Scholarship of Teaching and Learning Commons^™

Digital Literacies And Visual Rhetoric: Scaffolding A Meme-Based Assignment Sequence For Introductory Composition Classes, Andie Silva

Publications and Research

Introducing students to the practice of academic writing ideally goes beyond teaching strategies like drafting, outlining, and revising in order to encourage deeper skills such as critical thinking and metacognition. This post discusses an assignment series focusing on reflection, genre analysis, and multiliteracies leading up to the design of original memes.

Looking Beyond The Canon: Localized And Globalized Perspectives In Art History Pedagogy, Aditi Chandra, Leda Cempellin, Kristen Chiem, Abigail Lapin Dardashti, Radha J. Dalal, Ellen Kenney, Sadia Pasha Kamran, Nina Murayama, James P. Elkins

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

Our pedagogical choices make art history classrooms political spaces of cultural production. Through a global exchange of ideas we consider questions of imbalance between western and non-Western materials and differing art history pedagogies in introductory courses and reveal teaching methods shaped by varied local contexts.

Kristen L. Chiem suggests re-routing students to the fundamentals of art historical inquiry rather than to a specific time or region. Abigail L. Dardashti’s essay re-configures the global art history course by focusing on artworks that defy the neat West and non-West categories. Radha J. Dalal discusses a curriculum that includes a series of courses …

Editor’S Introduction: Advancing Sotl-Ah, Virginia B. Spivey Phd, Renee Mcgarry

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

No abstract provided.

Rhetoric As Inquiry: Personal Writing And Academic Success In The English Classroom, Erica E. Rogers

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Holistic and critical pedagogy, an approach to learning and teaching, integrates the everyday realities students live, with the systemic and institutional objectives of education itself. Working with theories from composition, rhetoric, feminist studies, and cognitive psychology from a teacher-researcher perspective, this dissertation explores and theorizes holistic, critical pedagogy within the composition classroom while outlining the use of personal writing as a means to develop critical consciousness. Student study participants kept “Inquiry Notebooks,” semester-long personal writing projects that served as receptacles for practical and theoretical engagement with a variety of texts and ideas, then interviewed after the course to discuss their …

The Impact Of Transdisciplinary Threshold Concepts On Student Engagement In Problem-Based Learning: A Conceptual Synthesis, Maggi Savin-Baden

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

There has been much recent discussion about student engagement in higher education, and in the last few years a number of authors have undertaken extensive international research on the topic, which has been summarized in a number of literature reviews. However, to date, there has been relatively little in-depth exploration of student engagement in problem-based learning (PBL) or the impact of different forms of engagement on distinct forms of PBL. Drawing on a number of studies over the last 15 years, this paper argues that student engagement in PBL can be troublesome as both a concept and a practice. It …

Use Of An Lms In Undergraduate Business Communications Courses, Arlene J. Nicholas

Faculty and Staff - Articles & Papers

Does the current college population embrace the use of technology for classwork? They may be devoted users of text messaging, Facebook and even Google, but do they take advantage of the learning tools created for their specific coursework? Does it advance their knowledge or understanding of course objectives? The cost for the university licensing, faculty and staff effort to create, upload, troubleshoot and maintain is considerable. A small case study of Business Communication students who used a learning management system (LMS) was conducted. Analysis of this study and other recent research in this pedagogical method will be reported.

Inclusive Pedagogy: Beyond Simple Content, Sheila Lintott, Lissa Skitolsky

Faculty Journal Articles

We have learned from feminist philosophy and critical theory that neutrality is a myth; this applies also to the seemingly neutral ways we structure our courses, design our assignments, and assess student achievement and mastery of material. Despite efforts to diversify the content of philosophy classes by ensuring that philosophy written by a diverse and representative selection of philosophers is studied, students still may be alienated when required to participate in a discourse that is not their own. We explore and argue the need for decentering playfulness in philosophy classrooms.

Habits Of Mind In The Classroom: Threshold Concepts, Instructional Philosophy, And Sotl, Alicia S. Hansen, Brad Petitfils Ph.D.

