Scholarship of and for teaching and learning

Workshop for proposers of scholarship projects, April 2011

Senate and Scholarship S/09/4/10, S/10/4/6

• October 2009 Senate – range of types of scholarship should be valued/parity of esteem

• All types should be reviewed/evaluated

• Scholarship and its outcomes should be ‘closely aligned with the mission and supportive of the strategic objectives of the University’ – reflect the distinctiveness of the Open University

‘While it is clear that not all discipline-based scholarship aligns withThe objective of being a world leader in open and distance

education, there is a major opportunity to use much of the OU’s Scholarship activity to contribute to realisation of that goal’

5 types of scholarship• Institutional scholarship

• Scholarship of teaching

• Scholarship for teaching

• Scholarship for professional practice

• Discipline-based

Strategy and operation of the OU

Investigation of one’s own, or others’ teaching, pedagogy, assessment, learning design etc

Critical development of content and related pedagogy contributing to development of modules, curricula,

Inter-disciplinary/disciplinary teaching

application of enquiry, data, innovations etc todevelop areas of professional practice & learning

outside the OU

Discovery research, discipline-based

Broad criteria for scholarship of/for teaching

• Externality – external representation & capable of recognition in a wider domain

• Subject to peer review

• Outcomes usable by others - cumulative • Makes a significant difference to the contribution of the Open

University’s strategy & mission as a world leader in online, open and distance education – and its pedagogy

• Evaluated – explicit methods of enquiry, data collection & analysis

• Aligned – with CAU and L&T strategy

• Viable – can be delivered & is coherent short and long term

Capable of use & elaboration by others

• Need to review at the beginning how others develop and use the pedagogy or technology you’re interested in, so you know how your context relates/differs & what issues are widely relevant

• Research/enquiry methods need to be explicit and detailed so others can judge the relevance of your findings

• Teachers/users not part of your context need a lot of clear and understandable explanation of what was done and why in order to interpret your work and use it themselves – similar to reuse of OERs where teachers want explanation of how and why something was used as well as to access the open resource

Capable of use & elaboration by others (2)

• What was the teaching & learning concern/issue addressed?• Why did you need to engage with it ?• What was the topic/discipline and level? How many students were

involved and their characteristics?• What were your aims in the scholarship project? How do you define key

terms you are using, where relevant (e.g. online community, formative assessment, e-assessment, interactive CMAs etc)

• What evidence was collected and what is its significance?• What conclusions do you draw on the basis of the evidence?• What are the limitations of the work? What further scholarship is

required?• Provision of drafts of data collection instruments used, if relevant.

(a list adapted from Kirkwood and Price (2011) Enhancing Learning and Teaching through Technology: A guide to evidence-based practice for academics (restricted draft currently)

Subject to peer review

• At the design and planning stage e.g. via critical readers, advisory group, expert consultant, SIG etc

• During the delivery stage e.g.via regular project reports to knowledgeable others

• At end of project report e.g. delivery of the report to an advisory group or internal committee which minutes the discussion

• At follow-up action stage e.g. through reporting back to CAU, advisory group or others

These opportunities for peer commenting and advice should be includedIn planning and reports. Minutes or notes of the results are evidence of

Peer review carried out and its impact

Externality – external representation & recognition in a wider domain

• Issues are framed in ways that others would recognise• Literature is engaged with• Repositories such as the Knowledge Network as well as ORO

are accessible externally & can be used • Planning for publication in relevant journals is included where

relevant and/or as part of longer term trajectory• Conference presentation(s) used as a stage in progressing

from good reportage to publication in a recognised journal• Willingness to referee for a journal can help in shaping one’s

own scholarship towards how an external readership would relate to it and engage

• Making bids for funding are included where relevant

Engage with the literature

Forums

Computer mediated communication

Computer-supportedCollaborative

LearningLearning theories

Communities of practice

Activity theorySocial constructivism

Distributed cognition Boundaries, systems

Discussion/dialogue/Publication models

Knowledge construction

Networked learning

Forums in your discipline

Get an overview and be selective• Barab,S., Makinster, J., Moore, J., Cunningham, D. (2001) Designing and Building an Online Community:

The Struggle to Support Sociability in the Inquiry Learning Forum, Educational Technology, Research and Development, 49(4): 71-96

• Baym, N. (1998) The Emergence of Online Community, CyberSociety 2.0, in Revisiting Computer-Mediated Communication and Community, S.G. Jones, Thousand Oaks, London Sage: 35-68

• Bradshaw, P., Powell, S. and Terrell, I. (2005) Developing engagement in Ultralab’s online communities of enquiry, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 42(3), pp205-215

• Brown, J.S., Collins, A. and Duguid, P. (1989) Situated cognition and the culture of learning, Educational Researcher, 18, (1) 32-42

• Brown, J.S. and Duguid, P. (1991) Organizational learning and communities of practice: toward a unified view of working, learning and innovating, Organization Science, 2(1), 40-57

• Brown, R. (2001) The process of Community-Building in Distance Learning Classes, Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 5(2) http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/jaln/v5n2/v5n2_brown.asp

• Carmichael, P., Fox, A., McCormick, R., Procter, Honour, L. (2006) ‘Teachers' Professional Networks in and out of School.’ Research Papers in Education (forthcoming).

