Digital Commons Network^™

Overcoming The Bottlenecks In Teaching Psychological Statistics, Lisa J. Elliott, Joan Middendorf

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Teaching and learning undergraduate statistics has been a most challenging task for undergraduate psychology majors (Salkind, 2017). A seasoned statistics instructor consulted with a seasoned instructional designer on a method to improve a particularly demanding course using a performance improvement approach to address learning difficulties she had noted in previous semesters. The Decoding the Disciplines methodology identified the most challenging concepts and provided a methodology to improve student learning performance. The methodology focused on five core concepts in psychological statistics: probability, variability, central limit theorem, independent/ dependent variables, and degrees of freedom. The Decoding the Disciplines curriculum was used for …

Gaining Ground: Toward The Development Of Critical Thinking Skills In A Social Problems Course, Ada Haynes, Jacob Kelley, Andrea Arce-Trigatti

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

The purpose of this article is to contribute to the scholarship of teaching and learning in sociology by examining a set of course redesign improvements made in a Social Problems course at the undergraduate level. These improvements center on increasing students’ critical thinking skills by integrating research-based, innovation-driven learning and student-centered strategies into a four-part course assessment redesign. Using a primarily case study approach, we examine quantitative data in the form of an interdisciplinary pre- and post- Critical thinking Assessment Test (CAT) from students enrolled in one iteration of the redesign for this particular course. Results from this analysis highlight …

Innovative Climate Pedagogy: Interdisciplinary Approaches To Teaching Climate Change, Jennifer Sweeney Tookes, Lissa M. Leege

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

As a “wicked problem,” climate change requires interdisciplinary understanding and collaboration in order to prepare future leaders to develop solutions. To this end, as an ecologist and an anthropologist at a mid-sized university in the southeastern U.S., we designed a pair of interdisciplinary, research-intensive courses for first-year Honors students with the goal of improving understanding and communicating the urgency of climate change. We employed High Impact Practices (HIPs) and Course-Based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) to accomplish learning outcomes during both years of the course. Gains in scientific knowledge and climate change-specific knowledge were assessed with quantitative and qualitative analysis of …

Designing An Effective Motivational Climate: Effects On Students’ Effort And Achievement, Margaret Ellis, Brett D. Jones, Fei Gu, Hande Fenerci

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

We present a case study that demonstrates how instructors can intentionally design a positive motivational climate in online and hybrid courses. We also examine the extent to which students’ perceptions of the motivational climate predict their effort and achievement across three different modalities (face-to-face [FTF], online, and hybrid) of the same course. We surveyed students in an undergraduate computer science course once a semester for three consecutive years (FTF in Year 1, online in Year 2, and hybrid in Year 3). Measures included motivation-related scales and final course grades. Our findings, based on survey responses from 981 students, demonstrate that …

“It’S Pedagogical And It’S Selfish”: How Classroom Policies Promote Inclusive Pedagogy, Student Success, And Faculty Legitimacy, Ellen M. Whitehead, Mellisa Holtzman

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Course policies around attendance and submission deadlines have documented impacts on student outcomes within college courses, yet our understanding remains limited of instructors’ own motivations behind the policies they adopt. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 43 college instructors, we find that faculty emphasize both student-centered and instructor-focused considerations. Pedagogically, they create policies they believe will enhance student success, promote equity and inclusion, and enable students to account for the realities of life. But they also design policies they believe will make their job easier, positively impact students’ perceptions of them, and align with gender role and tenure expectations. These findings …

Teaching, Learning, And Praxis: A Critical Inquiry On Graduate Student Research Apprenticeship Opportunities In Qualitative Research, Alexander G-J Pittman, Maretha Dellarosa, Penny A. Pasque, Myung-Jin Kim, Spencer J. Smith

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This study employed a critical inquiry paradigm to explore the significance of equity and social justice in teaching qualitative methodologies and methods to graduate students. Graduate students of multiple minoritized identities and a faculty member conducted a two-year inquiry into the research apprenticeship experience, including the stages of student-led conceptualization, data collection, analysis, international conference presentation, and publication. The study investigated the experiences of the faculty and students as well as the responsibilities of the institution against the backdrop of historical and contemporary pandemics. Consequently, we problematized hidden curriculum and unconscious assumptions to suggest research course design sequencing improvements. The …

Building A Grassroots Learning Assistant Program, Katie V. Johnson, Lindsay A. Singh, Laura J. Frost