Staff publications

Students performing research in higher education, especially at the undergraduate level, is a progressively dazzling task in the universe of digital and print resources. Using sound pedagogy to create student confidence in approaching research, hand in hand with creating scholarship, is a challenge tackled well by librarians and teaching faculty together.

We will discuss three theories and their place in research methods, using ACRL’sFramework for Information Literacy as context. First, Mezirow’s Transformative Learning Theory. Second, Perry’s Epistemology of Learning: moving a student’s absolute belief in all things defined by authority toward a belief in his own values and …

Testing The Efficacy Of Mypsychlab To Replace Traditional Instruction In A Hybrid Course, Kasey L. Powers, Patricia J. Brooks, Magdalena Galazyn, Seamus Donnelly

Publications and Research

Online course-packs are marketed as improving grades in introductory-level coursework, yet it is unknown whether these course-packs can effectively replace, as opposed to supplement, in-class instruction. This study compared learning outcomes for Introductory Psychology students in hybrid and traditional sections, with hybrid sections replacing 30% of in-class time with online homework using the MyPsychLab course-pack and Blackboard course management system. Data collected over two semesters (N = 730 students in six hybrid and nine traditional sections of ∼50 students) indicated equivalent final-grade averages and rates of class attrition. Although exam averages did not differ by class format, exam grades in …

Promoting Global Empathy And Engagement Through Real-Time Problem-Based Simulations: Outcomes From A Policymaking Simulation Set In Post-Earthquake Haiti, Chad Raymond, Tina Zappile, Daniel J. Beers

Faculty and Staff - Articles & Papers

We introduce a real-time problem-based simulation in which students are tasked with drafting policy to address the challenge of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in post-earthquake Haiti from a variety of stakeholder perspectives. Students who participated in the simulation completed a quantitative survey as a pretest/posttest on global empathy, political awareness, and civic engagement, and provided qualitative data through post-simulation focus groups. The simulation was run in four courses across three campuses in a variety of instructional settings from 2013 to 2015. An analysis of the data reveals that scores on several survey items measuring global empathy and political/civic engagement increased …

Are We Teaching Them Anything?: A Model For Measuring Methodology Skills In The Political Science Major, Christi Siver, Seth W. Greenfest, G. Claire Haeg

Political Science Faculty Publications

While the literature emphasizes the importance of teaching political science students methods skills, there currently exists little guidance for how to assess student learning over the course of their time in the major. To address this gap, we develop a model set of assessment tools that may be adopted and adapted by political science departments to evaluate the effect of their own methods instruction. The model includes a syllabi analysis, evaluation of capstone (senior) papers, and a transcript analysis. We apply these assessment tools to our own department to examine whether students demonstrate a range of basic-to-advanced methodological skills. Our …

Art Education/Aesthetics Citation Network Data, Robert Z. Selden Jr., Cala Coats

CRHR: Archaeology

This dataset includes the first iteration of citations and interactive citation networks generated for an ongoing analysis of scholarship within the field.

Effective Teaching Practices In Online Higher Education, Kim Mcmurtry

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

In the context of continuing growth in online higher education in the United States, students are struggling to succeed, as evidenced by lower course outcomes and lower retention rates in online courses in comparison with face-to-face courses. The problem identified for investigation is how university instructors can ensure that effective teaching and learning is happening in their online courses. The research questions were:

1. What are the best practices of effective online teaching in higher education according to current research?
2. How do exemplary online instructors enact teaching presence in higher education?
3. What are the best practices of effective online teaching in …

‘Knowing Your Students’ In The Culturally And Linguistically Diverse Classroom, Robyn Moloney, David Saltmarsh

Australian Journal of Teacher Education

The population movement of globalization brings greater cultural and linguistic diversity (CALD) to communities and education systems. To address the growing diversity in school classrooms, beginning teachers need an expanded set of skills and attitudes to support effective learning. It is an expectation today that teachers know their students and how the students learn. It follows that lecturers and tutors should also know something of the cultural and linguistic profile of their pre-service teacher education students. This article reports a study in a university which examined its teacher education practice in this light. It assessed the curriculum provision of material …

Leveraging Resources Across Units And Universities To Address Academic Literacies And Research Skills In Ontario Graduate Students, Melanie Mills, Elan Paulson

Western Libraries Presentations

Student2Scholar (S2S) is a fully online and open course that aims to teach academic literacies and research skills to social science graduate students. Set to launch in December 2015, S2S was conceived of and created by a diverse and distributed team of academic librarians, university staff, and graduate students from three Ontario Universities: Western, the University of Toronto, and Queen’s. Members of the project team brought with them varying degrees of experience and expertise across a range of disciplinary and teaching and learning backgrounds, including: adult education, information literacy, and online learning (to name only a few).

