Scholarship of Teaching and

Learning (SoTL)

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.

• 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

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