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Quantitative Data Analysis Of Multiple Factors Associated With Low Birth Weight In Bibb County, Georgia, Haley D. Jackson, Yudan Wei, Fan Chen

Journal of the Georgia Public Health Association

Objective: This study aims to identify and evaluate significant risk factors associated with low birth weight in Bibb County, Georgia.

Methods: Data used in this study was obtained from the Georgia Department of Human Resources’ Vital Records Offices. The sample consists of 2,346 white and black or African American women giving birth in Bibb County, Georgia in 2005. Logistic regression was used to analyze the risk factors associated with low birthweight in Bibb County, Georgia. The multiple factors analyzed as independent variables included maternal race, maternal education, maternal age group, socioeconomic status, marital status, maternal tobacco use during pregnancy, maternal …

Social, Economic And Health Costs Of Unintended Teen Pregnancy: The Circle Of Care Intervention Program In Troup County, Georgia, Andrea M. Brace, Michael Hall, Barry P. Hunt

Journal of the Georgia Public Health Association

Unintended teenage pregnancy in the United States is a public health concern with ramifications that include a variety of social, economic and health costs. It has been estimated that adolescents giving birth before the age of 18 cost the United States at least $9.1 billion dollars annually (NCPTUP, 2008). Latest available national data indicate a slight increase in rates of unintended teen pregnancy after a 15 year period of steady decline. The unintended teen pregnancy rate in Troup County, Georgia in 2006 was 51.9/1,000 which was higher than the national average of 41.9/1,000(Kids Count, 2008). The purpose of this study …

Using Poetry To Improve Fluency And Comprehension In Third-Grade Students, Karen E. Newsome

Georgia Educational Researcher

This study examined the effects of repeated choral reading of poetry on fluency and comprehension of third-grade students (N = 76) in the southeastern United States. Student attitudes toward poetry were also measured. Students served in regular, remedial, and special education were taught reading using the school’s basal series for four weeks. Choral repeated reading of poetry was then added to the curriculum. The DIBELS ORF test, STAR reading assessment, and an attitude survey were used to assess student performance. Statistically significant gains were made during the poetry intervention in fluency (M = 18.78, p < .01) and comprehension (M = 0.33, p < .05). Slight improvements in students’ attitudes toward poetry were also observed.

Assessing The Validity Of Statistical Inferences In Public Health Research: An Evidence-Based, ‘Best-Practices’ Approach, Karl E. Peace, Anthony V. Parrillo, Charles J. Hardy

Journal of the Georgia Public Health Association

Like many fields, public health has embraced the process of evidence-based practice to inform practice decisions and to guide policy development. Evidence-based practice is typically dependent upon generalizations made on the bases of the existing body of knowledge – assimilations of the research literature on a particular topic. The potential utility of scientific evidence for guiding policy and practice decisions is grounded in the validity of the research investigations upon which such decisions are made. However, the validity of inferences made from the extant public health research literature requires more than ascertaining the validity of the statistical methods alone; for …

Impact Of Chlamydia And Gonorrhea In Georgia: An Urban / Rural Comparison (2000-2004), Swati Raychowdhury, Stuart H. Tedders, Sarah K. Jones

Journal of the Georgia Public Health Association

Background: In 2005, 33,562 cases of chlamydia and 15,860 cases of gonorrhea were reported in the State of Georgia, respectively corresponding to 3.4% and 4.7% of all cases reported nationally (CDC, 2005). Disparities of infection with respect to race and gender are evident for both diseases. The objective of this study was to determine the magnitude of chlamydia and gonorrhea in rural Georgia compared to urban areas of the state.

Methods: County level data necessary for analysis were acquired using the Georgia Division of Public Health’s Online Analytical Statistical Information System database (GDHR, 2007). Rates of infection by gender and …

Using Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning (Sotl) To Inquire Into Pre-Service Teachers’ Science Lesson Planning Considerations, Geeta Verma

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This paper shares my experiences with the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) framework in my university science methods course. Incorporating SoTL not only enabled me to inquire into my own teaching as a scholarly activity but also engaged my students in critical reflections. I used the principles and characteristics of SoTL to design this inquiry by; a) creating a new instructional framework for lesson planning; b) facilitating students’ reflections on their experiences with the new framework; and c) documenting and presenting this inquiry as a scholarly activity. Forty-eight pre service teachers (N = 48), 43 women and 5 men …

Using Scholarly Research In Course Redesign: Teaching To Engage Students With Authentic Disciplinary Practices, Rachel G. Ragland

