2007

2. Teaching in a Scholarly Fashionvs.Scholarship of Teaching • Teaching Scholarly:thoughtful deliberation about the teaching / learning process • Scholarly Teaching:using research findings to made pedagogical decisions

3. The Action Research Cycle Identify Innovation Design the Study Develop Action Plan Gather Data Interpret Data Analyze Data

4. 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?

5. Linking Study Design and Methods Suppose the design is on one class (the who), pre and post test (the when) Pretest Do new thing Post test How and where the data will be gathered are METHODS questions.

6. Action Research Often Uses These Kinds of Methods to Gather Data Observations Surveys Interviews Artifact Analysis

7. Three Ways to Gather Data • Make observations of behaviors • Ask questions • Examine and Score Artifacts

8. Observations Goals Understand discussion dynamics/ resource use. Find out patterns of questions and effects of questions. Methods: 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.

9. 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).

10. 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

11. Sample from Interview

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. 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?

17. 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.

18. 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/

19. And Then What? • Publish It!! • http://www.sotl.ilstu.edu/pubOuts/index.shtmlor 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

20. 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

21. 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