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Learning Assistants (LAs) are undergraduates who work in active-learning classrooms with students facilitating discussions and encouraging deeper thinking, while also receiving pedagogical training. We describe how we built an LA program at a regional comprehensive university starting as a grassroots STEM initiative to recruit teachers, and expanding into a campus-wide multi-disciplinary program focusing on student success in a variety of general education courses. Additionally, in the 2020-2021 academic year, we conducted a formative assessment to further understand the program's impact. Our findings revealed strong alignment among students, faculty, and LAs regarding the LA's role in student learning. Qualitative themes from …

Practice What We Preach?: A Review Of Journal Publishing Practices Related To Reflective Writing In Sotl, Laura Cruz, Eileen Grodziak, Hillary H. Steiner, Laura Cruz

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) scholars have long advocated for the inclusion of reflective writing as a legitimate form of scholarship. That said, for those instructors seeking to publish their reflective work, especially scholarly personal narratives (SPNs), there are persistent gaps between the aspirations of the field and the realities of scholarly publishing. The present study seeks to illuminate that gap through a systematic analysis of the policies and practices of academic journals as they pertain to the publication of reflective writing in SoTL. The ultimate aim of the study is to enable editors to close the gap between …

What Brought Us Together To Form A Community For Scholarship, Carolyn J. Loveridge, Frances Docherty, Sarah Honeychurch, Nathalie Tasler, Linnea Soler, Lindsey Pope, Victoria E. Price, Beth Dickson

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

We are a group of teaching-focused academics who share a passion for learning, teaching and the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) in Higher Education (HE). In order to understand how practitioners from a diversity of backgrounds and disciplines came to be in their present LTS (Learning, Teaching & Scholarship) academic roles, we embarked on a Collaborative Autoethnography (CAE). This approach allowed us to use our personal narratives to explore what it means to be a SoTL practitioner in HE, and to analyse these narratives by using textual analysis.

This paper unpacks these narratives, focusing on three themes: our rich …

Starting And Sustaining An International Teacher Collaboration: Insights And Recommendations From A Sotl Project., Lindsay J. Neill, Heather Brilla-Swenson, Neil Haigh

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

During the COVID-19 pandemic, two higher education teachers, located respectively in the United States and Aotearoa New Zealand, collaborated in the design of curricula on the relationship between identity and food for their students. Intended to help their students develop cross-cultural knowledge and relationships, they hoped that their collaboration would also benefit their professional relationship and learning at a time when these aspects of their teaching lives were negatively impacted by COVID-19. As a contribution to the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), they undertook, with the help of a researcher colleague, an investigation of (a) factors that influenced their …

Forming International Collaborations For Sotl Research: An Autoethnographic Reflection, Emily Faulconer

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This essay serves as a personal narrative to share experiences and lessons learned in using a sabbatical to form international collaborations for SoTL research. I share my motivations for seeking an international collaboration, explore my predicted and realized benefits, and address challenges encountered including time constraints and administrative barriers.

Letter From The Editors, Joe Pellegrino, Delores E. Liston, Delena Bell Gatch

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This letter introduces the first issue of volume 18. It addresses the most recent findings on student perceptions of higher education in the United States, based on a two-year study funded by the Gates Foundation.

Utilizing Slow Reading Techniques To Promote Deep Learning, Brian Baldi, Cynthia Mejia

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Slow reading has long been viewed as a teaching technique that engages students more deeply with course readings. Little systematic research, however, has been done to understand how this pedagogical strategy works in college classrooms. This study investigated how slow reading techniques promoted deep learning among undergraduate college students across two disciplines. Utilizing two food essays as the basis for a reading assignment, students in two courses participated in an intentionally scaffolded and paced slow reading exercise designed to encourage deeper personal engagement with course concepts. Theoretical implications from the research demonstrate connections between slow reading techniques and the existing …

Rethinking “Damage-Centered” Research And Individual Solutions: Cultural Humility As A Framework To Increase Student Diversity In Undergraduate Stem Departments, Anita Chikkatur, Stephanie Valle

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This study examines data from a participatory research action study on the experiences of underrepresented students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields at a small liberal arts college in the United States. Our analysis aims to move away from the framework that students needed to be taught how to cope with and overcome the challenges they faced in their STEM experiences, including racism and sexism. Instead, we propose a stronger focus on how to end racist, sexist, and other forms of discrimination. We draw on the concept of “cultural humility” as a concrete framework that professors, departments, and …

Letter From The Editors, Joe Pellegrino, Delores E. Liston, Nikki Digregorio, Delena Bell Gatch

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This letter from the editors of IJ-SoTL introduces the double issue, volume 17, number 1. We consider one of the items dominating discussions in higher education over the past six months: the advent and implementation of what may become a disruptive technology, artificial intelligence and its effect on the world or work, especially the work of educators.

