Saturday, October 27th 2018 PSJ

One of the main reasons that first-year undergraduate students give for dropping out of college is that they feel like they do not belong in college (Sorcinelli, 2012; Tinto, 1993). Appropriately structured, peer-mentoring is effective in creating the right kinds of academic and social support systems to help foster this sense of belonging which likewise improves second-year retention (Colvin, 2016; Cornelius, Wood, & Lai, 2016; Sorcinelli, 2012). Although much work has been done developing peer-mentoring programs that match students together based on various demographic characteristics (e.g., gender, ethnicity, or first-generation status) in order to improve retention, what is less explored is matching mentors to mentees based upon academic characteristics (see though Morales, Abrose-Roman, & Perez-Maldonado, 2016; Zaniewski & Reinholz, 2016; Zevallos & Washburn, 2014). In fall 2016, a large private institution in the USA ran a pilot peer-mentoring program that matched academically struggling first-semester, first-year students in math/science with juniors and seniors in math/science who had received specialized training. The mentors were nominated by the Chairs of the math/science departments based not only on their high level of academic performance, but also based upon the degree to which they themselves shared features (e.g., struggling in the first year) with their mentees. The mentors met with their mentees biweekly and participated in several co-curricular events over the course of the academic year. Although the mentees were encouraged to take advantage of traditional academic tutoring to help their grades in individual courses, the peer-mentoring program focused more on creating an academic/social support network while cultivating basic college/life skills. The program was very successful from a retention standpoint with 95% of the mentees returning for their second-year as compared with 71% for students who would have been eligible for the program the previous year had it existed. In fall 2017, this institution tripled the size of the program. To encourage replication (Gershenfeld, 2014), this paper will discuss the structure of the program, the process of recruiting the mentors and the mentees, as well as the training of the mentors themselves. To enhance the data on student outcomes (Crisp & Cruz, 2009), it will report the second-year retention rate for the expanded program, the degree to which the mentees’ sense of belonging changed over the course of the academic year, and the impact (if any) on other academic indicators (e.g., GPA).

Background:

Intrinsic and extrinsic factors, including supervision, motivation, and social connectedness, can affect graduate students’ degree completion and time to graduation. Peer mentorship is an experiential learning experience that can promote the development of positive collaborative learning environments that impact on student resiliency and academic outcomes. While many studies have examined peer mentorship in undergraduate education, few have investigated the role of peer mentoring in promoting graduate student learning. The objectives of this study were to explore: 1) the extent to which peer mentorship impacts on graduate students’ social connectedness, learning experiences, and academic goals; and 2) approaches that academic institutions can adopt to support the development of peer mentoring relationships. This study aligns with ISSOTL’s “culture of learners” conference theme.

Methods:

We adopted a mixed methods design for this study. Data were collected through Likert-style online surveys and individual interviews. Sixty-two Master’s and PhD students were recruited from four professional faculties (Education, Medicine, Nursing, and Social Work) at a large Canadian University. Purposeful maximum variation sampling techniques enabled researchers to explore common and divergent student attitudes and experiences across disciplines. Descriptive statistics were calculated for survey data. A constant comparative method of pattern identification guided the thematic analysis of interview data. Transcripts were coded in duplicate and discrepancies resolved through team consensus.

Findings:

Peer mentorship positively affected students’ developmental outcomes across academic, psychological, and social learning domains. Survey data revealed that peer mentoring reduced student isolation (92.3%), increased understanding of academic cultures, research topics, and methodologies (73.1%), improved critical feedback and other essential skills (73.1%), increased self-confidence (65.4%), and reduced academic stress (53.8%). Interview data highlighted the role of peer mentors in nurturing the development of learning environments that emphasize community, collaboration, and shared purpose. Through engaging in these reciprocal learning experiences, students increased their knowledge and skills, and were motivated to complete their degrees. Students preferred formal peer mentoring initiatives that incorporated early student matching, networking and social events, online forums, collaborative research opportunities, role clarity, mentorship training, and flexibility to meet the needs of both traditional and non-traditional (part-time or distance) learners.