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This action research study describes a course redesign using scholarly research in two ways. Traditional disciplinary research was used to inform the design of the curriculum, and SoTL was used to measure the success of the course design in achieving its objectives for student learning. The objective of the course redesign was to better engage students in applying the authentic disciplinary practices of the field. Research was then conducted on the pedagogical process to determine the success of the new course design in achieving its objectives. The research project documented: how the authentic disciplinary practices were taught to students; student …

Power And Expertise: Student-Faculty Collaboration In Course Design And The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning, Richard J. Mihans Ii, Deborah T. Long, Peter Felten

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This essay describes the process of using a team of faculty and undergraduate students to redesign a university course, and outlines the research we conducted on student and faculty learning from the redesign process. We focus particular attention on power relations and issues of expertise, raising questions with implications for faculty who wish to engage students in similar course design projects, regardless of academic discipline, and who partner with undergraduates in Scholarship of Teaching and Learning research.

Editor's Comment, Alan Altany

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

No abstract provided.

Adult Teaching Methods In China And Bloom’S Taxonomy, Victor Wang, Lesley Farmer

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Drawing from Bloom’s 1956 Taxonomy and Western theories on adult learning, the authors argue that adult teaching methods in China feature a teacher-centered, information-based and test-driven instructional format. An author-designed survey instrument called Lower-Order Thinking Skills and Higher-Order Thinking Skills (LOTSHOTS) was used to determine whether knowledge, comprehension and application drove adult teaching methods or analysis, synthesis and evaluation drove adult teaching methods in China. The results of the study showed that Chinese instructors of adults were used to teaching lower thinking skills associated with the first three levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy, namely, knowledge, comprehension and application. The study proposes …

Changing Our Brains: Transforming A Traditional View Of Scholarship And Teaching, Brian Caster, Robert Hautala

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

The purpose of this essay is to capture, in its earliest stages, the influence that formal recognition of Boyer’s multiple domains of scholarship within faculty evaluation standards had on a select group of colleagues within a disciplinary diverse academic unit at a mid-sized, comprehensive university. A process is described whereby the combination of a book discussion group, a newly approved faculty contract recognizing Boyer’s multiple domains, and a genuine commitment from a disciplinary diverse group of colleagues to the academic mission of the unit, resulted in a transformation in attitudes toward scholarship and teaching. Scholarship of teaching and learning was …

Book Review: Conquering The Content: A Step-By-Step Guide To Online Course Design By Robin Smith (Jossey-Bass, 2008), Donna Vinton

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Excerpt: Had Robin Smith’s book been available a decade ago, I could have avoided countless hours spent since then in updating, revising, and re-envisioning the web pages supporting my courses. Even with years of experience creating web sites for my courses, I found ideas and insights that will help me continue to improve the ongoing processes of course development and maintenance.

Book Review: Aligning For Learning, Strategies Fr Teaching Effectiveness By Donald Wulff, Editor (Anker, 2005), Jean Martin-Williams

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Excerpt: Dr. Donald Wulff has been a highly esteemed leader in the area of teaching and learning in higher education, most recently as Director for the Center for Instructional Development and Research at the University of Washington. Although he passed away earlier this year, he has left the world of SOTL with many valuable research projects and publications.

Changing Trains: The Story Of Sotl In Eastern Europe And The Former Soviet Union, Joanna Renc-Roe

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Excerpt: This essay is a brief story of SOTL in Eastern Europe as developed by the Curriculum Resource Center at Central European University (CEU) in its selected outreach programs over the past four years (see also, Renc-Roe, 2005). In accounting for the first steps towards SOTL, I would like to point out some general and context-specific problems that remain to be further studied. The story below is not so much a coherent narrative of all relevant developments, but is meant to be a discussion of the central points of tension and struggle for our own work in introducing SOTL, supported …

Book Review: Thirteen Strategies To Measure College Teaching By Ron Berk (Stylus, 2006), Louis E. Keiner

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Excerpt: The evaluation of teaching is something that is done virtually wherever teaching itself is done. At the college level, it factors into annual evaluations, merit raises and promotion and tenure decisions. At too many places, though, it is done in a shallow, haphazard fashion. Why is this, when there is a large body of research about and standards for the measurement of effective teaching? Very possibly, the existence of those methods have not gotten to the people making decisions on how teaching is evaluated at individual colleges – i.e. faculty in disciplines other than that of educational measurement. Ron …

Book Review: Inside The Undergraduate Experience By Catharine Hoffman Beyer, Gerald Gillmore And Andrew Fisher (Anker, 2007), Catherine Ross

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Excerpt: Inside the Undergraduate Experience is a fascinating book for anyone who works in assessment and faculty development, or with undergraduates in learning communities, learning centers or first year experience courses. While it has all the numbers, charts, statistics and graphs that any assessment expert would want, it offers startling insights into the individual nature of undergraduate learning while at the same time giving an incredibly rich overview of what happens to undergraduates, in general, in their college years.