• Fox, A., Carmichael, P., McCormick, R. & Procter, R. (2006) ‘Teachers' Learning through networks.’ Paper to be presented to AERA, San Francisco, April.

• Garrison,D.R., Anderson, T. and Archer, W. (2001) Critical Thinking, Cognitive Presence and Computer Conferencing in Distance Education, The American Journal of Distance Education, Vol 15 NO 1 pp7-23

• Goodfellow, R. (2005) Virtuality and the Shaping of Educational Communities, Communities, Education, Communication and Information, 5(2): 113-129

• Granovetter, M.S. (1973) The Strength of Weak Ties, The American Journal of Sociology, Vol 78 (6), 1360-1380

• Gudzial and Carroll (2002) Explaining the lack of dialogue in computer-supported collaborative learning, Conference paper in Proceedings of the Computer Supported Collaborative Learning: foundations for a CSCL community, conference (online) http://newmedia.colorado.edu/cscl/18.html (accessed 5 October 2005)

• Hakkarainen, K., Palonen, T., Paavola, S. & Lehtinen, E. (2004). Communities of Networked Expertise: professional and educational perspectives. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

• From Thorpe, et al (2007) Talk in virtual contexts: reflecting on participation and online learning models. Pedagogy, Culture and Society, 15(3) 349-366

Evaluation

• Scholarship may itself be a form of evaluation e.g. one evaluates the CMC delivery in your own department or institution, using a literature review to refine research questions and set one’s own findings within that literature – this is the scholarship not the CMC being evaluated

• If your proposal is to develop something or to introduce a new technology, the scholarship needs to be a project developed to evaluate this and relate it to peers and the literature – the peer review and externality criteria

• Be aware of the limitations of your own scholarship and its boundaries with related areas – enables you to ‘place’ your own work

• Learn from peer review and change/develop your scholarship as a result

Alignment

• CAU and Nation leadership will select projects for inclusion

• Shaping your aims and objectives needs direct answer to the question ‘how does your scholarship contribute to your unit’s priorities & strategy?’

• Ensure also you relate directly to ‘how does your scholarship make a significant contribution to the OU’s leading role in open, online and distance education?’

Viability

• Much research/action research errs on the side of data collection rather than analysis, report and dissemination. Most data is never reported

• Planning needs to be realistic in terms of the time required to meet criteria for externality and peer review

• Money is difficult to spend (!) so be realistic in terms of the scale of activity

• Realistic expectations about the time that others can contribute should also be evident

• Take the long term view – build up good scholarship by starting from good foundations where impact builds up over time and on the basis of sound procedures at each stage

Research into the scholarship of teaching: an ascending scale of conceptions of scholarship of teaching

• Knowing the literature on teaching by collecting and reading it• Improving teaching by applying the literature on teaching in an

attempt to improve one’s own teaching• Improving student learning by investigating one’s own

students’ learning and own teaching• Improving student learning by relating the literature on

teaching and learning to discipline-specific literature• Improving student learning within the discipline generally by

collecting & communicating results of one’s own work on teaching and learning within the discipline

Trigwell, Martin, Benjamin and Prosser (2000) Higher Education Research &

Development, 19(2) pp155-168

Model of scholarship of T with 4 dimensions

• Uses informal theories

• General literature on teaching & learning

• Engages both T&L and discipline literature

• Conducts action research, enquiry

• Effectively none/unfocused reflection

• Reflection in action

• Reflection on own teaching & context – what do I need to know and how?

• None• Informal only• Local & national conferences• Publishes in scholarly

journals

• Sees teaching in a teacher-focused way

• Sees teaching in a student-focused way

knowledge base reflection dimension

communication dimension conceptual dimension

Developing a culture of scholarship of/for teaching: knowledge base, reflection, communication, conception

• Externality – external representation & capable of recognition in a wider domain. Relates to the literature

• Subject to peer review

• Outcomes usable by others – explicit, cumulative, communicated • Makes a significant difference to the contribution of the Open

University’s strategy & mission as a world leader in online, open and distance education – and its pedagogy

• Evaluated – explicit methods of enquiry, data collection & analysis

• Aligned – with CAU and L&T strategy

• Viable – can be delivered & is coherent short and long term