MRU students win 2nd place at the CSC
Karen Manarin elected to VP Canada position with ISSoTL
Congratulations to Roberta Lexier….
On her publication in TD: Transformative Dialogues – Occupy the Classroom: Teaching Contemporary Events – Roberta Lexier, Mount Royal University
Well done!
upcoming SoTL Exchange presentations at MRU
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!!
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
Free article: SoTL Scholars’ Identity Development
The recently published article, Conflicts and Configurations in a Liminal Space: SoTL Scholars’ Identity Development, is the free sample for the 2nd issue of Teaching and Learning Inquiry, so anyone can access this article. MRU’s Karen Manarin is one of the co-authors.
In it, the authors describe how “navigating among conflicting identities can lead us into a troublesome but deeply reflective liminal space, prompting profound realizations and the reconstruction of our academic identities.” Thanks to the authors for helping to normalise the sometimes “unsettling” experience of engaging in SoTL!
Nicola Simmons, Earle Abrahamson, Jessica M. Deshler, Barbara Kensington-Miller, Karen Manarin, Sue Morón-García, Carolyn Oliver and Joanna Renc-Roe
Teaching & Learning Inquiry: The ISSOTL Journal
Vol. 1, No. 2, Special Issue: Writing Without Borders: 2013 International Writing Collaborative / Guest Editors: Mick Healey and Beth Marquis (2013) (pp. 9-21)
Vol. 1 No. 2 of Teaching and Learning Inquiry is out!
I’m looking forward to reading this new issue which features articles by the “International Writing Groups”, organized as part of ISSoTL 2012. In particular, there are 3 articles to which Mount Royal scholars have contributed:
Conflicts and Configurations in a Liminal Space: SoTL Scholars’ Identity Development(pp. 9-21)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/teachlearninqu.1.2.9
Being Ethically Minded: Practising the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in an Ethical Manner(pp. 23-32)
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/teachlearninqu.1.2.23
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/teachlearninqu.1.2.49
ISSoTL special interest group on Student Engagement
The ISSoTL special interest group on Student Engagement is now being co-chaired by Andrea Jackson from the University of Leeds, and MRU’s Israel Dunmade. Interested in getting involved? Here’s a recent message from them received through the ISSoTL listserv:
Special Interest Group meeting @ ISSOTL 2013
We will be holding a Special Interest Group meeting at the forthcoming ISSOTL conference on Friday 4th October after the concurrent sessions (room to be confirmed). It would be great to see many of you there to discuss ways in which we can promote and disseminate the outcomes of scholarly research on the topic of student engagement and how we can best support those who would like to participate in scholarly activity in this area of interest.
ISSOTL Student Awards – judging volunteers
There will be two new student awards at this year’s conference, one for best poster and one for best conference session led by a student. Further details will be announced shortly on the conference web-site (http://issotl13.com/). The conference team are looking for volunteers to assist with the judging for these awards. Please let me know if you would like to help.
Israel and I very much look forward to meeting some of you at the conference soon. For those who are not able to join us then we will send you a summary of the outcomes of the meeting but if you have any suggestions for ways in which the Interest Group could help you then please let us know.
Congratulations!
Kudos to Jodi Nickel on the recent accceptance of her SoTL paper for publication. Jodi’s paper – Formative Assessment and Syntheses in Reflection Journals – is published in Transformative Dialogues. Congratulations! – posted by Jim Zimmer