Computer Facilitated Reflective Practice In A Postgraduate Supervisor’S Feedback To Students, Kathy Ahern, Fiona Hawthorne

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Reflective practice has been adopted by many teachers, including dissertation advisors who provide 1:1 teaching of research students. This paper discusses issues arising from our use of qualitative data analysis software (QDAS) for reflective practice and provides an analysis of the thematic coding and word/pattern searches of feedback given to postgraduate research students. We subjected written feedback provided by one dissertation advisor to three different analyses: thematic, text-string and text-pattern search. We found that use of QDAS in a thematic analysis of feedback provides new insights by indicating areas of strength and areas for improvement. Text and pattern searches are …

Book Review: Non-Western Perspectives On Learning And Knowing By Sharon Merriam & Associates (Krieger, 2007), Joellen Coryell, Jeannine Palow, Ngang Che, Tim Senesi, Greg Longoria

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Excerpt: Education, as we know it in America, is steeped in Western values and culture. However, other cultural and value systems influence ways of learning and knowing differently across the globe. Non-western Perspectives on Learning and Knowing is a collection of insights...

Book Review: Meaningful Course Revision: Enhancing Academic Engagement Using Student Learning Data By Catherine Wehlburg (Jossey-Bass, 2007), Gail A. Rathbun

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Excerpt: In Meaningful Course Revision: Enhancing Academic Engagement Using Student Learning Data, Wehlburg persuasively argues that letting evidence guide change and innovation is perhaps the only way to break the dysfunctional tradition of what may be termed “teaching as telling” and “grading to the bell curve.” Throughout the book, Wehlburg convincingly argues that assessment is not yet another chore that faculty and administrators are obliged to perform, but an integrated set of activities that enhances learning and provides the feedback teachers and institutions need in order to improve learning outcomes and implement innovations in teaching. In Chapter 1, “Data-based Decision-Making,” …

The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning: What Is It? A Personal View, Michael Prosser

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

The scholarship of teaching and learning in higher education is an idea and a practice that is relatively new and still in its early stages of development. What it means, how to engage in it, what are its expected outcomes, etc. are still issues of debate. In this short essay, I argue that the scholarship of teaching and learning should be about individual and groups of academic staff within disciplines engaged collegially in working to improve student learning within the disciplines. It is not research in the traditional sense, its focus should be on better understanding our student learning experiences …

The Bridge Course Design: Formative Assessment And Student-Centered Learning In Cross-Course Classrooms, John Davies, Casey Welch, Jace Hargis

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This paper reports on the effectiveness of an innovative course design that bridges classes from two different disciplines. The Bridge design creates assignments in two classes: a summary class and a panel class. The design encourages students to engage in teaching and interacting with their peers within and across disciplines, and provides instructors with unique opportunities for formative assessment. Relative to control groups, students in the summary class perceived greater opportunities to teach peers, participate in class discussions, think critically, and engage in collaborative learning. Students in the panel class showed gains in critical thinking. Both classes afforded multiple opportunities …

Superhero As Metaphor: Using Creative Pedagogies To Engage, Christie H. Burton

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Video case studies of realistic scenarios have long been used to illustrate course concepts and provide variety in the classroom. The growing popularity of superheroes in film suggests an openness to experience beyond the traditional fare. This qualitative study uses content analysis to explore how students’ understanding of ethics concepts changed over time after viewing a superhero film and writing with metaphor. A pre-test post-test design was used, where students in an undergraduate management course completed a writing assignment before and after experiencing the film. Results suggest that after students were exposed to the treatment, they had a deeper understanding …

Student Perceptions Of The Purpose And Function Of The Laboratory In Science: A Grounded Theory Study, Cianán Brooks Russell, Gabriela Weaver