Conclusions

Graduate students derive a variety of academic and psychosocial benefits from peer mentoring relationships. While structured programs may support the development of these relationships, initiatives should be guided by stakeholder input, and incorporate a high degree of flexibility to address the varying learning needs and preferences of students.

For many years, teaching and learning climates have evolved primarily through faculty- and administration-driven efforts. More recently, a model of engaging students as partners in all aspects of higher education has emerged, with great potential to transform higher education (Healey, Flint et al., 2016). This idea is not a familiar one at our institution, but leadership in the School of Engineering has been working to change the culture of teaching towards evidence-based practices. This presentation describes the impact of two student-driven initiatives that have introduced the idea of student partnerships to our faculty and leadership.

The first initiative is our Undergraduate Teaching Fellows (UGTF) program, modeled after Peer Led Team Learning (Gafney and Varma-Nelson, 2007) and Learning Assistant programs (Otero, Pollack, et al., 2010). The program involves undergraduates as peer mentors in active learning courses. This program supports the adoption of active learning pedagogies and helps faculty incorporate the mentors as part of the instructional team.

The second initiative is our “Tiered Mentoring Project.” Given the broad positive impact of the UGTF program, and the body of research on benefits of mentoring, we aimed to engage more undergraduates in mentoring activities, particularly those who may not be eligible for UGTF roles. All students in two course sequences engaged in a mentoring activity for the pre-requisite course. Mentoring activities included acting as consultants on course projects and creating videos on important course concepts or student success topics. This approach is notable because it expanded some of the benefits of mentoring to a wider body of students.

We use the Classroom Observation Protocol for Undergraduate STEM to understand how the UGTF initiative has changed the utilization of class time, and we examine the number of students involved in peer mentoring over time. We use faculty and student feedback to understand the qualitative impact of these initiatives and examine the impact of these initiatives on student learning in key courses.

This work is aimed at establishing A Culture for Learning by developing sustainable changes in the culture of teaching in the School. Additionally, this work speaks to developing A Culture of Learners, wherein the frameworks are aimed at supporting students by developing them to be “expert learners” as they participate in the UGTF and Tiered Mentoring programs. Session participants will discuss ways to leverage the existing programs to encourage a partnership mindset, and ideas for growth and sustainability of the initiatives.

In Canada, teaching and learning centres (TLCs) at colleges and universities are operated by academics and non-academic staff (often comprised of managerial, unionized, contractual or student staff). Centres have grappled with an increased focus on SoTL alongside work in educational development. As SoTL garners interest and validity in the Canadian academy, TLC staff are tasked with both developing programming and supports for faculty and engaging with SoTL themselves. For leaders of TLC centres, this can pose challenges for developing internal cultures and practices for professional learning and development of non-academic staff including identifying suitable professional development opportunities for staff with varying levels of training as scholars and familiarity with SoTL.

In this paper, we consider how to lead and mentor staff (both permanent and contract) through the fostering of a workplace culture that cherishes learning and appreciates that learning is complex, time-consuming and at times unproductive (a dangerous word in an increasingly measured and impact-focused academy) (Davies & Bansel, 2010; Peseta, Barrie & McLean, 2017). Drawing from our work at a large, research intensive university in Canada with a centre staffed almost entirely by non-academic staff (most of whom are members of unions with precise parameters around professional development), we employ a collaborative, autoethnographic writing and discussion (Chang, Ngunjiri & Hernandez, 2013; Davies & Gannon, 2006)) process to engage in a scholarly and personal thinking through of our leadership work. At the crux of our collaborative, autoethnographic writing are three questions: how do we take up the responsibility for enabling and sustaining a learning culture in our centre? How do we work through and around institutional constraints to workplace learning? And, when a learning culture leads to new work and opportunities for staff, how do we maintain energy through staff hiring and training processes?

Our analysis, which is both highly specific and localized, as autoethnographic writing demands, offers two central contributions for scholars concerned with academic development, TLC leadership and professional learning. First, we provide a rich and intricate portrayal of the minutiae of the everyday leadership and the systemic planning needed to create a culture of learners in a workplace. Second, we interrogate how the organization of labour in the academy intersects with the development of SoTL within a TLC. This work, which draws neither tidy conclusions nor readily transferable application, offers a local, specific and provocative consideration of learning cultures as created, contextual and contested.

