2009 Conference Presentations

Permanent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/2022/6793

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Lasting Effects of a Graduate Pedagogy Course on the Development of Teacher-Scholars
(International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2009-10) Braun, Mark; Heacock, Isaac; Kearns, Katherine D.; Miller, Lauren E.; O’Loughlin, Valerie Dean; Sullivan, Carol Subiño
While graduate pedagogy courses may result in specific teaching behaviors in the short term, little is known whether these scholarly teaching behaviors and attitudes endure over time. Multiple evidenced-based assessments of pedagogy courses which continue well past the completion of the course can demonstrate the ongoing development of students’ perceptions of teaching and learning and students’ progression as teacher-scholars. This poster summarizes an investigation exploring the lasting effects of a graduate pedagogy course entitled MSCI M620: Pedagogical Methods in Health Sciences. This course has been offered for two semesters and a total of sixteen graduate students from a variety of science-related disciplines enrolled in the course. We examined whether the course caused students to: 1) Develop more complex and refined attitudes regarding student learning; 2) Evaluate their current teaching methods and explore alternative teaching strategies; 3) Assess their teaching effectiveness; 4) Plan to be involved in a public teaching resource network; and 5) Develop lasting attitudes about scholarly teaching.
Virtual Inorganic Pedagogical Electronic Resource
(International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2009-10) Benatan, Ethan; Dene, Jezmynne; Eppley, Hilary; Geselbracht, Margret; Jamieson, Betsy; Johnson, Adam; Reisner, Barbara; Stewart, Joanne L.; Watson, Lori; Williams, Scott
The deep yet narrow training received by most chemistry faculty can make curricular innovation at the undergraduate level difficult. Faculty need current knowledge in a broad range of subdisciplines and effective approaches for teaching outside their “comfort zone.” To support innovations in teaching, the new resource VIPEr (www.ionicviper.org) was created, which combines a digital library of learning objects with social networking tools to form a rich virtual community of practice amongst chemistry faculty worldwide.
The Use of the Audience Response System in Anatomy Laboratory Practical Examinations
(International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2009-10) Polich, Susan; Cario, Cara H.; Monroe, Mary S.; Rodriguez, Carmen M.
The Audience Response System (ARS) has been used at our institution for approximately five years. ARS was initially used in the large lecture classroom for two purposes - to engage students’ interest in a topic and collect answers to multiple-choice question quizzes and tests (Stowell & Nelson, 2007; Morling, McAuliffe, Cohen, & DiLorenzo, 2008). The use of ARS has not yet been explored in the small classroom using non-multiple choice questions. An anatomy laboratory practical examination (“practical”) traditionally involves small numbers of students using paper-and-pencil examinations with fill-in-the-blank questions. Using ARS to record student answers in a practical requires changing both the way ARS has been traditionally used and the way the practical has been administered. The use of ARS for the fill-in-the-blank questions requires students be given a numerical list with possible answers. This, in essence, changes the type of question from fill-in-the-blank to matching and changes the level of cognition needed from “recall” to “recognize” (Anderson, 1999). We had concerns that students would engage with the material in a different, less substantial, manner once they realized a different level of cognition was needed to pass the practicals. We were also concerned that the emerging use of this technology would add a new level of stress to an otherwise already stressful atmosphere, especially since two of the four instructors had little-to-no experience with the ARS. Different engagement with the material and additional stress might be recognized by a change in scores on the practicals. The aims of this study, then, were to determine if 1). course instructors were a factor in determining practical examination scores and 2). grades from students who used the ARS to record answers in practicals were significantly different from students who used the traditional paper-and-pencil testing method.