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

The laboratory has long been an important part of the undergraduate science experience. This paper reports on a qualitative, grounded theory study on students’ perceptions of the purpose of the laboratory. Thirteen undergraduate chemistry students were interviewed about their experiences in the science laboratory to provide data on students’ understanding of the purpose of the laboratory in science education. Results reveal that students had views that were polar opposites regarding the correlation between laboratory and lecture content material and the effectiveness of the laboratory at enhancing their learning in science. This paper also reveals the need for explicit instruction regarding …

Effects Of Active Learning Variants On Student Performance And Learning Perceptions, Abdi-Rizak Mohamed

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This paper aims to examine the relative impacts of three different models of learning (collaborative learning, traditional lecturing and process-oriented guided inquiry learning [POGIL]) on student performance and learning perceptions. In a controlled case study, we measured the learning outcomes of 57 undergraduates in a chemistry course taught by the different learning modules, using quizzes and exams as performance measures. In one academic quarter, the collaborative learning method was used exclusively whereas all three models were used subsequently in a second quarter by dividing up lectures into 4 different modules. Student quiz and exam outcomes indicated significant difference between collaborative …

The Impact Of Grading On The Curve: A Simulation Analysis, George Kulick, Ronald Wright

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Grading on the curve is a common practice in higher education. While there are many critics of the practice it still finds wide spread acceptance particularly in science classes. Advocates believe that in large classes student ability is likely to be normally distributed. If test scores are also normally distributed instructors and students tend to believe that the test reasonably measures learning and that the grades are assigned fairly. Beyond an intuitive reaction, is there evidence that normally distributed test scores appropriately distinguish among student performance? Can we be sure that there is a significant correlation between test scores and …

A Game Approach To Teach Environmentally Benign Manufacturing In The Supply Chain, Donna M. Qualters, Jacqueline A. Isaacs, Thomas P. Cullinane, Jay Laird, Ann Mcdonald

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Multidisciplinary models of education are needed to prepare students for their role in a global work environment. Combined with this need is the reality of the new Millennial Generation entering the educational system with a different approach to learning. This paper introduces an interactive, educational engineering game designed to appeal to the Millennial Generation’s learning preferences. Shortfall is a prototype board game with a team approach and a trial and error methodology to introduce students to environmentally benign manufacturing in the supply chain using the automobile industry as a model. After playing the game, quantitative analysis showed that on average, …

Navigating The Sotl Landscape: A Compass, Map And Some Tools For Getting Started, Mia O’Brien

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Since the scholarship of teaching and learning entails the design of, and evidence-based inquiry into, teaching, learning and pedagogical practice – faculty new to this field face the challenging task of mastering perspectives, processes and practices that can be disparate to their disciplinary foundations. This paper offers an introductory overview of some essential ideas that help shape the design and intention of SoTL activities, and provides guidelines for undertaking SoTL projects.

Enhancing The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning: A Study Of The Factors Identified As Promoting And Hindering The Scholarly Activities Of Academics In One Faculty, Kerry Dobbins

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Excerpt: The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) has, at its very core, the linking of research and teaching/learning. Conceptions of SoTL differ to degrees (Trigwell and Shale, 2004) but the common thread within all accounts is the integration of research within teaching and learning to enhance and further develop practice. Additionally, in line with other research activities, consensus emerges on the need for scholarly inquiries to be shared with the wider teaching and learning community to ensure open review and scrutiny. The linking of research and teaching/learning also runs to the processes by which SoTL is carried out. Badley …

Personal Reflection: A Reflection On The Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning As Democratic Practice, David M. Dees

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

This personal reflection describes how the scholarship of teaching and learning models democratic practice. Motivated by a forced curricular change, this piece outlines the reflection and growth of a college professor as he realized that democratic awareness is developed more fully through action than through readings and/or class discussions. In the end, a scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) project served to re-frame my perspective towards teaching, learning, and democratic practice in a college classroom.

Book Review: The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, And Responsiveness In The Classroom (2nd Edition) By Stephen D. Brookfield (Jossey-Bass, 2006), Ellen Cotter

International Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Excerpt: This second edition of Brookfield’s book covers a wide variety of topics relevant to the issue of effective teaching. A key addition is a chapter on online teaching, and material in other chapters has been updated as well. Brookfield presents numerous anecdotally- and research-based strategies for creating an effective classroom learning environment, including practical suggestions for facilitating classroom discussion, conducting formative evaluations of student learning, and grading class participation and essays. Many of Brookfield’s suggestions are also aimed at making the classroom environment rewarding for teachers; the aforementioned suggestions for grading class participation and essays are...