The Disciplinary Commons

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The Disciplinary Commons

• Sally Fincher
• London SoTL 6th Annual International Conference
• 18th March 2006

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(No Transcript)
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State of the Commons

• Josh and I co-developed the Commons form and run
  the projects in parallel. But we have separate
  funding and somewhat separate purposes.
• Started in September (Josh), October (me).
• Final meetings are next month, so this is an
  on-going process.
• Consequently this presentation will be very much
  what were doing descriptive rather than
  evaluative.

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• To document and share knowledge about student
  learning on courses in Computer Science in two-
  and four-year institutions within a single
  geographic region.
• To improve the quality of teaching in Computer
  Science (CS) by establishing practices for the
  scholarship of teaching by making it public,
  peer-reviewed, and amenable for future use and
  development by other CS educators.

• To document and share knowledge about teaching
  and student learning on introductory programming
  courses in the UK.
• To establish practices for the scholarship of
  teaching by making it public, peer-reviewed, and
  amenable for future use and development by other
  educators creating a teaching-appropriate
  document of practice equivalent to the
  research-appropriate journal paper.

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To address the issues of articulation between 2
and 4 year colleges All in tight geographic area
(no one has more than a 2 hour drive) Rotating
venue Share a common pool of students
To document and share knowledge about itp in the
UK Wide geographic distribution (some 5am
starts) All come to London Share course content
and (more or less) objectives
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Why Course Portfolios?

• Well-suited to our purposes.
• Widely known as a method for advancing teaching
  practice and improving student learning
  (Hutchings, 1998).
• Comprises a set of documents that "focuses on the
  unfolding of a single course, from conception to
  results" (op cit, p.13).
• The purpose of the course portfolio "is in
  revealing how teaching practice and student
  performance are connected with each other"
  (Bernstein, 1998, p77).

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Problems with Course Portfolios?

• They are produced by individuals, for benchmark
  or personal development rarely is there
  reference to wider context, and they are
  indivdualistic in form.
• Examples are isolated theres a nice one in
  Drawing over here, a couple of interesting ones
  in Maths over there but little comparable to my
  subject or situation.
• Creating a Commons archive of similar material,
  our common pool resource, should give a
  multiplier effect

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The power of form

• Well known for research outputs
• Allows comparability
• Allows for different sorts of research, with
  different emphases
• Content is guaranteed by peer review
• The Journal paper is to research as

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The Lab Report
The Journal Paper

• Title
• Hypothesis
• Materials
• Procedure
• Data
• Calculations
• Results
• Conclusions

• Title page
• Abstract
• Introduction
• Materials and Methods
• Results
• Discussion
• Literature Cited

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the Portfolio is to teaching ?

• Context
• Content
• Instructional Design
• Delivery
• Assessment
• Evaluation

• Allows comparability
• Allows for different sorts of practice, with
  different emphases
• Content guaranteed by the nature of the
  evidence (and how it is structured) and peer
  review

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Disciplinary CommonsParticipation and
Reification

• Participation
• We meet every month over the course of an
  academic year (the lifetime of the courses we are
  focussing on).
• We reflect, we share. We observe, we review.
• We have the deep and meaty discussions about the
  minutae of our practice.
• We gain an unusual depth of knowledge about
  practice in other communities. Knowledge normally
  only otherwise acquired through a process of
  charismatic embedding

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Disciplinary CommonsParticipation and
Reification

• Reification
• We expose details of our work, through
  documentation, peer review, peer- and self-
  observation.
• We record our otherwise invisible practicesvia
  course portfoliosso it exists without our
  continuing presence.
• By working together, using a common form,
  individual portfolios are enhanced by being part
  of the larger archive.

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See

• http//www.cs.kent.ac.uk/saf/dc
• http//depts.washington.edu/comgrnd/

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References

• Daniel Bernstein, Putting the focus on student
  learning, in The Course Portfolio, Pat Hutchings
  (ed.), American Association for Higher Education,
  1998.
• Pat Hutchings (ed.), Making Teaching Community
  Property A Menu for Peer Collaboration and Peer
  Review, American Association for Higher
  Education, 1996.
• Pat Hutchings (ed.), The Course Portfolio How
  Faculty Can Examine Their Teaching to Advance
  Practice and Improve Student Learning, American
  Association for Higher Education, 1998