An Engagement Levels Framework To Foster Interactions Across SOTL Collaboratories
(International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2009-10) Carey, Tom; Lopes, Valerie
Regional SoTL collaboratories can provide a natural fit with political boundaries and funding opportunities; interconnections across regions can provide critical mass to sustain ongoing community interactions. It is unrealistic to expect these facilities to use a common technical platform or to adopt common social organizations, so a Framework for interconnection would be valuable. Our prototype Engagement Levels Framework includes four levels of faculty involvement, each with differing facilities to support research and knowledge mobilization: Cooperative Research Projects: Faculty who engage with a Teaching Research Collaboratory through specific short-term supported projects, as individuals and as teams, primarily focused on enhancing the learning experience and student success in their own courses and with some secondary focus on enhancing teaching practice for their colleagues at the institutional or provincial levels (and beyond). This secondary focus requires some effort to distinguish localized versus generalizable factors contributing to the success or limitations of an intervention in teaching. Practitioner/Researcher Core Communities: Faculty with an ongoing mutual engagement as a community, functioning both as an inquiry community to enhance the learning experience and student success in their own courses and as the core of a larger community of practitioner/researchers in research-led teaching, including developing and sustaining knowledge mobilization resources to enhance research-led teaching practices and knowledge by their faculty colleagues. Knowledge Exchange Networks: Faculty who participate periodically in knowledge mobilization for their own research-led teaching and become regular contributors to a knowledge mobilization network, motivated by a spirit of scholarly reciprocity and by explicit engagement initiatives led by the core Practitioner/Researcher community members described above. Collections of Research-Informed Resources for Teaching: To achieve a true ‘network effect’ in application of the knowledge and resources for research-led teaching, facilities must be provided to engage many more faculty in occasional access. These faculty seek to improve the learning experience and student success in their own courses, but do not regularly contribute from their own expertise to extend those resources. The key ideas underlying this framework include the following: • Modularity in the framework allows multiple platform options at each level • Embedding of research results into adaptable artifacts – curriculum plans, learning activity designs, open educational resources, etc. – promotes knowledge mobilization; • Early involvement of resource creators with colleagues promotes reusability and adaptability of such resources, and optimizes institutional investment in faculty innovation and scholarship; • Ongoing knowledge exchange is fostered by a focus on object-centered conversations to extend knowledge, adapt resources and share insights; • Collection management enables occasional users to find the resources they seek and to encounter related teaching knowledge along with those resources; • Explicit efforts by the collaboratory community will support enriched levels of engagement by colleagues, to insure a sustainable and dynamic community. Of course, such facilities can only enable and support widespread adaptation of research-informed resources and mobilization of the underlying knowledge about teaching and learning. We must in parallel work with partners in our regions and disciplines to provide stronger rationale and motivation for mobilizing SoTL as research-led teaching.
Sustaining SoTL Work in the Future: The Role of Encouragement
(International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2009-10) Ahmad, Hena
An important way that SOTL will be sustained that does not appear to have been addressed in existing literature is through the encouragement that faculty who undertake it experience. Adlerian encouragement theory[1] posits that encouragement is crucial to behavior change. Thus faculty will need encouragement in order to change their behavior to align with SOTL. For the last nine years I have mentored over one hundred students’ undergraduate research for presentation at conferences. For this session we will examine the evidence from 30+ e-mails and/or survey responses sent when the instructor sought information about their undergraduate research experience. We will analyze the content of these qualitative sources to discover both what the instructor did to encourage the students and what the students said that has so encouraged the instructor. More specifically, conducting the SOTL inquiry on mentoring student undergraduate research is forcing me to re-evaluate what I do and how to make improvements. It is shaping a protocol of effective undergraduate research mentoring. But reflecting on and analyzing my mentorship of student research has reaffirmed for me the value of my work and has resulted in the rejuvenation of a mid-career faculty member through SOTL. This can happen for other faculty too. After attending this session you may find encouragement from your students as well and a literature may be built around the role of encouragement in sustaining SOTL. [1] School Counselor Consultation p. 110
The Importance of Communication to Enhance Student Access to Language Learning
(International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2009-10) Burghardt, Beatrix
This poster details the steps taken by a less-commonly-taught language program to transform a campus-wide graduate student instructor workshop into an interactive, discipline-specific session. Such restructuring prepares graduate instructors to attend to undergraduates’ academic, social, and cognitive needs. The poster will also share measures of the revised workshop’s success: (1) instructors’ increased sensitivity to student needs, (2) improved performance of learners with special needs, and (3) positive testimonies from our workshop-provider and graduate instructor supervisors.