Assessing Social Capital And Value Creation In Virtual Student Project Teams: Evidence From Online Management Courses, David B. Tataw

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This study contributes to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning by expanding the investigative areas on the role of social capital in collaborative learning environments. This is done by examining aspired and experienced social capital in student reflections on team dynamics in online project teams and aligning student narratives to expected student outcomes. Within a value creation framework which is aligned to the four stages of team development, including forming, storming, norming, and performing in order to illuminate value creation experiences and aspirations of participants, the study covered 39 management education students in 8 online project teams spanning 3 courses …

A Really Good Example Helps Learning About An Abstract Concept, Ava Funkhouser, Elena Nicoladis

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

University students are often asked to learn abstract concepts. Abstract concepts are hard to learn. Giving specific examples can help learning abstract concepts. These examples might limit understanding to the similarities between the abstract domain and particular examples. The primary purpose of this study was to test whether exposure to multiple examples would lead to better learning than exposure to a single example. Secondarily, we were interested in whether there was any particularly effective example. Introductory psychology students were invited to learn about the abstract concept of semiotics, through either 1) three of five distinct examples or 2) a single …

Letter From The Editors, Joe Pellegrino, Nikki Digregorio, Delores E. Liston, Delena Bell Gatch

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This letter introduces issue 2 of volume 17. It discusses institutional accreditation, academic program assessment, the rigor necessary to have confidence in our curricular decisions, and how the scholarship of teaching and learning fits into this picture.

Increasing Knowledge And Skills Of Graduate Students Using Experiential Education, Dawn C. Botts, Jennifer C. Buff, Joseph F. Klein

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This study examined the impact of experiential education through the utilization of vignettes on graduate student knowledge, skills, and attitudes in the area of written language disorders. Graduate students enrolled in a written language disorders class completed assessment measures designed to examine clinical understanding and confidence when preparing to teach a client exhibiting a written language disorder. The impact of the use of vignettes in the learning process was measured using pre- and post-tests, class surveys, and focus group interviews. Students demonstrated significant improvement in their knowledge, skills, and attitudes regarding written language disorders. All pre- and post-course comparisons were …

Engaged Alienation: Sotl, Inclusivity, And The Problem Of Integrity, Michael K. Potter, Jessica Raffoul

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) defines itself as an inclusive field of study, and scholars have long lauded its ability to engage academics from each and every discipline. Yet SoTL’s research culture has long been dominated by a narrow conception of social science. As a result, the lived experience of scholars from other disciplines, particularly the humanities, is one of engaged alienation. The borders created by SoTL’s research paradigm are invisible to those within and somewhat impenetrable to those who are othered by virtue of their disciplinary identities. This paper interrogates the contradictions between SoTL’s espoused values and …

Can Sotl Generate High Quality Research While Maintaining Its Commitment To Inclusivity?, Jill Mcsweeney, Matthew A. Schnurr

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) faces an emerging challenge as it seeks to balance commitments to disciplinary inclusivity and scholarly quality. We undertake a scoping review of 64 articles across three leading SoTL journals to investigate how the literature balances these twin commitments by exploring what questions are being asked, what methods are being used, and how these may be impacting the inferences that are being made within that scholarship. We advocate for a more focused definition of SoTL that can help reinforce its legitimacy within institutional power structures of scholarship, and for partnerships across disciplinary boundaries to …

Sotl Best Practices: 21st Century College Students’ Perceptions Of Learning Styles And Instructional Design Materials’ Influence On The Successful Completion Of Assignments, Mary Rickard, Doreen E. Sams, Samuel Mullis, Aruna Sadasivan

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

There is a long history of interest in individual differences in learning styles. Beginning in the 1960s, academic research endeavors began examining the concept of personalizing teaching as the best scholarship of teaching and learning best practice (SoTL). This current series of interconnected empirical studies take a fresh look at SoTL by examining students’ self-perception of their learning styles and whether their perceptions relate to how they learn. Today’s college students are growing up in the information age of the 21st Century. Many educators believe that a best practice is to focus on delivering personalized instructional material through technology. Thus, …

Salient Factors In Predicting Student Success, Including Course Modality, David P. Nalbone, Minoo Ashoori, Bankole K. Fasanya, Michael W. Pelter, Adam Rengstorf

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Much discussion in higher education has focused upon predicting student learning, and how to identify students who may be at particular risk of failure. Little research has actually tackled that challenge, and research on the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) in this areas is scarce; this study does so by measuring students across three semester of study in a variety of courses and course formats. Our results indicate that a set of characteristics predicting student success can be identified, and that course modality affects overall student success rate. Our results are discussed in terms of how they might inform …

