Scholarship of Teaching and

Learning (SoTL)

• Refresh your innovative teaching and learning strategies with five on-demand Teaching Essentials modules to review at your convenience.

• Connect and collaborate with colleagues across the disciplines to build community in a dedicated cohort.

• Apply tangible and relevant strategies shared, directly in your own classes.

• Get recognized for your accomplishments by earning a certification, digital badges, and an opportunity to share with the university-wide community.

Check out the teaching and learning resources developed by the AY2021-2022 Teaching Essentials Cohort!

• Our Ideas (handout)

• Share Out (presentation)

Sponsored by: FCI, ParkWrites, and the Faculty Scholarship Circle

Date & Time: First Friday of the month Sept. - Nov. and Feb. - Apr.

Zoom Link: https://park.zoom.us/j/93739636246?pwd=a1MyeU1vVHNUUWhDU1lNTENpWmJXQT09

Meeting ID: 937 3963 6246

We all struggle to find time in the busy semester to carve out time for our scholarship. It's hard to find time to write and set reasonable writing goals for shorter work times available. Join us for a virtual faculty writing retreat - we will be setting reasonable goals for an 85-minute writing session, sharing those goals in a small team, working on your scholarship for an 85-minute period, and then sharing out your accomplishments and plans for next steps.

Here is what faculty are saying:

“Thank you for hosting these monthly sessions - I wish I could have this session every day!”
“I really appreciate the opportunity to block off time in my calendar to focus on writing.”
“I feel more productive and got more done during this one session than I have all semester.”

So join us for the Virtual Faculty Writing Retreat the first Friday of each month and indulge in time for academic writing and creation! 

Hosted by: FCI

Dates & Times: 

• Aug. 26 (Friday) from 11:30am-12pm, CST

• Oct. 28 (Friday) from 11:30am-12pm, CST
• Jan. 27 (Friday) from 11:30am-12pm, CST
• Mar. 24 (Friday) from 11:30am-12pm, CST

Zoom Link: https://park.zoom.us/j/91571387294?pwd=eUc3VVdXRlVzOWdSaFNYV1dtOVQvUT09

Meeting ID: 915 7138 7294

All faculty are welcome to join FCI once a term on the Friday before Faculty Senate from 11:30am-12pm, CST for an informal social gathering. Topics of discussion will vary each session and will develop based upon your interests. Bring your own beverage of choice and join us for social connection/community building.

Institutional Review Board

Asking Questions & Looking for Opportunities handout

Finding a Research Topic/Question/Problem: Getting Started

Start with your baseline. What is happening in your classroom right now? What problems are you encountering? Where do you see opportunities for improvement, expansion, innovation, clarification? What do you hope to accomplish? Or what do you hope to better understand?

What Kinds of Questions Are You Asking?: Clarifying Your Ideas

In the introduction to her famous book Opening Lines: Approaches to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (2000), Pat Hutchings articulates a taxonomy of questions that describe and help guide SoTL projects (based on work by the Carnegie Academy for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning). However, she emphasizes that “there is no single best method or approach,” and you’ll notice that many of her questions could overlap in the same project.

What Works? Faculty who use this question are seeking evidence about the relative effectiveness of different approaches. This might mean questioning whether a particular assignment (a multiple-choice exam) or method (problem-based learning) results in the level of student understanding or produces the kinds of student work you are hoping for. This question is a form of assessment.

 
What Is? Faculty who use this question seek to describe what a particular approach looks like, what its constituent features might be. This might mean describing what a good class discussion looks like or exploring what prior knowledge of technology students bring to the classroom.

 
What Could Be? (Visions of the Possible) Faculty who use this question seek opportunities for learning and growing. This might mean asking what might happen if you flipped your classroom or how student engagement might increase if you incorporated more group work?

 
How Might I (Re-)Frame or Theorize My Practice? (Formulating a New Conceptual Framework) Faculty who use this question might explore or create new theoretical frameworks for the scholarship of teaching and learning. This might mean asking what frame or model would help you to explain your teaching-learning problem.

Situate Your Work Within the Larger Conversation: Conduct a Literature Review

Library: Take advantage of the resources you have available through Park’s Library, using Pirate Search, Interlibrary Loan, and our knowledgeable librarians.

Online: Check out the plethora of online resources and journals focusing on teaching and learning (SoTL, Education, Discipline-specific).

View Free Webinar Using the Gale Database: We are excited to share a great overview of Gale’s Academic OneFile database that features Gale’s new search interface. The video focuses on how developments in keyword searching and the refining of search results make searching that much easier for you and your students. Park’s library website currently provides access to 55 Gale resources, including Academic OneFile, Opposing Viewpoints and many others. Check out these resources and more information via this webinar created for Park faculty.

Faculty Center for Innovation: FCI has some hard copies of important SoTL books, but we can also provide advice and guidance on where to look for information.

