This document discusses Scholarship in Teaching and Learning (SOTL) and provides guidance on getting started with SOTL projects. It defines SOTL as the systematic and public reflection on teaching and learning. The document outlines why SOTL is important in today's higher education environment, provides examples of SOTL projects, and discusses how to formulate small SOTL projects including identifying topics, methods, collaborators, publications, and funding sources. Attendees are then asked to develop their own 1-page SOTL development plan as an individual exercise.
ISYU TUNGKOL SA SEKSWLADIDA (ISSUE ABOUT SEXUALITY
Getting Started in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
1. Scholarship in Teaching and
Learning (SOTL) – and why
bother with it?
Fiona Saunders, Senior Lecturer in School of
Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering
Email: fiona.saunders@manchester.ac.uk
Twitter @FionaCSaunders
Bland Tomkinson, Visiting Lecturer in School of
Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering
Email: c.tomkinson@manchester.ac.uk
2. Aims and Purpose
To spark interest in
“Scholarship of Teaching and
Learning” as a valuable and
legitimate scholarly activity
To fulfill the requirements of
the HEA professional standards
framework
3. Structure of the Session
1. What is the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
2. Small projects: getting started and getting reported.
3. Individual exercise: Getting started - Highlighting experiences
and laying the foundations for a SOTL roadmap
4. Definitions of SOTL
“work that encourages an
empirical examination of
teaching in relation to
student learning”
Darling, 2003
“SOTL is a systematic
reflection on teaching and
learning made public”
Illinois State University in
McKinney, 2004
“opening lines of inquiry into
significant issues in the
teaching and learning of the
field”
Hutchings, 2000
5. Why is SOTL important?
• Changed HE environment and eco-system
– More diverse student body
– Increasing focus on teaching, e.g. tuition fees, student satisfaction
surveys
– Availability of learning technology
• More important than ever to understand how, why and when
our students learn
6. Challenges in 21st Century Pedagogy
http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/21st+Century+Pedagogy by Andrew Churches
7. What does SOTL involve?
Engaging
with extant
knowledge
Public
sharing
Self
reflection
Martin et al., 1999
9. What sorts of questions do SOTL
researchers ask?
What might be
possible ?
What works ?
What is ?
How to formulate
new models and
conceptual
frameworks ?
10. Differentiating SOTL from pedagogic
research
• Critical reflective component
• Focus on specific rather than generalised teaching and
learning contexts
• Does not emphasise the generation and evaluation of general
theory
Haigh, 2010
11. Why would an already busy academic
wish to engage with SOTL?
How often do you sharpen your teaching and learning axe?
12. Structure of the Session
1. What is the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
2. Small projects: getting started and getting reported.
3. Individual exercise: Getting started - Highlighting experiences
and laying the foundations for a SOTL roadmap
13. Getting started with small projects
Why small projects?
• Small projects can span the boundary between
scholarship of teaching and learning and of pedagogic
research.
• Small projects can put scholarship into action and can
form the foundation for more rigorous pedagogic
research.
15. Getting started with small projects
I keep six honest serving men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
Rudyard Kipling
16. Getting started with small projects – What?
“Find a real life problem in your teaching and seek to investigate it ”
“Find something you are passionate about”
“Start small and set time limits ”
“Be pragmatic – find out what would be most valued or attract
support resources and start with these”
“Search across disciplines for literature and practice”
Adapted from Hutchings, 2000
17. Getting started with small projects – Why?
• Fame and fortune? Papers on pedagogy don’t carry much
weight in achieving international fame. BUT, they can give you
an edge in job applications and promotion.
• Improving your students’ learning experience? Constant
reflection can be an important element in honing your teaching
skills and a small project may give you evidence to help to do
this.
• Helping others to improve their teaching? A noble aim, but it
does mean that any project has to have a good dissemination
strategy.
18. Getting started with small projects – When?
• Small projects can be undertaken at any time but it is helpful to
have some funding, eg to employ a postgraduate student to do
some analysis.
– The university usually has a small amount of funding available each year
– though the timescales involved can be quite tight.
– Subject, or professional, bodies sometimes have funds available for
small teaching projects.
– Agencies like the Higher Education Academy often have small grants
available – though these may be limited in scope.
• The HEA website lists many possible calls for funding bids,
together with their closing dates, not just from within the HEA.
19. Getting started with small projects – How?
How to get the funding
• Any study needs to start with aims, objectives and research
questions.
• Framing the research questions – most calls for funding bids
will specify a need for including the research questions. Many
will be constrained by a particular funding theme.
• Remember that even doing it yourself will involve costs: eg
printing, travel, books.
20. Getting started with small projects – How?
How to do it
• Quantitative v Qualitative methods.
• Qualitative methods can include:
– Questionnaires
– Interviews
• Quantitative methods can include:
– Psychometric tests: do you have access to such test?
21. Getting started with small projects – Where?
• On your own or with colleagues – in the same school or
elsewhere? Comparative studies can often add value.
• Some funding calls require collaborative bids – this usually
means that it is essential to involve other universities or, just
possibly, colleges or employers.
• International collaborations may give access to funds otherwise
denied you – some US funders will allow collaboration, but will
not fund studies outside the US.
22. Getting started with small projects – Who?
• Do you intend to do this on your own or employ postgraduate
students or other researchers?
• Do you wish to initiate the project with other colleagues: who
will do what?
• You may need to involve colleagues with special skills eg
psychometrics, non-parametric statistics
• Who will write it up?
• Who are the subjects of the study?
• Do you have/ will you get their consent?
• YOU WILL NEED ETHICS APPROVAL.
23. Getting published with small projects
• What sort of journal should
you aim for?