Question Format Biases College Students' Metacognitive Judgments For Exam Performance, Michael J. Mcguire

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

College students in a lower-division psychology course made metacognitive judgments by predicting and postdicting performance for true-false, multiple-choice, and fill-in-the-blank question sets on each of three exams. This study investigated which question format would result in the most accurate metacognitive judgments. Extending Koriat’s (1997) cue-utilization framework to these judgments, each format gave students different cues on which to base judgments. Further, each format has different probabilities of correctly guessing, which can skew accuracy. Students reported the lowest estimates for fill-in-the-blank questions. Accuracy measured using bias scores showed students’ predictions and postdictions were most accurate for multiple-choice items. Accuracy measured using …

Active Learning Methodologies In A High Stakes Graduate Nursing Program, Nina Mclain, Mary Jane Collins, Lawanda Baskin

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Active learning with student engagement has been demonstrated to improve knowledge retention and improve learning in graduate education. Nurse anesthesia education has traditionally been taught using lecture with slide presentations without considering student centered learning. Much attention has been given to active learning strategies to promote student engagement and content retention, yet little information exists regarding student preferences for in higher level graduate nursing courses. This mixed-methods study aimed to examine student learning preferences for seven different instructional methodologies; traditional lecture, a problem-based learning exercise, reading with workbook assignments, development of cognitive aids, game-based learning, practice questions, and a case …

A Portrait Of Mwrite As A Research Program: A Review Of Research On Writing-To-Learn In Stem Through The Mwrite Program, Solaire A. Finkenstaedt-Quinn, Field M. Watts, Ginger V. Shultz, Anne Ruggles Gere

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

The writing-to-learn (WTL) literature is varied in how assignments are structured and implemented in the classroom, making it difficult for instructors to identify how to incorporate writing effectively. Drawing on the WTL literature, the MWrite program was established to work with STEM faculty to design, implement, and assess evidence- based WTL assignments. Herein we present a review of the WTL research generated through the MWrite program, situating our findings in a four-dimensional framework of engagement to identify how the MWrite WTL assignment design and implementation has supported students’ learning. Our analysis indicates that the multi-faceted design of MWrite WTL assignments …

Stop, Collaborate, And Listen: A Faculty Learning Community Developed To Address Gaps In Pre-Service Education About Interdisciplinary Collaboration, Emily Hoeh, Michelle L. Bonati, Suzannah Chatlos, Maureen Squires, Bradley Countermine

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

There is a notable lack of opportunity for students in pre-service professional training programs and faculty in higher education to collaborate and work together, across disciplines within a common area of professional expertise. In this case, a faculty learning community (FLC) was formed to create a set of video-based simulations based on relevant topics for Committee on Special Education (CSE) meetings, used to inform the development of an Individualized Education Program. These materials were made available across departments and universities, establishing a common language and set of CSE practices. Additionally, a structured three-level text reading and discussion provided faculty with …

Addressing The Gap Of Informal Science Field Experiences In Science Methods Courses, Christina L. Mcdaniel, Colton M. Wilder, Cecile M. Arquette

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Preservice teachers in science education courses do not generally experience informal, authentic science education practices in their fieldwork. This study used the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning to frame a study that integrated informal science teaching experiences with a university teacher education science methods course. The results showed improvement in participant preservice teachers' ability to teach science content, their self-confidence in teaching science, and their ability to connect what they learned in their methods course in a real-life setting.

Supporting The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning In Hong Kong, Carmel Mcnaught, Cecilia Chun

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

The paper traces the evolution of the Centre for Learning Enhancement And Research (CLEAR) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) from early 2002 to the end of 2021. The University needed a centre to support both institutional and local (department and faculty) needs and aspirations for enhancing teaching and learning. Five key strategies adopted by CLEAR are: embedding the practice of existing teachers into policy development, localizing quality-assurance processes, relating professional-development activities to career development, involving students, and producing research evidence from within the Hong Kong context. The evidence base that supports these strategies, and the cultural and …

Teaching Generation Z Students About Politics: Optimism Or Pessimism?, Mark K. Mcbeth, Jonathan W.L. Blakeman, Logan Kearsley, Alyson Tyler, Emma Villanueva

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

The scholarship of teaching and learning is primarily concerned with improving student learning. Of course, we want our students to learn our disciplines, we want them to become critical thinkers, and we want them learn to write. But this study looks at how learning impacts a student’s optimism or pessimism. We believe that it is an important topic in today’s world and provides an important new topic in the scholarship of teaching and learning. This study is co-authored by two team-teachers and three honors students. Using an Introduction to Politics course as case material, the study provides a pre and …