The history of evaluating centres (also called units) for teaching and learning is uneven and largely unexamined. How and under what circumstances is evidence sought to determine the overall effectiveness and impact of a unit's policies, programs and practices? In Canada a group of seven educational developers who have been involved in internal and external teaching and learning centre reviews, both as external reviewers and as members of units subject to review, took a closer look at the state-of-play of reviews in their home country and beyond. In June of this year they published, under the auspices of the Educational Developers Caucus (EDC) of the Society for Teaching and Learning in Higher Education (STLHE), a practical, peer-reviewed guide of interest to all stakeholders involved in a review. This session will explain why the authors of this ground breaking initiative felt it was in the interest of those involved in educational development to develop the guide, to enumerate the various contexts leading to centre reviews and to proffer advice to stakeholders in order to ensure a smooth and constructive process. Participants will be invited to discuss the controversial (at times) notion of external reviews, the potential usefulness of such a guide, and the importance of national context when considering a centre review at the institutional level. Participants will be invited to comment on the potential use of this guide in their own national contexts. They will also examine the review process, more specifically, as both an opportunity to review a centre’s efforts at promoting, supporting and engaging in SoTL, as well as opening up new SoTL possibilities focused on the review activity itself.

Graduate interns are a novel and powerful group of actors in academic development. Unlike current students, they can devote time and thought entirely to the issues of SOTL, while still bringing a fresh eye and near-student perspective to matters of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. As recent graduates, they are credible voices in discussions with academics. Yet there is a shadow that falls between the idea and the reality of having new hands in academic development. In reflecting on the experience of hiring graduate interns at a modern British university, we pose questions about the nature of academic development seen through their eyes. Participants will predict outcomes of using graduate interns as academic developers.

Over the period of the internship, we collected written reflections on critical incidents from both the interns and the academic developers. We will share some of the raw data from these reflections with participants, who will engage in a thematic analysis of this data to identify emerging themes, triumphs and problems. Through the process of listening to the voices of interns we became much more attuned to the student perspective of learning and teaching, almost like putting a glass to the wall and hearing a conversation for the first time, a conversation which we had only caught in snatches until then. This raised ethical and tactical dilemmas for us, but also provided a rich understanding of the teaching and learning landscape at our university. The biggest challenge for us was not about getting closer to the student heartbeat, though. It was the challenge of articulating why we do what we do, and all the tacit rules of the game in academic development work which we struggled to share adequately.

Over the past twenty years, scholars of teaching and learning have strengthen the SoTL discourse “such that its findings have informed teaching and learning practices in widespread and meaningful ways” (Marquis, 2015, p.19). There is no doubt that “the scholarship of teaching and learning is part of a broader transformation in the intellectual culture of higher education” (Hutchings, Huber & Ciccone, 2011, p. 3). Accordingly, the time has come to weave SoTL into the fabric of academic life (Hutchings, Huber & Ciccone, 2011; Marquis, 2015), and into the mission of all educational institutions. Yet, for many institutional types, such as colleges and polytechnics, research, of any kind, is secondary only to teaching schedules and community service; and research expertise amongst faculty is varied (Morest, 2015), as such, SoTL remains on the periphery of faculty work and institutional activity. Furthermore, for reasons of “professionalism, pragmatism and policy” (Shulman as cited in Felten & Chick, 2018, p.13) building a culture that learns is necessary and vital for success but does not occur without challenges (Marquis, 2015, p.29). In this session, we will describe one institution’s approach to creating a culture that learns (Hamilton, 2014; Smith, 2011) and how the manifestation of a SoTL culture, in the polytechnic context, can foster development and growth in higher education (Hutchings et al., 2013; Marquis, 2015). Considering the complexity of this institutional type and its current socio-cultural norms, and recognizing that “requiring” faculty to engage in SoTL work “would be the kiss of death” (Ciccone, Huber, Hutchings, & Cambridge, 2009 as cited in Hutchings et al., 2013), we will describe the early steps taken to create fertile ground for a new culture of SoTL. We will provide examples of how a culture of SoTL is being socially constructed (Roxå & Mårtensson, 2009; Umbach, 2007) while maintaining a delicate balance between a faculty driven approach (Hutchings et al., 2013) and the institutional support required for integration (Marquis, 2015). We will share our culture building approach including the use of language and rituals that facilitate an institutional commitment to “make a serious investment in SoTL” (Shulman as cited in Felten & Chick, 2018, p.13). We will outline markers of success (or lack thereof), lessons learned, including challenges and triumphs as we work to develop of a “vibrant and collaborative community around SoTL work” (Marquis, 2015, p. 29).

