Toward a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Educational Development

Educational development traditionally has been a practice-based field. We propose that as a profession we adopt the methods of the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL), so often shared with our clients, in order to look through a scholarly lens at the outcomes of our own practice. Using SoTL approaches in our work would deepen the research literature in our field and improve the effectiveness of decisions we make about where to spend limited time and resources. In this chapter, we explore what it might mean for individual developers, and for our professional community, to apply SoTL methods to our practice

Teaching, Learning, and Spirituality in the College Classroom

landscape is provoking a heightened focus on spirituality and religion in the academy. For example, UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute (HERI), best known as the administrators of the CIRP Freshman Survey for over 40 years, is conducting a major research project, Spirituality in Higher Education (https://www.spirituality.ucla.edu), drawing data from over 112,000 students and 40,000 faculty at over 420 institutions. Defining spirituality in broad strokes (as the “interior” and “subjective” aspects of our lives, that which reflects the “values and ideals that we hold most dear,” gives us “meaning and purpose,” and invokes “inspiration, creativity, the mysterious, the sacred, and the mystical”), the project’s reports show that significant majorities of both students and faculty place a high priority on cultivating such qualities within the academy. For example, a large majority (74%) of students are searching for meaning and purpose of life, and believe that college should play a strong role in this development: more than two-thirds see it as essential or very important that their college enhances their self-understanding, and almost half say it is essential or very important for their college to encourage their personal expression of spirituality. Results from faculty show a similar interest in spirituality: 81% consider themselves to be spiritual persons, and 69% actively seek opportunities for spiritual development; a majority of faculty believes that enhancing students’ self-understanding (60%), developing moral character (59%) and helping students develop personal values (53%) are essential or very important goals of an undergraduate education

Foucault and the Practice of Educational Development: Power and Surveillance in Individual Consultations

A common goal of educational development is to create a neutral, “safe” place for clients in individual consultations. Such an approach, while well intentioned, obscures the multifaceted web of power threading through and around our work. Using Michel Foucault’s theories of sovereign and disciplinary power, we trace the forms that power can take in specific types of consultations (small group instructional diagnosis, course evaluations, and videotape). While power is always “dangerous,” it is less likely to be damaging if we are conscious of its presence and impact—and of our own participation in its complexity

Practicing What We Preach: Transforming the TA Orientation

Brookfield (1995), Schön (1983), and others articulate the necessity and complexity of being critically reflective in our work. Indeed, the value of critical reflection is inherent to educational development as a field in that we frequently encourage such thinking in our consultations with instructors. But practicing what we preach can be difficult. This chapter reflects on an experiment in the transformation of a teaching assistant orientation, a central event of our teaching center. We not only describe and assess the process of revising this orientation, but we also reflect on the implicatiom of this case for broader programming issues in faculty and teaching assistant development

Ice shelf/ocean interactions under the Amery Ice Shelf: seasonal variability and its effect on marine ice formation

Marine ice is an important factor in ice shelf stability. An extensive marine ice layer is present under the Amery Ice Shelf (AIS), East Antarctica. This paper documents observations on the seasonal variability of the AIS–ocean interaction beneath its marine ice layer. We focus on data collected during 2002 through a borehole at AM01, 100 km from the ice shelf calving front, and use additional data from two other boreholes to complement the study. At AM01, the top ~20 m of the water column is super–cooled almost year–round, protecting the marine ice layer and promoting frazil ice formation. The mixed layer thickness varies from ~50 m in February to at least 160 m by June, as the water column cools and freshens. High Salinity Shelf Water (HSSW) abruptly arrives at AM01 in June–August as an eddy–like flow. We suggest that the flow characteristics are a result of baroclinic instabilities. In addition, the inflow of HSSW results in a steepening of the isopycnals that enhances the upwelling of Ice Shelf Water. This study documents, for the first time, a seasonal signal in the formation of marine ice under the AIS. Our results highlight the vulnerability of the marine ice layer to ocean variability with potential consequences for the overall ice shelf mass balance