Pedagogical frameworks for employing Oral History as an Experiential Pedagogy

1. 2017 Oral History in the Liberal Arts Institute
Dr. Lori Collins-Hall, Provost and VPAA
Antioch College
July 9, 2017

2. 
 The Challenge Before Us
 Framing Digital Liberal Arts and Oral History
Scholarship
 Helping Others See Your Work
 ACTIVITY: Mapping Your Project and Path
 Create a preliminary and tangible framing of your
project in the larger institutional mission, review
criterion, scholarly or pedagogical framing, and create
an actionable plan for moving toward review and/or
promotion.
Objectives

3. 
 Teaching vs research debate
 “What we have now is a more restricted view of
scholarship… Scholars are academics who conduct
research, publish and then perhaps convey their
knowledge to students or apply what they have learned.
The latter functions grow out of scholarship, they are not
to be considered part of it. But knowledge is not
necessarily developed in such a linear manner…Theory
surely leads to practice. But practice also leads to theory.
And teaching, at its best, shapes both theory and
practice.”
-- Ernest Boyer 1990
The Challenge Before Us

4. 
 “instructionist teaching” vs “communities of
practice/interest”
 “…the traditional paradigm of education is not
appropriate for understanding and learning to resolve the
types of open-ended and multidisciplinary problems that
are most pressing to our society. These problems, which
typically involve a combination of social and
technological issues, require a different paradigm of
education and learning skills, including self-directed
learning, collaboration and consideration of multiple
perspectives. “
-- Gerhard Fisher et al. 2009
The Challenge Before Us

5. 
 “Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn;
and the doing is of such nature as to demand thinking,
learning naturally results” (Dewey, 1922 p.181)
 “Learning is a process whereby knowledge is created
through the transformation of experience” (Kolb, 1984
p.38).
 “Today, college graduates must be able to apply the
knowledge and skills they are learning in real-world
contexts as they collaborate with diverse groups, to
develop solutions to complex and urgent problems
encountered in the global work place and civic life”
(AAC&U, LEAP 2017).
Framing Our Work

6. 
 Are we rewarding what we value?
 “Internal faculty roles and rewards policies can be
barriers to significant and sustained faculty involvement
with communities. Untenured faculty are more likely to
received promotion for publishing articles in peer-
reviewed journals than for demonstrating an active
commitment to addressing community problems. Faculty
are reluctant to apply their expertise to community-based
concerns. It is too professionally risky.”
-- Diane C. Calleson et al. 2005
The Challenge Before Us

7. 
 Institutional Mission
 Boyer’s Scholarship Reconsidered
 Community-based Participatory Research
 AAC&U’s Liberal Education America’s
Promise (LEAP)
 High-impact Practices
 Integrative Learning and Signature Work
 Undergraduate Research
 Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR)
 Undergraduate Research, Scholarship, and
Creative Activities (URSCA)
Framing Our Work
Review Criterion
Scholarship
Pedagogy
Method
Student Learning

8. 
 “Surely, scholarship means engaging in original
research. But the work of a scholar also means
stepping back from one’s investigation, looking for
connections, building bridges between theory and
practice, and communicating ones knowledge
effectively to students.”
 Scholarship of Discovery
 Scholarship of Integration
 Scholarship of Application
 Scholarship of Teaching
Scholarship Reconsidered
(Boyer, 1990)

9. 
 Scholarship of Discovery – traditional
conceptualization – knowledge for the sake of
knowledge – extend the discipline through
investigation and inquiry
 Investigative tradition
 Scholarship of Integration – making connections
across the disciplines, placing knowledge in the
larger context, illuminating data in revealing ways
and making it accessible to even non-specialists
 Synthesizing tradition
Scholarship Reconsidered
(Boyer, 1990)

10. 
 Scholarship of Application – moves toward engagement –
how can knowledge be applied to problems – application
flows directly out of one’s field of knowledge and
professional activity. Recognizes, new knowledge can
emerge from the very process of application
 Scholarship of Teaching [and Learning (SoTL)] – the
expertise that under-girds the practice of teaching–
communal activity that transforms and extends
knowledge -“only as it is understood by others”
 Uses discovery, reflection, and evidence-based assessment
to explore effective modalities of teaching and learning
Scholarship Reconsidered
(Boyer, 1990)

11. 
 Community-based vs Community-placed
 Conducting research by partnering equitably and
directly with those affect by and most
knowledgeable of the local context and
circumstances
 Apply expertise in partnership with community
organizations to address real-world problems and
concerns with those that are impacted by the
problems and the solutions
Community-based Participatory
Research