This session recounts people's stories about the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) and the inspiration that led to their reflective practice. Storytelling enriches a learning culture by revealing personal and emotional journeys and our intention is to use stories as an invitational bridge towards SoTL projects. We also identify and share the challenges faculty experience in studying their teaching and offer a SoTL framework and considerations to better understand and address those challenges. This mixed-methods study took place at a mid-sized research intensive university in Canada. Information was gathered from 289 faculty members through a survey that captured the events and experiences that triggered participant interest in SoTL and their perceptions of the importance of this work. Following the survey, we conducted 3 semi-structured group interviews with 8 participants. The purpose of the interviews was to pursue an in-depth exploration of the triggers, challenges, and supports in SoTL research and to capture examples of individual stories relating to the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and their process of self-discovery and transformation. Similar to Brookfield (1998), we propose four lenses that are defined in terms of SoTL triggers and which we name a Scholarship Window: the lens of Self; the lens of Other; Living in the Discipline; and Living in SoTL. The lens of Self identifies a trigger that emanates from personal critical reflection on our own teaching experiences and who we are as educators. The lens of Other describes a trigger that originates from incidents apart from personal reflection such as experience with students in a classroom or conversations with colleagues outside a disciplinary department such as educational developers and faculty attending teaching-related events. Living in a Discipline is a phrase that captures how individuals are shaped by disciplinary conventions in the scholarly literature. Living in SoTL is a way to acknowledge that some educators function within an environment that focuses foremost on teaching and learning. We conclude our session with considerations for the field.

Our paper entertains an admittedly provocative idea—that SoTL practitioners should be, and should think of themselves, as ‘amateurs.'

Our rationale is that SoTL involves a labor of love, an ethic of care that connects students and faculty as partners within our institutions, across society and into the world. SoTL thus conceived, we contend, can fruitfully be considered through Edward Said’s understanding of the public intellectual as an ‘amateur’ who engages “in activity … fueled by care and affection” (1994, p.82). This lens has the virtue not only of clarifying what SoTL is, but also of delineating the dangers that may arise when SoTL is professionalized in ways that come to function as a technology of control and accountability by standardising teaching practice through outcomes-based assessment (Servage, 2009; Roxå and Mårtensson, 2017; but see Graff & Birkenstein, 2011, Walvoord, 2011). We ask what is gained, and what lost, when SoTL becomes institutionalised as a means of professionalising and evaluating academics in their teaching role. While engagement in SoTL, authentically integrated with student and faculty learning, can enrich academic practice by leading to deeper dialogues about teaching (Kreber, 2013), it may become a vehicle of neoliberal managerialism when it is oriented explicitly towards recognition. This is particularly the case when going public with SoTL is understood as requiring publication (Harland et al., 2015).

We start by briefly considering how SoTL has been defined from Boyer onwards, highlighting often conflicting interpretations of its goals and scope as well as different ways in which its relation to scholarship, research, teaching, and learning has been understood. We will engage the audience by asking colleagues to position themselves relative to these various interpretations from within their diverse contexts. Finally, we turn to Said’s work on the public intellectual as an avenue for recovering SoTL as a process integrated with practice, “an imperative for all academics who teach” (Kreber, 2013, p.6). We focus on Said’s four pressures of ‘professionalism’: specialisation, the certified expert, co-option by power, and intellectual conformity. We will end by tracing the degree to which Said’s amateurism—“caring for ideas and values despite the restrictions of a profession” (1994, p.76)—holds the promise of an approach to SoTL that may result in a transformation of teaching and learning cultures in higher education: opening up spaces and time for contemplative scholarship, environments of care, and alternative means of going public.

