Catalyzing Teaching: The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning SoTL

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Catalyzing TeachingThe Scholarship of Teaching
and Learning (SoTL)

• Regan A. R. Gurung
• A Brief Introduction adapted from a talk given at
  the 2006 American Psychological Association.

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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.

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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).

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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.

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

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Getting Starting

• Whats my question?
• Whats been done?
• Whats missing?
• Replicate or Innovate?
• Design, Conduct, Assess.
• Implement
• Share

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The Big Picture
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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

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Challenges - Definitions

• What is good teaching?
• What is learning?
• Exam scores
• Perceptions
• Applications

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Major Measures

• Learning
• Enjoyment
• Perceived learning
• Actual learning
• Multiple choice
• Essays
• Teaching course evaluations

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Basic Design
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Up a Notch
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Up another notch Pre-Post
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Experiments
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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)

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• The teaching and learning that happens in our
  classrooms is often more qualitative that
  quantitative.
• When we study people inside their own culture, we
  dont try and generalize from a large population.
  We dont look for what is replicable, reliable,
  or statistically valid. Rather we look for
  whats singular, particular and unique.
• (Chiseri-Strater Sunstein, 2006, pp.21).

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Challenges

• Time
• Coercion
• Observer effect
• Students as lab rats
• Randomization

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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

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What Do You Do With It?
Share it with colleagues, publish it, or just use
it to teach better.
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Sharing can be Informal The KEEP Toolkit
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Conclusions

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