12. 
 Integrative Learning
 Build students’ capacity to integrate curricular, co-
curricular, professional/career and life experience,
inside and outside the classroom to solve “unscripted
problems”
 High-Impact Practice
AAC&U’s Liberal Education
America’s Promise (LEAP)
• Collaborative Projects/Assign
• Diversity/Global Learning/Study Abroad
• Service/Community-based learning
• Undergraduate Research
• FYS/FYE
• Common Intellectual Exp.
• Learning Communities
• Writing-Intensive Course

13. 
 Campus Culture and Mission that values UR
 Broad-based research development and
opportunities across disciplines
 Integration with other High-impact Practices
 Mentoring undergraduate student researchers
 Opportunities for dissemination of research
 Integration in Review and Promotion criterion and
processes
Characteristics of Excellence in
Undergraduate Research (COEUR)

14.  “Move from knowledge consumers to knowledge producers” –
“transformation must occur in stages that must be supported
through carefully designed structures that emphasize integration,
iteration, and collaboration.”
-- Gray et al.
 The Research Skill Development Framework, Wilson and O’Regan
(2007):
1. Identify the question to pursue
2. Applying appropriate methods of data/information collection
3. Evaluating data
4. Organizing data
5. Synthesizing and analyzing data collected
6. Communicating results, with awareness of related social and ethical
issues and considerations
Undergraduate Research, Scholarship
and Creative Activities (URSCA)

15.  Journals:
 Teaching Professor
 New Horizons in Education (online)
 Journal of Experiential Education
 College Teaching (online)
 Global Education
 In Context Journal (online)
 Journal of Ethnographic & Qualitative
Research
 The Journal of Undergraduate
Ethnography
 Journal of College Teaching and Learning
 Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching
and Learning
 Journal of Community Engagement and
Higher Education
 Journal of Public Scholarship in Higher
Education
Journals and Conferences
Conference:
• American Association of College and
Universities (AAC&U)
• Teaching with Technology Conference
• The Teaching Professor
• Lilly Conference on College and
University Teaching
• Conference on Higher Education
Pedagogy
• The Sun Conference on Learning and
Teaching
• Conference on Community Writing

16. 
 Small Group Sharing:
1. What challenges are you facing in your institution or
with your project on which others might offer
thoughts?
2. How can students help us frame our work?
3. Who are the constituents of our work?
4. Share additional ideas for journals or conferences.
Helping Others See Your Work

17. 
 Begin conversation with colleagues early
 Look for Lunch Tables and Faculty Research Sessions
 Look for Provost, Dean or Faculty funded research
awards and an opportunity to peddle your wares 
 Capture materials for your portfolio along the way
 Assess early and often
 Talk to partners about supporting your review; be clear
about points to write about
 Integrate assessment of student learning where possible
 Know your journals (CBSL, SoTL, Applied Work)
 Include your plan and contextualize your research for
your review committee and Provost/Dean
Helping Others See Your Work:
Preparing for Review

18.  Informal poster creation as the basis of discussion
 Goal: To help you think about the framing of your project in the
larger institutional mission, review criterion, scholarly or
pedagogical framing and create an actionable plan for moving
toward sharing your project, review and/or promotion.
 The responsibility of those who are reading a poster is to ask
questions. One good question is, “So, can you give me a summary
of what is on the poster?” The goal of these conversations is
twofold:
 Ask questions that help the individual reflect on and evaluate both
their plans for their scholarship and review as well as what they’ve
learned
 It’s to learn about what other people are doing at their institutions and
find out if you might want to use their scholarly frames, techniques,
programs, lessons learned, or anything else to help your institution.
ACTIVITY:
Mapping Your Project and Path

19.  Boyer, Ernest L., (1990) Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate, The
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching
 CUR, (2012) Characteristics of Excellence in Undergraduate Research (COEUR), Ed.
Nancy Hensel, Council of Undergraduate Research [PDF:
http://www.cur.org/assets/1/23/COEUR_final.pdf]
 Davidson, Zoe E. and Palmero, Claire (2015) “Developing Research Competence in
Undergraduate Students through Hands on Learning,” Journal of Biomedical
Education, Vol. 2015
 Dewey, John (1922) Democracy and Education, NY: MacMillian Company
 Gray, Simon et al. (2015) “Developing Research Skills Across the Undergraduate
Curriculum,” New Directions in Higher Education, Vol. 2015, Issue 169
 Kuh, George D., High-Impact Practices: What Are They, Who Has Access to Them, And
Why They Matter. Washington, D.C. AAC&U 2008
 www.aacu.org/leap-challenge
 www.aacu.org/resources/integrative-learning
 www.aacu.org/leap/hips
Resources