The goal of this panel is to highlight high quality undergraduate research (UR) mentoring practices that contribute to the creation of a culture of learning by generating and sustaining authentic, impactful teaching and learning within and across courses, programs, departments and institutions. Global learning and UR have been identified as high-impact practices (HIPs) that deepen and sustain students’ learning (Kuh, 2008). According to Brew (2013), UR facilitates the intersection of research and teaching by emphasizing student engagement, participation, and inquiry. In high-quality UR experiences, mentors scaffold inquiry-based learning experiences in which students gradually gain research expertise and become members of scholarly, knowledge-building communities of practice (Hunter, Laursen & Seymour, 2007; Vandermaas-Peeler, 2016; Vandermaas-Peeler, Miller & Peeples, 2015). Research on study abroad/away indicates that global learning experiences encourage cultural awareness and appreciation for diversity (Stebleton, Soria & Cherney, 2013). Reported benefits also include the development of intercultural sensitivity and communication skills; a reduction in ethnocentrism; and interest in further contact with diverse cultures and peoples (Bennett, 1993; Norris & Gillespie, 2009).

Although significant research has examined each of these HIPs separately, there has been less focus on the integration of UR with global learning and little attention devoted to the role of faculty mentors and the processes that contribute to high-quality mentoring relationships and experiences in global contexts. We aim to address this gap.

We will offer recommendations for the adaptation of 10 salient mentoring practices to UR in global contexts (Shanahan, Ackley-Holbrook, Hall, Stewart & Walkington, 2015). Presenters will share recent initiatives that leverage salient practices in UR, including a Center for Research on Global Engagement, a Center for the Study of Religion, Culture, and Society and a Multifaith Scholars program, all of which support both the development of faculty mentor and student researcher. Related projects have established a network of research scholars, both students at various levels and faculty, across disciplines and schools, and the enhancement of effective skills and attitudes among faculty mentors. Outcome data as well as interview and focus group transcripts point to the strong contributions that student/faculty research cohorts can provide to a culture of learners. We will conclude by offering suggestions and recommendations for faculty mentors striving to create a culture of learning outside of the context of traditional university classrooms.

Many students in foundation science courses encounter difficulties in applying their knowledge to unfamiliar problems as well as in justifying their reasoning in a complete, logical and scientific manner. Based on our experiences as instructors, this is often due to a lack of conceptual understanding of the subject matter, which prevents students from identifying and understanding the crux of the problem at hand. This can lead to inappropriate attempts at solutions, giving wrong or even physically impossible answers, without the students even realizing it. Discipline-based education research has shown that experts and novices tackle problems in significantly different ways. Experts’ well-developed knowledge base and mental models allows them to analyze and see the deeper structure in a given problem, resulting in effective problem-solving strategies. By contrast, novices have a tendency to focus on surface features.

In order to help students redirect their focus in problem-solving from the answer to the reasoning required, as well as to develop their conceptual understanding and ability to use concepts and principles to solve unfamiliar problems, we have developed interactive sessions that can be used in a traditional lecture theater for classes of over 100 students. During the sessions, students are presented with descriptions of phenomena drawn from related scientific disciplines and everyday life, and additionally questions that required them to analyze and explain such phenomena. Students discuss in small groups and submit individual answers via a web-based mentometer system that include open-ended response functionalities. This is followed by instructor-led discussions that focus on discussing and giving feedback on the students’ argumentation and reasoning. Research has already shown that student-active teaching methodologies lead to better student learning and academic results. Furthermore, this is a teaching format that incorporates real-time formative feedback even for large-class situations, which is particularly desirable given that large-enrollment courses are commonplace in many science and engineering programs.

In this presentation we will discuss the design principles, as well as the implementation of this teaching format. Student evaluations showed that the format helped them to develop their scientific thinking and to work with the subject content at a deeper and more conceptual level. The combination and sequence of learning activities was much appreciated. Insights about the pedagogical and practical challenges associated with using this format, including student heterogeneity in motivation and ability, will also be discussed, together with suggestions for adaptations and further development.