– Higher education journals: eg
IJAD, HERD, IETI
– Subject journals.
– Discipline education journals:
eg Electrical Engineering
Education. .
24. Structure of the Session
1. What is the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
2. Small projects: getting started and getting reported.
3. Individual exercise: Laying the foundations for a SOTL
roadmap
25. This is all very
interesting but what
about me?
I haven’t done any
teaching yet
Lab demonstrating
Dissertation supervision
PhD supervision
Small group tutorials
Other teaching assistant duties
Academic advising
What about these
activities?
26. Individual Exercise
NAP assessment involves developing a “Scholarship in Teaching
and Learning” development plan
1 page plan that maps out a series of SOTL activities that you will
engage in over the next 24 months
Ideas
• new journals or areas of reading
• reflection on existing teaching practice
• potential changes to be made to teaching practice
• attendance at events
27. Contact Details
Fiona Saunders, School of MACE
fiona.saunders@manchester.ac.uk
Twitter @FionaCSaunders
www.fionasaunders.co.uk
Bland Tomkinson, School of MACE
Email: c.tomkinson@manchester.ac.uk
Editor's Notes
SOTL for me is fundamentally about improving our understanding of how, why and when our students learn
What do these three definitions tell us?
That SOTL begins in the discipline, that SOTL is concerned with how we teach and how our students learn, that SOTL process is systematic, empirical, pragmatic (driven in many cases from particular issues that arise in an academic’s class teaching), lastly that SOTL is public – whether through discussions with colleagues, or on social media networks, whether sharing through seminars or more formal presentations a conferences or via the medium of the academic journal.
Multi-national, diverse social and educational backgrounds, larger classes
Tuition fees, student as consumer, no longer acceptable to be a great researcher but poor teacher
Whether institutional VLE – here it is blackboard, or other transforming technologies, - video and audio recording of lectures, social media, blogging, clicker audio response systems, flipped lecture to name but a few
The three related tasks
Engaging with the extant knowledge of teaching and learning ( literature – theory and practice)
Self reflection on teaching and learning in one’s own discipline: - Schon – Reflective Practitioner – reflection in action and reflection on action
Reflection related to these areas can address three questions:
• What’s really the problem here and what do I need to do?
• How do I know I am effective (or was conscientious) with what I do?
• Why do I choose to attend to this problem? Is there an alternative?
This reflection questions existing assumptions, conceptions and
Practices. This reflection can also be directed to their
own teaching experiences and to theoretical knowledge derived from research.
Public sharing of ideas about teaching and learning in the discipline – seminars, conferences, journals, blogs, informal networks
Redesign of existing UG courses into Problem Based learning – two areas of focus – how students prior knowledge and beliefs affect their understanding of new ideas, and can students transfer or think with newly learned subject matter to solve novel problems
How do at risk college students learn general chemistry in an alternative design to the large lecture environment – survey, focus groups, video taped student group work – led to comprehensive multidmensional view of student learning in context of the course
What works – what course design is more effective, what mode of delivery works best
What is - what it looks like, eg understanding perceptions of different types of feedback
Visions of the possible – in course design, delivery, assessment, student experience
Formulating new models and conceptual frameworks – investigation may begin with reflecting on existing practice but may go onto investigate why some things are hard for students to learn – more akin to theory building
SOTL is generally done in the first person, not by 3rd parties. Prosser (2008) states that SoTL as
“evidence based critical reflection on practice aimed at improving practice”
pedagogic research is focused on generic rather than specific
contexts, and that SoTL ensures that the latter (e.g. individual classrooms,
individual teacher practices) are addressed.
Other commentators differentiate educational/pedagogical research from SoTL in
terms of the relative emphasis on theory generation and evaluation in the former
contrasting with the emphasis in the latter on improving students’ learning in
particular contexts. SOTL purpose is not to generate or test theory. The purpose is to improve
student learning.
SoTL – orginating in a particular problem in a particular context, may eventually evolve into full-fledged pedagogical
research.
Once upon a time, a very strong woodcutter asked for a job in a timber merchant and he got it. The pay was really good and so was the work condition. For those reasons, the woodcutter was determined to do his best.
His boss gave him an axe and showed him the area where he supposed to work.
The first day, the woodcutter brought 18 trees.
“Congratulations,” the boss said. “Go on that way!”
Very motivated by the boss words, the woodcutter tried harder the next day, but he could only bring 15 trees. The third day he tried even harder, but he could only bring 10 trees. Day after day he was bringing less and less trees.
“I must be losing my strength”, the woodcutter thought. He went to the boss and apologized, saying that he could not understand what was going on.
“When was the last time you sharpened your axe?” the boss asked.
“Sharpen? I had no time to sharpen my axe. I have been very busy trying to cut trees…”
This was my introduction to SOTL - very pragmatic – driven by the need to sharpen up student communication and effective assessment in very large >250 cohort teaching. SOTL can turn this problem into an opportunity for targetted experimentation and study
We will start here during the individual exercise - highlighting a problem or challenge you are facing
Follow your passions in SOTL – don’t just do it because it is in the promotion criteria
Start small – SOTL is often an optional activity – completed in your own time and not recognised by school workload models – acknowledge this and start small, decide how much time you can commit and don’t get overstretched. One project at a time
Seek collaborators, networks, communities that you can tap into for ideas, knowledge, funding, dissemination – target areas that are “hot” internationalisation, feedback, the student experience
Don’t stay within your discipline – get ideas from other schools and heaven forbid other faculties
At end of 15 mins – Ask 2 or 3 of you to share these initial thoughts – may just at this stage be focused on identifying particularly challenges or experiences in your teaching experience