A developmental model for training in the scholarship of teaching

Cecilia Shore

Dept. of Psychology, Miami University, Oxford OH

Presented at American Psychological Association, Honolulu HI, July 30, 2004

 

The scholarship of teaching and learning goes (SoTL) can benefit both novice and experienced faculty in two major ways: improving one’s own teaching, and as a field of scholarly endeavor in its own right.  How can we prepare students to be scholarly teachers, and provide foundational skills for SoTL as a research endeavor?  In Miami University’s psychology Preparing Future Faculty program, instructional activities related to SoTL form three hierarchically inclusive levels of deepening involvement.  These educational opportunities have not only strengthened our students’ self-reflection as teachers, but our students also receive teaching evaluations that are comparable to those of faculty.  Several students have gone beyond personal improvement to make presentations at teaching conferences and submit manuscripts to pedagogy journals. 

Introduction

Doctoral students are underprepared for teaching

There has been rising national concern over the failure of doctoral programs to adequately prepare students for academic careers (e.g., Adams, 2002; Gaff, 2002). In national survey of doctoral students, they felt unprepared for their teaching and service roles (Golde & Dore, 2001). Surveys of psychology programs indicate that preparation for teaching is not universally available (e.g., Mueller, Perlman, McCann & McFadden, 1997). 

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) can benefit novice faculty

            The scholarship of teaching and learning can benefit both novice and experienced faculty in two major ways: improving one’s own teaching, and as a field of intellectual and scholarly endeavor in its own right.  Richlin (1993) distinguishes between “scholarly teaching” (ST) and “scholarship of teaching and learning” (SoTL): 

§         ST involves knowing theory and research on pedagogy, generating ideas about how to improve one’s teaching, and assessing their effectiveness.

§         SoTL goes beyond that cycle of individual improvement to systematically generate generalizable information that contributes to the knowledge and scholarly literature on pedagogy.  (See figure below). 

SoTL may be particularly appropriate for psychologists, given our training in cognitive and social processes.

 

Scholarly literature on teaching and learning

à

Generate ideas about how to improve teaching

à

Implement

à

Assess effectiveness

      |

      |

      |

      |

 

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

|

 

            ß----------------------------------

|

|

 

 Scholarly teaching: personal                  improvement

 

  ß--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: generalizable knowledge

 

Incorporating SoTL into doctoral training

            How can we prepare students to be scholarly teachers, and provide foundational skills for SoTL as a research endeavor?  Some Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) programs have:

worked to increase students’ awareness of pedagogical scholarship, and to highlight educational research skills (e.g., Robinson and Nelson, 2002), or organized student SoTL research teams and produced a manuscript and/or presentation (Richlin, 2002). In Miami University’s psychology PFF program, we have been influenced by Sprague & Nyquist’s (1991) description of TA preparation as a developmental process and have created a developmental model of deepening involvement in ST and SoTL. 

 

Methods

Participants

Miami University’s Psychology Department received a grant from American Psychological Association (APA) in 2000 to start a Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) program.  In that time, approximately 100 doctoral students have been in our 3 graduate programs: Clinical, Social, and Brain and Cognitive Science.  We graduate approximately 10-12 PhDs annually, about half of whom pursue academic careers. More details about our PFF program can be found at: http://www.users.muohio.edu/shorec/apapff/apapff.htm.

Procedure

The department’s instructional activities related to ST and SoTL form three hierarchically inclusive levels of deepening involvement. 

Introductory level: Increase awareness of ST and SOTL, begin ST.  First year students participate in a year-long professional development seminar, including attendance at a conference on college teaching.  Most second year students take Teaching Practicum.  This course, partly seminar, partly supervision and partly support group, is expected to accompany students’ first experiences as instructor of rerecord for a statistics/methods lab or a content course.  Students read research and theory on college pedagogy (SoTL) and conduct projects that include reflection on their own teaching as well as that of peers.  They have the option to create a teaching portfolio. 

            Intermediate level:  Continue building SoTL knowledge, Support for larger-scale ST projects. Continuing Supervision is an optional follow-up course to Teaching Practicum for graduate students who have grade book and/or syllabus responsibility for a course.  Students read SoTL, engage in peer supervision and carry out a comprehensive  reflective project such as a teaching portfolio or a classroom assessment/research project on a topic related to improving their own teaching (Cross & Steadman, 1996).

            Advanced level: Continue building SoTL knowledge, Continue Support for ST, Support for SoTL.  Advanced students may choose to participate in a year-long series of activities as APA-PFF Scholars.  They carry out a professional development project, with a teaching portfolio as one of the options, and they attend and present at teaching conferences.  Last year, a student-initiated Scholarship of Teaching group was formed so that peers (and a faculty member) could read and provide commentary on each others’ SoTL projects.  (See figure next page).