For the past four years, we have been conducting a study on the use of an innovative approach to teach the foundational physiological content within a Bachelor of Nursing program, specifically, first-year anatomy and physiology, as well as second year patho-physiology and patho-pharmacology. A variety of active learning techniques were implemented, most significantly, the creation of detailed concept maps by the students for each topic within the course. In the first year, students used skeleton maps created by the instructor. Through interviews we learned that some of these students began creating their own concept maps independently in the second year, similar to the findings of Carr-Lopez et al. (2014). The practice of concept maps has now been adapted and extended formally into the second year patho-physiology and pharmacology courses by some of the instructors to build upon the first year, and some students have continued to create these maps in later years.

Concept maps have been identified by Jaafarpour, Aazami, & Mozafari (2016) as having a positive effect on the academic achievement in nursing students. Schwendimann (2015) after reviewing a range of studies investigating concept maps concludes that, “when used sensibly and skillfully, concept maps can be powerful tools to support knowledge integration processes of complex ideas” (p. 89) and argues that “concept mapping can foster students’ learning for conceptual understanding instead of for memorization of isolated ideas” (p. 87). Gul and Boman (2006) note the potential for concept maps to “transform and externalize critical thinking” (p. 204), which is increasingly emphasized in nursing education. The research conducted by Chen et. al (2011) supports this claim.

In the present study, we have conducted 35 interviews from several cohorts of students. In this presentation, we will report specifically on students’ experience and perception of the concept maps. Students described the importance of their intent to learn, the benefits of continuous exposure to the material, the role of accountability in motivation, the reorganization of their study time and strategies, the retention of their learning with this approach, their ability to make connections to other contexts. We have been able to follow a small cohort through all four years of their program, to determine the long term impact in terms of student perception of using the maps. Through this study we engage with the theme of creating a learning culture - learning that has a lasting impact, within and across courses and programs.

Team-Based Learning (TBL) (Michaelsen, Knight, & Fink, 2004) is a structured small group learning approach that has gained considerable popularity in higher education (Burgess, McGregor, & Mellis, 2014; Sisk, 2011). Michaelsen and Sweet (2008) argue that TBL encourages a culture of peer learning where heterogeneous group of students with mixed abilities would develop into self-managing high performance teams.

While there is much research that investigates how students are learning as a team in TBL, the methodologies tend to be limited to the use of surveys (Burgess, et al., 2017; Fatmi, et al., 2013; Sisk, 2011) or observation lists (Kelly, et al., 2005; Ozgonul & Alimoglu, 2017). There has not been (to the best of my knowledge) any qualitative studies that examine team learning within TBL. This paper intends to narrow the gap by sharing the findings of a series of structured one-on-one interviews with 25 first year students from an elite science programme at a top university in Singapore.

These students were divided into 5 teams and taught using TBL for their first semester Mathematics and Chemistry courses. In both courses, they work together with their teammates over at least eight TBL sessions spanning almost three months to respond to a series of questions and problems as a team.

At the end of the semester, the students were interviewed about their interest and confidence level in the courses; how they feel about learning through discussions; their team decision making process; their roles within the teams and how these aspects had evolved over time.

Analysis of the interview transcripts suggests that few students identified changes with their team decision-making process over time. They also tended to stick to the same team role and saw little need to change the way their teams were working together. This is somewhat surprising as there were different decision-making strategies across the teams. It appears that when students are satisfied with their learning or scores, they are not concerned about their team processes. Finally, while students predominantly felt that discussion helped them learn, the degree to which it was helpful appears to be more related to their team composition, the question format and the extent to which they felt they are able to participate rather than the subject matter.

Implications, limitations and future qualitative research on developing a culture of peer learning within TBL and other similar approaches shall be discussed.

The language we use, as Nystrand (1977) notes, frames the way in which we understand the world. Our language thus contributes to creating the perceived culture in which we operate. The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) is one area in which this is very much true: how institutions (and individuals) define the SoTL frames the culture in which SoTL operates. Historically, there have been many examples of this, and notably, it was a central theme of a special issue of The Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Canada (Simmons, 2016) in which chapters explored, among other themes, how SoTL was named and defined and how that integrated with the institution’s culture. The SoTL literature contains numerous articles defining the SoTL, beginning with Boyer’s (1990) notion of teaching in and of itself as one form of scholarship. More recently, a common distinction is made in the ways in which scholarly teaching differs from the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (see, for example, Potter & Kustra, 2011). This can create challenges of exclusion, as those who are starting in the SoTL may be told they’re not doing ‘real SoTL’ yet. Other literature distinguishes the SoTL from the Scholarship of Educational Development (Kenny, et al., 2017), which can create a sense that improved student learning is not the end goal of both.