S2S serves as …

The G. Stanley Hall Papers, Granville Stanley Hall

Finding Aids

The papers of Granville Stanley Hall, Clark University's first president, include family and professional correspondence, official University correspondence, and correspondence with former students of Hall's.

Pedagogy For Librarians, Megan Hodge

VCU Libraries Faculty and Staff Publications

Most librarians are required to take classes on reference, collection development, and information organization in library school; courses on pedagogy, on the other hand, are usually optional, if they’re offered at all. This leads most librarians who end up with instruction duties to learn on the job. Activities and assessments can be learned on the fly fairly easily, but these often have little to no bearing on how much students actually absorb and recall weeks later because alone, they are usually insufficient to ensure deep learning. This chapter seeks to add the basics of pedagogy, a subject comprehensively covered in …

Mad Men In The Classroom: A Collection Of Classroom-Tested Teaching Tools, Rebecca Johnson, Jimmie Manning

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

This chapter includes classroom materials ranging from detailed lecture notes to assignments and activities to complete syllabuses that can be adopted for personal use.

Adapting To A Virtual Learning Environment, Winston H. Maddox

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

This participatory action research (PAR) dissertation examines the experiences of five experienced faculty transitioning from teaching in a traditional classroom to a virtual learning environment. The research participants used technology to deliver course material and reflected on the changes in their pedagogical practice. Data were collected using four phased sessions, including the completion of interview questions, individual interview video sessions, and group video sessions and the review of participant video validation postings. Research participants used journaling to reflect on their values, beliefs, assumptions, and experiences associated with teaching and learning. Research participants teaching in virtual learning environments were provided an …

Evidence-Based Teaching And Learning: From Theory To Practice, Sarah Grison

Psychology Faculty

Teachers and educational institutions are currently experiencing a perfect storm: We must teach more students in a wider variety of course formats, appropriately support student learning, and also document student progress towards reaching learning objectives. But often, we must achieve these goals with fewer resources, less support and little training. Importantly, a practical approach called Evidence-Based Teaching and Learning can help us address these new challenges. First, this session will provide information about several evidence-based pedagogical techniques shown to improve student learning, including low-stakes repeated testing. Then we will move beyond theoretical ideas to provide examples of how an Introductory …

Helping Undergraduate Students Learn From Each Other: A Pedagogical Process For In-Class Collaborative Research Projects, Angela Cora Garcia

Natural & Applied Sciences Faculty Publications

Previous research has shown that experiential, active, and collaborative teaching techniques help undergraduate students learn and develop critical thinking, communication, and teamwork skills that can help them in future study or work place roles. At the same time, universities are seeking ways to increase the number of students who get training and experience doing original research while undergraduates. This paper reports on a process for a collaborative in-class original research project which can help instructors achieve these goals. This paper first briefly reviews the relevant literature and then describes the course and the collaborative project. The value of the project …

Where’S The Pedagogy? The Role Of Teaching And Learning In The Digital Humanities, Stephen Brier

Publications and Research

The Digital Humanities (DH) has focused narrowly on digital research methods and projects and digital publication efforts. Yet DH has also had a significant, if under recognized, impact on classroom pedagogy. This chapter evaluates the ways DH practices, embodied in a series of pedagogy projects at the City University of York (CUNY), have been used to reshape teaching and learning in college classrooms.

