Writing Scholarship of Teaching and Learning articles for peer-reviewed journals

There are many general books and articles on publishing in peer-reviewed journals, but few specifically address issues around writing for journals focused on the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL). One of the challenges of beginning to write about teaching and learning is that most scholars have become interested in exploring these issues in higher education alongside their disciplinary interests and have to grapple with a new literature and sometimes unfamiliar methods and genres, as well. Hence, for many, as they write about their projects, they are simultaneously forging their identities as scholars of teaching and learning. We discuss the process of producing four types of SoTL-focused writing for peer-reviewed journals: empirical research articles, conceptual articles, reflective essays, and opinion pieces. Our goal is to support both new and experienced scholars of teaching and teaching— faculty/academics, professional staff, and students—as they nurture and further develop their voices and their identities as scholars of teaching and learning and strive to contribute to the enhancement of learning and teaching in higher education. We pose three related sets of overarching questions for consideration when writing about teaching and learning for peer-reviewed journals and offer heuristic frameworks for publishing in the four specific writing genres listed above. We also discuss how to get started with writing, preparing to submit, and responding to reviewers, focusing on the importance of contributing to and creating scholarly conversations about teaching and learning. Finally, using the metaphor of being in conversation, we argue that writing is a values-based process that contributes to the identity formation of scholars of teaching and learning and their sense of belonging within the SoTL discourse community

Facilitation of the Estuary/Ocean Subgroup and the Expert Regional Technical Group, Fiscal Year 2013 Annual Report

This project covers facilitation of the Estuary/Ocean Subgroup (EOS) for federal research, monitoring, and evaluation (RME) and the Expert Regional Technical Group (ERTG) for estuary habitat restoration. The EOS is part of the research, monitoring, and evaluation effort that the Action Agencies (Bonneville Power Administration [BPA], U.S. Army Corps of Engineers [Corps], U.S. Bureau of Reclamation) developed in response to obligations arising from the Endangered Species Act as applied to operation of the Federal Columbia River Power System (FCRPS). The EOS is tasked by National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the Action Agencies (AAs) to design and coordinate implementation of the federal RME plan for the lower Columbia River and estuary, including the river’s plume in the ocean. Initiated in 2002, the EOS is composed of members from BPA, the Corps, NMFS, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory’s (PNNL’s) Marine Sciences Laboratory, and other agencies as necessary

Students as co-creators of teaching approaches, course design and curricula: implications for academic developers

Within higher education, students’ voices are frequently overlooked in the design of teaching approaches, courses and curricula. In this paper we outline the theoretical background to arguments for including students as partners in pedagogical planning processes. We present examples where students have worked collaboratively in design processes along with the beneficial outcomes of these examples. Finally we focus on some of the implications and opportunities for academic developers of proposing collaborative approaches to pedagogical planning

Charge Symmetry Violation Corrections to Determination of the Weinberg Angle in Neutrino Reactions

We show that the correction to the Paschos-Wolfenstein relation associated with charge symmetry violation in the valence quark distributions is essentially model independent. It is proportional to a ratio of quark momenta that is independent of Q^2. This result provides a natural explanation of the surprisingly good agreement found between our earlier estimates within several different models. When applied to the recent NuTeV measurement, this effect significantly reduces the discrepancy with other determinations of the Weinberg angle.Comment: 7 pages, no figures; expanded discussion of N.ne.Z correction

Stac Proteins Suppress Ca2+-Dependent Inactivation of Neuronal L-type Ca2+ Channels

Stac protein (named for its SH3-and cysteine-rich domains) was first identified in brain 20 years ago and is currently known to have three isoforms. Stac2, Stac1, and Stac3 transcripts are found at high, modest, and very low levels, respectively, in the cerebellum and forebrain, but their neuronal functions have been little investigated. Here, we tested the effects of Stac proteins on neuronal, high-voltage-activated Ca2+ channels. Overexpression of the three Stac isoforms eliminated Ca2+-dependent inactivation (CDI) ofL-type current in rat neonatal hippocampal neurons (sex unknown), but not CDI of non-L-type current. Using heterologous expression in tsA201 cells (together with β and α2-δ1 auxiliary subunits), we found that CDI for CaV1.2 and CaV1.3 (the predominant, neuronalL-type Ca2+ channels) was suppressed by all three Stac isoforms, whereas CDI for the P/Q channel, CaV2.1, was not. For CaV1.2, the inhibition of CDI by the Stac proteins appeared to involve their direct interaction with the channel’s C terminus. Within the Stac proteins, a weakly conserved segment containing ~100 residues and linking the structurally conserved PKC C1 and SH3_1 domains was sufficient to fully suppress CDI. The presence of CDI forL-type current in control neonatal neurons raised the possibility that endogenous Stac levels are low in these neurons and Western blotting indicated that the expression of Stac2 was substantially increased in adult forebrain and cerebellum compared with neonate. Together, our results indicate that one likely function of neuronal Stac proteins is to tune Ca2+ entry via neuronal L-type channels. © 2018 the authors

Toward theories of partnership praxis: an analysis of interpretive framing in literature on students as partners in teaching and learning

A body of literature on students as partners (SaP) in higher education has emerged over the last decade that documents, shares, and evaluates SaP approaches. As is typical in emerging fields of inquiry, scholars differ regarding how they see the relationship between the developments in SaP practices and the theoretical explanations that guide, illuminate, and situate such practices. In this article we explore the relationship between theory and practice in SaP work through an analysis of interpretive framing employed in scholarship of SaP in teaching and learning in higher education. Through a conceptual review of selected publications, we describe three ways of framing partnership that represent distinct but related analytical approaches: building on concepts; drawing on constructs; and imagining through metaphors. We both affirm the expansive and creative theorising in scholarship of SaP in university teaching and learning and encourage further deliberate use and thoughtful development of interpretive framings that take seriously the disruptive ethos and messy human relational processes of partnership. We argue that these developmental processes move us toward formulating theories of partnership praxis