In this session I call on us to view SoTL definitions through the lens of several critical questions:

How do definitions of the SoTL frame how it is taken up?

Who is included in these definitions of the SoTL – and who is excluded?

How might we reimage a definition of the SoTL given what we hope it will achieve?

We will construct responses to these questions, and discuss them in small and large groups. Our responses can reveal insights about our own perceptions, the contexts in which we operate, and the larger field of SoTL – and it is my hope we might compile our insights for sharing with those interested in supporting SoTL cultures.

This workshop provides a practical introduction to conducting solution-oriented learning-conversations. Learning-conversations constitute the single most important influence (Kyndt et al., 2016) on the professional development of university teachers, yet if not conducted effectively, they can too easily reinforce problems rather than generate solutions to those problems.

Learning-conversations start from a communication bottleneck: you present to me your explanatory model of “how things are”, and I reject that model because it conflicts with my causal story of “how things work”. Bottlenecks occur in all communication – between couples, in teams, in teaching, and between colleagues. Their distinction between models and stories is central to constructivist accounts of learning and plays a key role in driving effective learning-conversations.

A learning-conversation is a dialogue between three roles – an Expert, an Apprentice and a Coach – whose aim is to resolve a bottleneck. In this workshop we review and practise the skills and language structures of learning-conversations that have proven so effective when applied within the Decoding the Disciplines process (Pace, 2017). We break learning-conversations down into four learnable skills:

- Actively build and maintain rapport: The Coach supports the Apprentice in establishing an atmosphere that encourages story-telling by respecting the knowledge and expertise of all conversation participants;

- Bottleneck: This is the trigger for the learning-conversation. The Expert possesses the skills to negotiate the bottleneck; the Apprentice is curious to learn those skills;

- Convert the bottleneck into a learning outcome: Successful learning-conversations start from a positively formulated, sensory-specific, ecological learning outcome;

- Decode the Expert’s story: The Apprentice invites the Expert to explore the story of how she skilfully pursues her learning outcome, analysing this story into step-by-step models.

As part of their PhD scholarship, doctoral candidates at Nanyang Technological University are required to successfully complete a 15-hour Teaching Assistants’ Course (TAC) which aims to introduce them to teaching and learning frameworks upon which to anchor their teaching.

Literature suggests that while such courses have an impact on participants’ awareness of their teaching practices, the effects of such courses are often influenced by many factors such as individual and contextual factors.

This study aims to ascertain the effectiveness of the TAC in preparing participants for teaching assistant duties, by answering these questions:

• How have participants’ perceptions of teaching and learning changed as a result of the course?
• Which aspects of the course did the participants find valuable and why?

We employ a mixed-method research design utilising the Revised Approaches to Teaching Inventory (RATI) and Focus Group Interviews (FGIs). It begins with a pre-test/post-test survey administered to 534 PhD students, of which 191 students completed both pre- and post-course surveys. The paired sample t-test for this sample shows no significant decrease in the Information-Transfer Teacher-Focused (ITTF) approaches while showing a significant increase in Conceptual-Change Student-Focused (CCSF) approaches.

While the overall finding is supported by literature which found greater stability in ITTF approaches as compared with CCSF approaches (Lindblom-Ylänne, Trigwell, Nevgi, & Ashwin, 2006), two surprising results were found when using Biglan’s (1973) disciplinary categories. First, responses from students of the soft-pure discipline category revealed significant decreases in ITTF approaches with no change in CCSF approaches. Second, only students from the hard-applied discipline category reported concurrent significant decrease in ITTF approaches and significant increase in CCSF approaches. These findings appear inconsistent with existing literature which suggest that instructors from “hard” disciplines tend to adopt more ITTF approaches (Lindblom-Ylänne, et. al., 2006), which as mentioned earlier, tend to be more stable.

