Developing a SoTL Question
These video presentations from an October SoTL Exchange presentation at MRU have been waiting for a website redesign to find a permanent home, but in the meantime, you can also find them here! In this series, 6 SoTL scholars talk about what got them interested in their question, their data sources and/or methodology, and their findings and impact, including how their inquiry informed their teaching.
Part 2: Glen Ryland, Assistant Professor, General Education discusses how he developed and analyzed his SoTL question about what sources and strategies students draw upon as they are developing as academic writers in general education.
Special Issue: Doing the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: Measuring Systematic Changes to Teaching and Improvements in Learning
There is a new resource for SoTL that has just been published by New Directions for Teaching and Learning:
The book is written primarily by psychologists and, as you might expect from the title, they define SoTL as “an instructor asking questions about the impact of his/her teaching on students’ learning in an individual course”. This is a narrow definition, however they clearly and thoroughly address research design considerations for these types of studies (there is, however, an absence of theory). The chapters on designing SoTL studies take an empirical and quantitative perspective, addressing issues such as construct and internal validity, different types of comparisons (between participants, within participants, pre-test/post-test) and different experimental and quasi-experimental research designs . For any faculty member planning to do such a comparison study to assess a teaching intervention (or “treatment”, to use their language), Chapters 2, 3 & 4 are excellent resources to help you design your study.
Bartsch, R. A. (2013), Designing SoTL Studies—Part I: Validity. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2013: 17–33. doi: 10.1002/tl.20073
*If you’re new to SoTL and are considering an experimental design for your project, you may also want to read Fallacies of SoTL: Rethinking How We Conduct Our Research, Chapter 8 in The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning In and Across the Disciplines (I have a copy in my office if you’d like to borrow it.)
Back to NDTL: There are also two very useful chapters on writing which are quite applicable to a range of disciplines:
The Chapter on “Navigating the IRB” (Institutional Review Board) is quite American and there are better resources available for our Canadian context (see my summary here).
There is also a Chapter on Faculty Development Centres and the Role of SoTL, and I was happy to note a shout-out to MRU’s Nexen Scholar’s Program!!
Announcing the 2014 Nexen Scholars and their Projects
Reflexivity in the Field: Becoming Critical Social Work Practitioners, Brent Oliver, Social Work and Disability Studies (in collaboration with colleagues at York University and University of Regina)
Impact of the Flipped Classroom in a Research for Health and Community Study course, Tammy Sherrow, School of Nursing and Midwifery
Social work students’ and faculty’s experiences of an innovative model designed to help students link theory to practice, Carolyn Anderson and Meaghen Johnston, Social Work and Disability Studies (a collaborative project in first and second year practicum courses)
To what extent do students identify with the concept of global citizenship, Priscilla Wamucii, General Education
What Happens for Students when they use a Pedagogical Analogical Model (an Idea Model) While Learning to Come up with Ideas?, Alex Bruton, Entrepreneurship
Reminder: Developing a SoTL Research Question presentation
Reminder: The next topic in our SoTL Exchange Presentation Series:
Developing a SoTL Research question
Presented by: Margy MacMillan, April McGrath, Janice Miller-Young, Melanie Rathburn, and Glen Ryland
Thursday, Nov 21 at noon in Y324
This group presentation will survey a range of types of SoTL questions, then presenters will each describe one of their SoTL projects in terms of how it was conceived, what methodologies and sources of evidence were used, plus findings and impact. There will be time for discussion and our intent is that anyone interested in learning about SoTL or thinking about developing a SoTL inquiry will find this presentation useful and engaging.
Hope to see you there!
Reading Through Connections: A phenomenographic study of student connections to scholarly text.
Thanks to Margy for sharing information about her presentation at the ISSoTL 2013 conference in Raleigh, NC earlier this month. Margy received a Going Public Award for presenting this work:
The presentation focused on findings of the project which illuminated how students were reading a text while making connections.
Presentation: http://www2.mtroyal.ca/~mmacmillan/conf/ISSOTLreadingconnections.pptx
Handout: http://www2.mtroyal.ca/~mmacmillan/conf/issotl13.docx
Margy’s summary:
The presentation outlined a research project that sought to understand how students could connect their prior knowledge/experience to reading an academic article in their field. As making connections while reading is a central part of academic practice which is often unseen, and unknown to students, but which faculty expect them to do as part of their academic reading, I wanted to know what kinds of connections students could make to an academic text. Student responses to an in-class activity were analyzed using a phenomenographic approach.
While I found that students could and did make connections to both academic and personal knowledge, a more significant finding was that the connections revealed how students were reading the text and their varying focus between words and meaning. Some connections revealed a surface reading of the text while other demonstrated a deeper understanding of the meaning behind the words. These deeper connections provided evidence of deeper reading and understanding through the creation of analogies, through integration with professional practice and through critique of the article as an artifact of communication.
CoP on advancing your SoTL practice
A group of faculty, who have either been through the Nexen Scholars program or have conducted a SoTL project, are developing a Community of Practice to support themselves in furthering their SoTL work. For those who are interested but can’t make our meetings, we’ll post brief summaries here.