For More Information

• "Asking Inquiry Questions: http://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/studying-engaged-learning/asking-inquiry-questions/

• "Getting Started with SoTL": https://cirt.gcu.edu/research/developmentresources/research_ready/sotl/start_sotl

• APA Guide for Preparing Manuscripts for Psychological Journal Publication (American Psychological Association)

• Association of American University Presses (Association of American University Presses)

• Conferences and Institutes on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (Michigan State University)

• Excerpt from From Dissertation to Book (William Germano)

• "How is SoTL Useful to Me" (University of Central Florida)

• Journals Addressing General and Discipline-Specific Issues in Higher Education (Kennesaw State University)

• "Kinds of SoTL Projects" (University of Central Florida)

• Papers Invited (World's largest database of CFMs)

• Publishing the Scholarly Article (American Philological Association)

• The Battle of Getting an Article Published...Notes from the Front (Vibiana Bowman)

• "Writing and Publishing SoTL Scholarship" (University of Central Florida)

Institutional Review Board

An Institutional Review Board (IRB) is a specially constituted review body established to protect the welfare of human participants in research. Federal law states that all institutions supported by a Department or Agency to which the Common Rule applies must establish an IRB to review and approve research involving human subjects.

All research connected with members of the Park University community must be reviewed and approved by the IRB. The Park University IRB defines "research" as a systematic investigation—including research development, testing and evaluation—involving a living individual about whom you obtain: 1) data through intervention or interaction, INCLUDING surveys and interviews, and/or 2) identifiable private information in a form associable with that individual.

If you are a member of the Park University community (a student, faculty, or staff member at the Parkville campus, any of the campus centers, or online) and intend to conduct research that involves human participants, either on campus or elsewhere, you must have your research plans reviewed and approved by the IRB prior to the initiation of your project. Typical SoTL projects submitted for consideration by the IRB include surveys, focus groups, and sampling/analysis of student work. You can find more information, including the application, here:

• https://my.park.edu/ICS/Offices/IRB/IRB.jnz (You’ll need to login to MyPark)

• Alternatively: MyPark>Resources>Institutional Review Board

The first thing you’ll need to do is take the NIH Training. You will need the certificate number in order to complete an IRB application.

For More Information

• “Doing Ethical Research: SoTL and the IRB”: https://my.vanderbilt.edu/sotl/files/2013/09/3SoTLIRB.pdf

• “Institutional Review Board (IRB) & Scholarship of Teaching and Learning”: https://blogs.commons.georgetown.edu/vkp/2009/01/14/institutional-review-board/

• “Being Ethically Minded: Practising the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in an Ethical Manner” TLI 1(2): 23-32. http://tlijournal.com/tli/index.php/TLI/article/view/47

Sample Consent Form

A sample consent form has been created by Dr. Stacey Kikendall that you may use as a template for your own class. Please consult the Park IRB page (MyPark login required) if you have any questions or concerns.

"The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL, pronounced 'SŌ‐TUL' in the US) is a synthesis of teaching, learning, and research in higher education that aims to bring a scholarly lens - the curiosity, the inquiry, the rigor, the disciplinary variety - to what happens in the classroom (brick-and mortar, virtual, co-curricular, et al.)." - Nancy Chick, SoTL Guide, Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching

Planning a SoTL Project handout

The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning is a Deliberate Process

1. Baseline

2. Ask Questions, Look for Opportunities

3. Interventions/Redesign

4. Implementation

5. Results and Assessment: Student Work, Surveys

6. Repeat steps 1-5 as necessary

7. Discussion and Reflection

8. Share

For More Information

• SoTL Guide: https://my.vanderbilt.edu/sotl/

• What is SoTL? http://isotl.ctlt.ubc.ca/sotl/what-is-sotl/

• Asking Inquiry Questions: https://www.centerforengagedlearning.org/studying-engaged-learning/asking-inquiry-questions/

Annual SoTL Conferences

• https://sotl.illinoisstate.edu/conferences/

SoTL Publication Outlets

• Park's SoTL Journal - InSight: A Journal of Scholarly Teaching: http://insightjournal.net

• Directory of Teaching Journals: https://facultydevelopment.kennesaw.edu/scholarly-teaching/journals/index.php

Gary Poole SoTL Videos on YouTube

Animation by Monica Louie

• SoTL: What Works?

• SoTL: Words of Wisdom to Those Starting Out

• SoTL: Processes vs Outcomes

• SoTL: Institutional Recognition

• SoTL: Growth in Canada

• SoTL: Grand Challenges

• SoTL: Educating Funding Agencies

• SoTL: Microscopic vs Macroscopic

• SoTL: Why Care?

• Microscopic and Macroscopic Effects of SoTL (Simmons, Louie, & Poole, 2019)