Learning Communities Faculty Scholars: An Online, Targeted Faculty Development Course to Promote Scholarly Teaching

Many learning communities instructors seek professional development opportunities that foster their growth as teacher-scholars. Learning communities programs, therefore, have an opportunity to provide targeted, “just in time” training that allows for the immediate application of knowledge to a learning community setting, maximizing benefits for both faculty and students. This paper describes an online faculty development program for learning communities faculty in which participants explored such topics as first-year student needs, basic principles of learning and course design, integrative assignments, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Designed intentionally to work alongside faculty members’ busy schedules, this program provides a way to encourage scholarly teaching and the scholarship of teaching among learning communities faculty

What Do SoTL Practitioners Need to Know about Learning?

What does someone embarking on a scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) project need to know about how students learn? And how can the SoTL novice reconcile their goals to improve teaching and learning with the vastness of the literature on the science of learning? In this article, we consider the complexity of this literature and its intersection with SoTL. We also review several popular books and websites that might be used by the SoTL novice as entry points for grounding their SoTL studies, informing the questions they ask and narrowing the literature they read. In these brief reviews, we offer practical tips and advice on how to use these resources effectively so that one does not have to become an expert in the science of learning to perform outstanding SoTL research

Making Space for Failure in the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: A Blueprint

In this essay, we offer a typology of failure in the scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) to serve as the foundation for a new line of inquiry to be featured in this new section of Teaching & Learning Inquiry — SoTL in Process. Through the typology, we advocate for making space to talk about failure and its many forms in SoTL. Read the corresponding ISSOTL blog post here

Applying TLC (a Targeted Learning Community) to Transform Teaching and Learning in Science

This article describes the development of a Targeted Learning Community (TLC) that supports first-year science students enrolled in a General Chemistry course. Drawing on student feedback and knowledge and expertise in their respective disciplines, four faculty members from two colleges at Kennesaw State University came together to develop a learning community that would prevent early attrition in the science majors and increase student metacognition. In this paper, the design of the TLC is presented, and the effect it had on faculty vitality is discussed. Ruth A. Goldfine is Chair of the Department of First-Year and Transition Studies at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, GA. Hillary H. Steiner (Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology) and Stephanie M. Foote (Associate Professor of Education and Director of the Master of Science in First Year Studies) are also members of the Department of First-Year and Transition Studies at Kennesaw State University. Michelle L. Dean is an Assistant Professor of Chemistry at Kennesaw State University

Using a Strategy Project to Promote Self-Regulated Learning

Success in college requires the development of self-regulated learning strategies that move beyond high school skills, but teaching these strategies can be challenging. In this presentation, participants will learn about an instructional method that requires students to practice self-regulated learning strategies--active reading, management of study time and achievement goals, proactive interaction with faculty, metacognitive reflection, and more—within the context of a student-selected course. The presenter will share data from two years of research on the assignment’s efficacy and engage participants in discussion about the potential applications of self-regulated learning in their own classrooms

What do SoTL practitioners need to know about learning?

An awareness of how humans process and remember information can be a student\u27s key to unlocking effective and transferable learning strategies. For instructors, it can also provide a foundation for the scholarship of teaching and learning. This workshop, which draws from the latest research in educational and cognitive psychology, will engage participants in discussion on 1) how to embed instruction on how people learn into course content; and 2) how to translate the results of the science of learning into a foundation for SoTL projects

SoTL at the Research University Revisited

There is growing evidence that the role of U.S. research universities in integrating and producing SoTL may be changing. For our study, we investigated the current state of SoTL knowledge, experience, and interests of faculty at three large public research-intensive universities in the US via institution-wide surveys. In this session, we will present the preliminary findings from this study; identify, along with session participants, the pathways that bring faculty from research universities to SoTL; and together brainstorm ways to support and advocate for the distinctive contributions of research universities to the next generation of SoTL

What do SoTL practitioners need to know about learning?

What does someone embarking on a scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) project need to know about how students learn? And how can the SoTL novice reconcile their goals to improve teaching and learning with the vastness of the literature on the science of learning? In this article, we consider the complexity of this literature and its intersection with SoTL. We also review several popular books and websites that might be used by the SoTL novice as entry points for grounding their SoTL studies, informing the questions they ask and narrowing the literature they read. In these brief reviews, we offer practical tips and advice on how to use these resources effectively so that one does not have to become an expert in the science of learning to perform outstanding SoTL research