At our first meeting last month, 4 main themes emerged from our discussion about what kinds of support everyone was looking for:
- sharing expertise on conducting collaborative projects
- exploring methodologies
- strategizing personal trajectories and developing research programs
- being a sounding board for members to discuss their current projects
We decided our next meeting would begin with a brief survey (courtesy of Michelle Yeo) of 4 qualitative research paradigms: “empirical” qualitative, interpretive, critical and postmodern. We thought a discussion of these paradigms might help to broaden our perspectives of what kinds of research questions can be asked in SoTL. We’ll also be discussing the following article:
Kanuka, H. (2011). Keeping the Scholarship in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning. International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 5(1).
http://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/int_jtl/252/
Looking forward to seeing where this discussion takes us!
Reminder: our next meeting is Friday Oct 18 at 2:00.
The SoTL Exchange presentation series
The Institute for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning is happy to announce a new presentation series, the SoTL Exchange, which will host presentations on a variety of topics intended to facilitate SoTL at MRU. The first presentation of the year will survey the current developments and debates in the wider SoTL community, and invite discussion and feedback about a new “definition” of SoTL for MRU and new Institute initiatives.
SoTL at MRU – What’s next?
Oct 23, 12:0-1:00 in Y324
Both new and experienced faculty interested in engaging in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning are invited to attend. In particular, faculty intending to apply for the 2014 Nexen Scholar’s Program will find the October and November presentations useful.
http://blogs.mtroyal.ca/isotl/2013/09/20/call-for-applications-for-the-2014-nexen-scholars-program-deadline-dec-1/
another good year for MRU at the ISSoTL conference!
Congratulations to the all the faculty (and former faculty!) who presented last week at the ISSoTL 2013 conference:
Assessment Practices in Higher Education, Michelle Yeo & Jennifer Boman
Critical Reading in General Education, Miriam Carey, Karen Manarin, Melanie Rathburn, & Glen Ryland
Impacts of Group Dynamics on the Effectiveness of Term Project in Helping Students to Connect Theory with Practice, Israel Dunmade
Who Speaks for SoTL?, Kelly Hewson & Lee Easton (Sheridan College)
From Classroom to Lobby? A Roundtable on Advocacy by ISSoTL, Kelly Hewson, Diana Gregory (Kennesaw State University), Katarina Martensson (Lund University), Jennifer Meta Robinson (Indiana University)
Reading Through Connections: A Phenomenographic Study of Student Connections to Scholarly Text, Margy MacMillan
Reaching out to the Wider (Disciplinary) Audience, Pat Michaelson (University of Texas – Dallas), Mary Huber (Carnegie Foundation), Nancy Chick (Vanderbilt University), Karen Manarin, Christina Hendricks (UBC)
Troublesome and Transformative Transitions: On the Yellow Brick Road to SoTL Identity, Nicola Simmons (Brock University), Earle Abrahamson (University of East London), Jessica Deshler (West Virginia University), Barbara Kensington-Miller (University of Auckland), Karen Manarin, Sue Moron-Garcia (University of Birmingham), Carolyn Oliver (University of British Columbia), Joanna Renc-Roe (Central European University)
Original Undergraduate Research & the English Major: An Epistemological Transition? Karen Manarin
Transitioning into SoTL: Decoding SoTL while Identifying Bottlenecks and Threshold Concepts, Niamh Kelly (UBC), Janice Miller-Young, Dik Harris (McGill), Gary Poole (UBC), Bettie Higgs (University College Cork)
Developing Critical Skills in General Education: Critical Writing, Mathematical Literacy, and Integrative Learning, John Draeger (Buffalo State College), Susan McMillen (Buffalo State College), Melanie Rathburn, Glen Ryland
The Institute for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning at Mount Royal University, Jim Zimmer & Janice Miller-Young
Call for applications for the 2014 Nexen Scholars Program – deadline Dec 1
Mount Royal faculty members (full time & contract) are invited to submit research development proposals for participation in the 2014 Nexen Scholars Program. This program brings together selected faculty committed to working together to develop classroom-based inquiry projects designed to shed light on a significant aspect of student learning, share evidence and findings publicly in an effort to influence teaching in the field, and create a culture of teaching and learning inquiry at Mount Royal and beyond.
Faculty selected as Nexen Scholars will design and undertake an inquiry project in the Fall 2014 and/or Winter 2015 semester aimed at understanding or improving student learning. Note that in the past, this program has only supported projects where scholars were investigating a question related to student learning in their own class. This year, the Institute will also start accepting projects proposals that explore student learning in a collaborator’s class or over multiple classes. In order for such projects to qualify, they must have direct implications for improving the scholar’s teaching practice.
More info here: 2014nexenscholarsrfp
The call for applications for 2013-14 Going Public Awards is now…. public!
Please read this call carefully as there are quite a few changes from previous years, the major ones being:
- application criteria (more reporting upfront, less after)
- application deadlines
- opportunities to apply for disseminating your original Nexen project OR a subsequent inquiry!!
**Note that the application deadline for attending conferences before the end of the year is October 1.