Scholarship of Teaching: An Introduction New Fellows Orientation April 17, 2008 SoTL Fellows

Teaching in a Scholarly Fashion vs. Scholarship of Teaching Teaching Scholarly: thoughtful deliberation about the teaching / learning process Scholarly Teaching: using research findings to made pedagogical decisions

The Action Research Cycle? Identify Innovation Gather Data Analyze Data Interpret Data Develop Action Plan Design the Study Develop or locate instruments

Be thinking about the following questions DESIGN From whom are you gathering data? When will you gather data? METHODS How will you gather data? Where will you gather data?

Linking Study Design and Methods Suppose the design is on one class (the who), pre and post test (the when) How and where the data will be gathered are METHODS questions. Pretest Do new thing Post test

Action Research Often Uses These Kinds of Methods to Gather Data Surveys Observations Interviews Artifact Analysis

Three Ways to Gather Data Make observations  Unstructured or structured observations Ask questions  Surveys  Interviews Examine and Score Artifacts  Tests, portfolios, treatment plans, student comments  Must design scoring guide

Structured Observations  Examples: Use a class map to keep track of who asks questions, answers questions, makes comments. Have a list of behaviors. Make simple hash marks for each type of behavior when it occurs. Make a list, from a recorded class discussion, of the kinds of questions you asked.

Methods: Unstructured Observations Examples  A journal that an instructor keeps to record personal impressions of how a class is going.  A written remembrance of interactions with one or a few students that are being tracked over time.  A written set of impressions made while watching a videotape of a class.

Methods: Questioning with Surveys Examples:  A survey of attitudes toward science  Rankings of importance  Student ratings of instruction  May include open-ended questions, e.g., what element of this course most helped you to learn?  May include some content, but if only content, it’s a test and is an artifact of the course.

Methods: Questioning with Interviews Advantage over surveys: can ask follow-ups, more personal contact. Examples:  Sort readings by usefulness, telling why  Solve a genetics problem aloud, explaining thinking  A focus group  Interview of team members in small groups

Method: Examine and Score Artifacts Examples of artifacts:  Diagrams of cells before and after instruction  Wear on computer keys to see which are hit most  Answers to a test question  Portfolios  Term papers  Case analyses  Management plans  Treatment plans

Methods: Artifact Analysis Decide what you kinds of materials you want to collect Justify why the artifact you are choosing is a good choice given your research question Create a scoring rubric (guide) to assign points Good for pre-post designs

A KEY TO SUCCESS: Pilot Test Your Instruments Give a small group of people (not in your class if you can) your survey or interview Collect sample artifacts to see if your grading scheme works Try out your observation scheme to see if it needs to be tweaked.

Other Keys to Success Talk about your design and instruments with Teaching Associates, SoTL Fellows, other colleagues. Keep your data collection focused. Try to keep the project reasonable in scope for the time you have available.

To create your own plans answer the questions below: From whom are you gathering data? More than one class, subgroups? When will you gather data? First week of classes? After the new thing has been introduced? Fall? Spring? How will you gather data? Questions, artifacts, observations? Where will you gather data? Classroom, online forum, dropbox survey?

Human Subjects Because you are working with humans, you must submit a Human Subjects form to your college. Read policy in Faculty Handbook Our projects are Category I - what one might do in the normal course of teaching You need to tell how you will collect data, how you will protect privacy. It is not necessary to get student permission in most cases.

More Resources on Methods Go to And click on the links for overviews of each of the three main categories of data collection methods.