Using Learning Goals To Promote Self-Directedness: How Problems In Research Led To Solutions In Teaching, Jaya Kannan, Larry Lutsky, Lisa Bauer, Yasmine Alwan

CTL Publications

In promoting self-directedness, our process at MCNY’s Learning Enhancement Center begins by having the student construct learning goals. A qualitative analysis of these student learning goals was conducted based on the premise that a student’s ability to articulate a goal in a clear, specific, complex, and measurable manner will improve over time. Although our findings did not support our hypothesis, the complex exercise of creating a customized rubric to measure the goals helped us arrive at a standardized evaluation method and build a transparent self-assessment tool to foster independent learning. This attempt to quantify student learning goals created successful iterative …

Beyond Friending: Buddypress And The Social, Networked, Open-Source Classroom, Matthew K. Gold

Publications and Research

Classrooms have always been networks, of a sort, with professors and students forming an interlaced series of nodes that take shape over the course of a semester, but tools like BuddyPress and WordPress can make those networks more open, more porous, and more varied. In very useful ways, the classroom-as-social-network can help create engaging spaces for learning in which students are more connected to one another, to their professors, and to the wider world.

To Lecture Or Not To Lecture: Engaged Teaching And Learning, Wayne Roosa, Jay Rasmussen

Faculty Development Publications

This video and companion paper discusses the lecture as a teaching tool and features Professor Wayne Roosa (Art History) as he reflects on reasons for using lectures, the thoughts and processes involved in lecture design, and techniques that have proven successful. In addition to viewing a lecture in a 300 level course, hear Wayne’s thoughts about dealing with “too much material and too little time,” facilitating learning apart from the lecture, and preventing student boredom and information overload. (video length 51:09)

From the introduction to the paper: The lecture mode is certain to be included in your repertoire as a …

The Messy Teaching Conversation: Toward A Model Of Collegial Reflection, Exchange, And Scholarship On Classroom Problems, Heidi L. Johnsen, Michelle Pacht, Phyllis E. Vanslyck, Ting Man Tsao

Publications and Research

Whether we teach in junior or senior colleges, we often represent our teaching in the best possible light, leaving little room for acknowledgment or discussion of uncertainty or errors. It seems that the only way to discuss a set back is as part of a larger narrative, one where a failure is simply a precursor to success, a way of highlighting a challenge overcome.This wall of silence about our "messes" prevents us from honestly discussing our day-to-day work in the classroom. This article models just such a "messy teaching conversation."

"In A Case, On The Screen, Do They Remember What They've Seen?" Critical Electronic Reading In The Law Classroom, Debra Moss Curtis

Faculty Scholarship

In 2005, we produced a well-received article and presentation entitled, "'In a Case, In a Book, They Will Not Take a Second Look!' Critical Reading in the Legal Writing Classroom." The article examined the educational foundations of critical reading, as well as, critical reading techniques. The purpose was to establish that law students need instruction in critical reading. In the article, we offered creative solutions that had been successfully used in our legal writing classes. In the two years since, we have found it necessary to reconsider the problem of critical reading in the law school classroom, in light of …

Toward An Ethic Of Teaching: Class, Race And The Promise Of Community Engagement, Roberto L. Corrada

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The three articles in this cluster challenge the consumerist, productoriented notion of teaching in American society today. As such, they provide some answers to my dilemma. They suggest that I should follow core ideals of community, caring, teaching and learning. They suggest, especially Darder's article, that the consumerist path fulfills neither the self nor the community ultimately. They all have at their core a notion of teaching more effectively for the challenges of today's society by breaking down artificial classroom walls and barriers and urging a pedagogy of community engagement.

Teaching Our Teachers: Practical Suggestions To Improve The Quality Of Learning In Bemidji State University's Department Of Professional Education, Ann M. Gassert Carstens

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Writing Intensive Courses In Theatre, Alisa Roost

Publications and Research

Most professors believe writing matters. Through writing our students are better able to synthesize ideas, communicate those ideas, and make connections across fields. While it can take significant time to grade all the assignments, it can threaten coverage of material, and our students rarely appreciate it, writing assignments can be crafted to reduce grading, add depth to coverage, and spark interest. What follows is an overview of how I incorporate writing into my theatre courses and some ways of crafting engaging writing-intensive courses.