Integrative Learning and Shared Responsibility for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

November 11, 2006 International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, Washington, DC

Integrative Learning and Shared Responsibility for the

Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Darren Cambridge and Lesley SmithNew Century College, George Mason University

International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

November 11, 2006Washington, DC


Overview

• Framing questions about the scope of SoTL and our context

• Two sites for collaborative SoTL and what we’re learning from them– An edited book about New Century

College– A collaborative electronic working

portfolio • Your experiences


SoTL: Starting Places

• Boyer, Scholarship Reconsidered– Honoring individual teaching practice as

scholarly work– An expanded, integrated vision of

scholarship • Operational definition at this

conference– Systematic investigation of the

effectiveness of what one does in one’s classroom on student learning outcomes.


“Teaching” Expanded

• Teaching may be taken to mean something broader than just what happens in individual classrooms

• Teaching as the full process of facilitating learning over the course of a student’s college career– This is irreducibly a collaborative activity– The collaborative aspects of this activity

need to be validated as scholarly as well


Guiding Questions

• What are contexts and purposes for collaborative SoTL?

• What genres and tools are most appropriate make the process of results “public”?

• What barriers exist the inhibit collaborative SoTL?


Guiding Questions (2)

• What is the appropriate relationship between the scholarship of teaching and learning and the scholarship of administration (Yancey)?– Who does it? To what extent is this work

part of our teaching? – Broader than assessment: Not just

measuring outcomes – More than curriculum development:

Integrated with teaching and learning practice


New Century College

An overview


Collaborative Scholarship: Discovery and Loss

Lesley Smith


Group, Genre, Tool: Iterations of Collaborative

SoTL

Darren Cambridge


Capstone Course Portfolio

• Composed within a faculty learning community focused on the senior capstone experience

• One context for more deliberate collaborative scholarship of teaching and learning

• Working portfolio as a genre and wiki as a tool for collaborative scholarship of teaching and learning


Capstone

• Required course for all New Century College students

• Taught by individual faculty with little coordination

• Context for beginning to compose a graduation portfolio that integrates each student’s learning career in terms of NCC competencies

• But also thinking about the future, community conversations about what it means to be an educated person … ?

• Faculty and students feel that the course has lots of potential but quality and focus varies widely


Capstone Faculty Learning Community • Core group of four faculty members

teaching capstone this semester– Very different backgrounds, approaches

• Also included past and future instructors and those interested in investigating the use of the portfolio and competencies

• Bi-weekly meetings• Online working course portfolio• Integrated with day-to-day teaching

practice


SoTL and Group Interaction

• Collaborative SoTL must be extended to include the whole process of group interaction necessary for facilitating learning

• NCC definition of group interaction– Create shared understanding and expectations– Understand and choose roles and tasks– Make decisions and track progress collaboratively– Negotiate consensus, compromise, and conflict

• Can’t track progress until we know what progress means

• Need to begin with an open, exploratory process


FLC: A First Iteration

• Shared understanding and expectations– Understanding the diversity of goals and practices in how the

course in actually taught– Making individual practice visible

• Understand roles and tasks– What can we share with each other? – What can we contribute that builds on our individual strengths? – What should we create together to improve the course?

• Negotiate consensus, conflict, and compromise– How much should we standardize? – How do we manage different desires for and comfort levels with

change? • Make decisions and track progress collaboratively

– Sharing reflections– Gathering student work to look at together


Qualities of Genre and Tool

• Loosely structured, but rehearses a more formal genre– Capable of accommodating a wide

range of types of contributions

• Very easy to contribute to and modify

• Accessible from anywhere, but only by the group


Working Portfolio

• Working portfolio– A central place for collecting artifacts and

reflections– A conversation piece– Primary audience is the author(s)

• Presentation portfolio – Selection and arrangement for a particular

audience – Most (collaborative) course portfolios are of

this type


Wiki

• Easy to add and edit pages• Easy to upload media• Tracks changes and keeps all versions

– Meta-scholarship opportunity tracking the process

• Spaces for discussion linked to documents

• Can be open or gated • MediaWiki, hosted by SiteGround


Returning to Our Questions

• What are contexts and purposes for collaborative SoTL?

• What genres and tools are most appropriate make the process of results “public”?

• What barriers exist the inhibit collaborative SoTL?

• What is the appropriate relationship between the scholarship of teaching and learning and the scholarship of administration? – Who does it?

– To what extent is this work part of our teaching?


Learn More

• Lesley Smith - [email protected]• Darren Cambridge -

[email protected]• http://ncc.gmu.edu/

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

http://ncc.gmu.edu/

Education

Integrative Learning and Shared Responsibility for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning