THE SCHOLARSHIP OF TEACHING AND
LEARNING
By
Lee Shulman. Teaching as Community Property. Essays on
Higher Education. Jossey-Bass, 2004.
(Adapted
by Julian Hermida)
The
scholarship of teaching and learning entails a public account of some or all of
the full act of teaching –vision, design, enactment, outcomes, and analysis in
a manner susceptible to critical review by the teacher’s peers, and amenable to
productive use in the future work by members of that same community.
Teaching
is an extended process that embodies five elements:
(i)
Vision.
a. Teaching
begins with a vision of the possible or an experience of the problematic.
(ii)
Design.
a. The
careful planning of an instructional program or activity.
b. A
course design is much like the research proposal for a research program.
(iii)
Enactment.
a. The
delivery of the course.
b. It
is equivalent to the process of carrying out a piece of research that has been
designed.
c. It
is often punctuated by unexpected and specific developments.
d. It
demands technical skills such as lecturing, conducting discussions, engaging in
Socratic questioning, etc.
(iv)
Outcomes.
a. The
outcomes of teaching are acts and products of student learning.
b. A
course once designed and delivered must yield to tangible outcomes, changes in
students’ skills, understandings, values, propensities, or sensibilities.
c. An
account of teaching without reference to learning is like a research report
with no results.
(v)
Analysis.
a. The
teacher needs to propose a set of interpretations of the significance of the
teaching relative to the vision that initiated the study.
b. What
does the work mean?
c. How
does it extend to the scholarly community’s understanding of important
questions?
d. How
will we act differently in the future as a result of these experiences?
For
an activity to qualify as scholarship, it should have at least three key
characteristics:
(i)
public rather than private;
a. There
must be public acts in some manner. It has to be properly communicated.
(ii)
susceptible to peer review and
evaluation;
(iii)
accessible
for exchange and use by other members of the scholarly community.
a. It
can be cited, refuted, built upon, and shared by members of the scholarly
community.
b. Members
of the scholarly community have to be able to build upon and learn from the
scholarly activity.
HOW TO DO SOTL?
Adapted
by Julian Hermida from Gwyn Mettetal, “The What, Why
and How of Classroom Action Research”, JoSoTL Vol. 2,
Number 1 (2001).
Classroom
Action Research is a method of finding out what works best in your own
classroom so that you can improve student learning. There are many ways to
improve knowledge about teaching. Many teachers practice personal reflection on
teaching, others conduct formal empirical studies on teaching and learning.
Classroom Action Research is more systematic than personal reflection but it is
more informal and personal than formal educational research.
The
goal of Classroom Action Research is to improve your own teaching in your own
classroom, department, or school. While there is no requirement that the
findings be generalized to other situations the results can add to knowledge
base. Classroom Action Research goes beyond personal reflection to use informal
research practices such as a brief literature review, group comparisons, and
data collection and analysis. Validity is achieved through the triangulation of
data. The focus is on the practical significance of findings, rather than
statistical or theoretical significance.
Findings
are usually disseminated through brief reports or presentations to local colleagues
or administrators.
Steps to conduct Classroom Action
Research
· Identify a question or problem:
o
What is the effect of X on student
learning?
o
The question or problem should look at
something under the teaching control.
o
The problem should also be an area which
you are willing to change.
o
It should also be feasible.
· Review Literature
o
You need to gather two types of
information: background and data.
o
It may be much less extensive than
traditional research.
o
The use of secondary sources is usually
sufficient.
· Plan a research strategy
o
It may take many forms: pretest,
posttest, a comparison of similar classes to a descriptive case study of a
single class or student.
o
Both qualitative and quantitative
methods are appropriate.
o
It relies on triangulation of data to
provide validity.
o
To triangulate collect at least three
types of data, e.g., student test scores, teacher evaluations, and observation
of student behavior). If all data point to the same direction, you have some
assurance of validity.
· Gather data
· Make sense of the data
o
Analyze your data, looking for findings
with practical significance.
· Take action
o
Use your findings to make decisions
about your teaching strategies.
· Share your findings
o
There are many ways to share findings
with your peers: journals, conferences, workshops, teaching tips, websites,
newsletters, etc.