While we have yet to ascertain the possible reasons for the limited changes in the soft-pure category, the findings from the FGIs suggest that the changes found amongst students in the hard-applied discipline category might be due to their involvement in course design work while they were undertaking the TAC. This is in line with Mattheoudakis (2007), who suggested that the opportunity to integrate declarative and procedural knowledge may potentially influence mindsets. Follow-up research needs to be conducted on the effect on mindsets when theory is integrated with practice for the duration of the course

Undergraduate students in science classes are more engaged and demonstrate increased performance when instructional methods implement authentic science practices and active learning strategies. In these courses, students report greater self-confidence in their abilities to understand scientific concepts, particularly female and underrepresented minority students. Creating such inquiry-based, active-learning centric, and authentic science experiences also promotes inclusion and meaningful learning in the classroom. However, these models of science instruction are typically relegated to majors-only science students. Non-majors students (i.e. those enrolled in science classes because they need to fulfill a requirement) typically receive instruction that is more lecture-based and prescribed, which often contributes to disinterest, diminished self-expectations, and lower performance.

Mediating these untended outcomes is a critical part of creating an inclusive and empowering science learning community in undergraduate science. Teaching assistants (TAs) are prime candidates to engage in these change processes as they often interact more closely with students than lecture instructors. However, existing research on how TAs teach doesn’t delve deeply into what concerns TAs have about their teaching capabilities. We collected data throughout an ongoing TA training program and sought to answer the following questions: 1) what are TAs’ concerns about teaching? and 2) How do TA concerns evolve over time? Are there consistencies in TA concerns over time? Data sources included pre- and post- workshop survey questions at the beginning and end of a workshop before the fall semester as well as open-ended reflection prompts given at four time points throughout the academic year.

First and second cycle qualitative coding analyses were conducted to establish themes of TA concerns and to explore if and how those themes changed over time. Preliminary analysis revealed that TAs concerns in general tended to be linked specifically with science content. This indicates that TAs are comfortable with their science content knowledge yet unsure if that knowledge is effectively translated to their students. Additionally, TAs were concerned about being inclusive in their teaching practices, citing insecurity about what techniques were appropriate. Finally, TA concerns, while moderately fluctuating over time, were consistently student-centered in nature. These findings show that as teaching assistants developed their instructional techniques and identities, how to connect their teaching with their students was integral in their reflective processes.

Learning the scientific way of thinking and understanding the nature of scientific knowledge are among the main aims of university education. It is known, however that these skills are not easy for students to learn. For example the concepts used in scientific research have found to be problematic for students (Author 2015) and understanding the concept of theory has shown to be difficult even for post-graduate students (Kiley, 2015). According to previous research pedagogical training has an impact on teachers’ conceptions of teaching (Postareff, Lindblom-Ylänne & Nevgi, 2008) and teachers’ conceptions of teaching are further connected to their reported teaching practices (Gibbs & Coffey, 2004; Prosser & Trigwell, 2014). The aim of the current study was to examine what kind of conceptions university teachers and doctoral students have about the development of scientific thinking of university students and how these conceptions are connected to other conceptions of teaching and learning. The data (N = 76) was collected during online university pedagogy courses organized for university teachers and doctoral candidates. The participants answered a questionnaire consisting of background information and questions about conceptions of teaching and learning and the development of students´ scientific thinking.

The analyses revealed many interesting connections between teachers´ conceptions of teaching and learning and the development of students´ scientific thinking. For example, the way how teachers see the role of preconceptions in learning is connected to their conceptions of students epistemological beliefs (r=0,68, p=0,00) and the way how they activate students (r=0,39, p=0,00). Teachers´ conceptions of activating students were connected also to student-focused approach to teaching (r=0,68, p=0,00). According to the findings research skills are connected to epistemological beliefs (r=0,30, p=0,09), the role of preconceptions in learning (r=0,28, p=0,16) and the way how they activate students (r=0,30, p=0,09). Teachers also saw research skills as a part of scientific thinking regardless of their conceptions about approach to teaching.