 

 

 

 

Produce SoTL

 

 

Presentations at teaching conference, manuscript submission

 

 

 

Scholarly teaching projects

 

 

 

 

Peer supervision of teaching, comprehensive reflective project, e.g., classroom assessment project or teaching portfolio

Teaching portfolio or other professional development projects

Small-scale reflective teaching projects

Build SoTL knowledge base

Attend teaching conferences, read SoTL

Attend teaching conferences, read SoTL

Attend teaching conferences, read SoTL

 

Introductory

Intermediate

Advanced

 

Prosem (1st year); Teaching Practicum (typically 2nd year)

Continuing Supervision of Teaching

APA PFF Scholars

Student-initiated SoTL group

 

Results

            These educational opportunities have increased students’ participation in Scholarly Teaching (Awareness of SoTL, Reflective Teaching, and Teaching Effectiveness) as well as production of SoTL.

§         Awareness of SoTL. In evaluating Teaching Practicum, students say they learned about pedagogical theories and methods (modal response 2 on a 4 point scale, with 1 being best).  More students include a section on pedagogy on their comprehensive exams (3 out of 4 in recent years, compared to 1 out of 5 in previous years). 

§         Increased reflectiveness as teachers.  In evaluations of Teaching Practicum, students say they found the reflective assignments helpful (modal response 2 on a 4 point scale, with 1 being best).  One or two of the 20 recent Teaching Practicum students have produced teaching portfolios.  In the continuing supervision course, with 5 total participants in 3 semesters, 4 students have made teaching portfolios, and 3 have conducted classroom research projects. APA PFF Scholars produced several teaching portfolios. 

§         Teaching effectiveness.  Graduate students obtain mean teaching evaluations that are comparable to those of faculty.  Since 2002, faculty mean overall course rating = 3.78 (out of 5), while that for grad students was 3.53 (SDs = 1.0).   

§         SoTL productivity. 20 APA PFF scholars in the last 4 years have given 8 presentations at teaching conferences, and submitted one manuscript. The student-initiated SoTL group made 3 presentations at teaching conferences, and has 2 manuscripts submitted or pending.   By contrast, SoTL production was virtually nil prior to the introduction of the PFF program.


Conclusions

Our department has made a programmatic commitment to support doctoral students’ teaching.  We offer students a sequence of opportunities to learn about effective pedagogy, to carry out structured assignments that encourage reflection on one’s own teaching, and to participate in the scholarly dialogue on effective college teaching. 

We have found that these methods support students’ development as effective, scholarly teachers.  In addition, several students have become motivated to make their own independent contributions to the scholarly discourse and literature on college teaching and learning. 

Psychologists are especially well-suited to use and produce research on effective teaching.  For example, as Halpern & Hakel (2003) note, “The study of human cognition is an empirical science with a solid theoretical foundation and research-based applications that we can and should be using in college classrooms.”  We can help our new doctorates be better matched to careers in academia by showing them how their disciplinary expertise in learning, cognitive processes, social influences, etc.  not only prepares them to contribute to the basic research in these areas, but also prepares them to become outstanding teachers, and to apply their psychological discoveries to teaching and learning in higher education. 

 

References

Adams, K. A. (2002). What colleges and universities want in new faculty. Washington, DC: Association of American Colleges and Universities.

Cross, & Steadman, (1996).  Classroom Research: Implementing the Scholarship of Teaching. San Fransisco: Jossey Bass.

Gaff, J. (2002). The disconnect between graduate education and faculty realities: A review of recent research. Liberal Education, 88, 6-13.

Golde, C. M. & Dore,T. M. (2001). At cross purposes: What the experiences of today’s graduate students reveal about doctoral education. Philadelphia: The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Halpern, D. F., & Hakel, M. D. (2003) Applying the science of learning to the university and beyond: teaching for long-term retention and transfer.  Change, 35(4), 37-41. 

Mueller, A. Perlman, B., McCann, L. I., & McFadden, S. H. (1997). A faculty perspective on teaching assistant training.  Teaching of Psychology, 24, 167-171.

Richlin, L. (1993, November).  The ongoing cycle of scholarly teaching and the scholarship of teaching.  Paper presented at the 13th annual Lilly Conference On College and University Teaching, Oxford, OH.

Richlin, L. (2002). Using the Faculty Learning Community Models for Preparing Future Faculty. Big Rapids, Michigan: Lilly Conference on College & University Teaching- North. 

Robinson J. M. & Nelson, C. (2002).  The Times They are A’ Changin’: Integrating SOTL into Ph.D. Education. Oxford, OH: Lilly Conference on College & University Teaching.

Sprague, J. & Nyquist, J. D. (1991). A developmental perspective on the TA role. In Nyquist, J. D., Abbot, R. D., Wulff, D. H. & Sprague, J. (Eds.) Preparing the professioriate of tomorrow to teach, pp. 295-312. Dubuque, IA: Hendall/Hunt Publishing Co.