An Object-Based Approach to Teaching and Learning Environmental Topics in the University Arts and Humanities Classroom: A CASTL Fellow's Perspective
(International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2009-10) Sikarskie, Amanda Grace
Development of Learning Modules to Enhance Students' Higher-Order Cognitive Skills
(International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2009-10) Crowe, Alison J.
Bloom’s Taxonomy of cognitive domains is a well-defined and broadly accepted tool for categorizing types of thinking into six different levels: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. It is commonly accepted that memorization and recall (knowledge-level skills) are lower order cognitive skills that require only a minimum level of understanding, whereas the application of knowledge and critical thinking (application, analysis, synthesis & evaluation-level skills) are higher order cognitive skills that require deep conceptual understanding. In our Biology department we have begun introducing students to Bloom’s taxonomy during the introductory series to help students recognize the different levels of thinking they will need to master to succeed in the curriculum. First, we indicate on our exams the Bloom’s level required to successfully answer each question (e.g. knowledge or application) and then provide students with the overall “Bloom’s distribution” for the exam i.e. what percentage of the questions require lower-order versus higher-order cognitive skills. To aid students in identifying the levels that are most challenging for them, we are piloting a program that provides students with their individual “Bloom’s score” after each exam. The Bloom’s score indicates how well they performed on questions requiring different levels of Bloom’s. Typically students receive Bloom’s scores that are high for knowledge and comprehension and lower for one or more higher-order cognitive skills. Once these challenging areas have been identified, students need guidance on how to modify their study habits to better prepare themselves to answer those types of questions. We created the Bloom’s-based Learning Activities for Students (BLASt), a complementary student-directed tool designed to specifically strengthen study skills at each level of Bloom’s. However, we found that students were not able to use this chart effectively without further instruction. We have therefore developed a 1-hour workshop to give students practice in developing application and analysis levels of thinking. We will describe the design of these learning modules and student feedback we have received on the modules. Our long-term goal is to track student progress longitudinally to ascertain whether participation in the Bloom’s workshop enhances student performance on future exams.
Rigor, Reward, and Risk: Learning Leverage during National Board Candidacy
(International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2009-10) Hunzicker, Jana
Learning leverage is characterized by three interactive dynamics: rigor, reward, and risk. Together, they create uncomfortable yet positive pressure that usually results in teacher learning. The model of learning leverage helps explain why most teachers consider National Board candidacy such a powerful learning experience and provides insight as to why some teachers learn much and others learn little through the experience. The model is applicable to learning experiences other than National Board candidacy, such as teacher professional development, mentoring and induction, and PK-16 classroom instruction.
Establishing a New System of Training Teaching Assistants in Japan: An Attempt in Hiroshima University
(International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2009-10) Diwa, Johanna; Kitagawa, Takeshi; Maruyama, Yasushi; Ohashi, Takahiro; Shiozu, Hideki; Suwa, Kayo; Ueno, Tetsu; Yagi, Hidefumi
Teaching assistantships were introduced to Japanese universities in 1992. It was suggested teaching assistantships be used for educating graduate students to be good university faculty, with proficiency in teaching as well as excellence in research. However, teaching assistants have received less responsibility and less payment. This presentation will explain the current situation concerning teaching assistantships in Japan and show our attempt to establish a systematic training course of teaching assistants that fits the Japanese background.
Experience-Based Insights Precede SoTL in Faculty
(International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2009-10) Allern, Marit; Vederhus, Lillian
Identifying indicators and domains of scholarship requires thorough empirical and theoretical explorations. The importance of within-faculty propositions and consensus on indicators has been addressed in order to enhance scholarship, promote teaching portfolios, and ensure discipline-specific knowledge to enrich general models. We found that faculty, when asked to individually propose statements on scholarship of teaching in the first phase of this modified Delphi-study on consensus-formation in SoTL, suggested statements that could be qualitatively structured into five areas. From the second phase, there was a strong tendency toward consensus within faculty on statements they considered to be good indicators of SoTL. Statements with lower agreement had higher dispersion, indicating more specific than general qualities.

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