Saturday, October 27th 2018 PSK

Research suggests that film and other kinds of popular culture are used frequently to support learning in courses across disciplines (e.g., Andrist et al., 2014; Peacock et al., 2016). Indeed, scholars have argued that film and video can be drawn on to support a wide variety of pedagogical goals, from increasing student motivation and engagement (Swimelar, 2013) to promoting the development of empathy (Happel-Parkins & Esposito, 2015), professional skills (Lumlertgul et al., 2009), and/or deep approaches to learning (Olson et al., 2016). In spite of this burgeoning literature, many questions about the pedagogical potential of film remain unanswered. Perhaps most fundamentally, little research has considered what Hutchings (2000) might call the ‘what is’ questions about student learning with and from film texts; because existing scholarship has focused largely on disseminating approaches to using film for teaching and learning and/or assessing the impact of such approaches, we lack a basic understanding of what students do when they encounter films in academic contexts. The present research thus sought to investigate how students approach and experience the process of viewing films in the classroom. In particular, it considered the elements of films students do (and do not) attend to while viewing, how they make sense of and respond to these factors, and whether they approach documentary and fictional texts differently.

To explore these questions, we invited students from an interdisciplinary program at a Canadian university to participate in individual think aloud and interview sessions. In these sessions, participants watched brief clips from a documentary and a fiction film of relevance to a mandatory course they had taken on global challenges (in which film is used extensively), and were asked to voice their thoughts, observations, and questions as they watched—a modification of the think aloud technique that has been used by SoTL scholars to access students’ thinking as they read written texts (e.g., Bloch-Schulman, 2016). This presentation will share preliminary findings from the study, considering in particular the trends in students’ approaches to reading film and the implications of these findings for instructors using film in courses across disciplines. Attendees will thus be engaged in consideration and discussion of ideas of relevance to the ‘culture for learning' conference thread, exploring how SoTL projects that attend to students’ interactions with texts can offer insight into student thinking which, in turn, might inform increasingly effective pedagogical practice.

This session lies within the theme of "a culture for learning". Traditional teaching, especially in humanities and social science courses, has been supported mainly by readings from textbooks and common examinations or essay assessments (McLaughlin et al., 2014). Incorporating instructional technologies facilitates a more interactive learning environment than the traditional one and they are powerful tools for delivering course material. This integration should be more acceptable to students since it mirrors students' real-life habits (Henderson, Selwyn, & Aston, 2017). In a pilot study, we explored the use of interactive videos through a single-blinded study in a third-year humanity and social science course at the University of Toronto Mississauga in Canada, that provided health literacy to science and non-science students. Five times during the course, a test sample of 33 students were given quizzes both before and after completing one of its several interactive videos. Students were told that points would be assigned on the basis of completion and submission of the assigned work and not on the correctness of their responses. The test sample post-quiz results were pooled and then compared to those for a control group of students. The control group consisted of 35 students who completed the same course two years earlier, but the readings were assigned as homework exclusively and were not presented in the classroom. Significantly (P<0.001), the sample students' post-quiz grade mean was 33.19% higher than their pre-quiz mean. Also, the test sample students' post-quiz mean (82.66±1.35%) was significantly higher than that of the control group (70.08±1.73%, P<0.001). These findings suggest that students are more likely to achieve a course's expected outcomes when integrating technology-based lessons in a classroom that reflect "students' real-life habits" with low-risk assessments. Moreover, the outcomes demonstrated that students' learning was enhanced when they were given an opportunity in class to explore their misconceptions and understandings by discussing their mistakes. Through the non-binding and low-risk formative assessment defined by the pre- and post-quizzes that were a component of this intervention assessment, it became evident that students were more engaged and interested in the content itself rather than aiming to achieve higher marks only. Furthermore, the opportunity to expose students to video snippets that support course concepts also has the benefit of showing students that the course instructor is aware of their comfort with technology; hence, it further enhances students' engagement within the course.

The ways students engage with information may be an essential aspect of student learning. Intentional and creative engagements with information in a disciplinary learning environment may yield more sophisticated producers and consumers of information and at the same time yield better disciplinary learning (Bruce, 2008). Yet, little research has explored the relationship between how students engage with information and student performance or other concepts related to performance, such as student motivation. Addressing this gap, this research investigates the relationships between how students were tasked to use information in a disciplinary classroom and: a) course-level performance and b) student motivation.

Participants in the study were over 3,000 students in 102 course sections from seven different colleges at Purdue University, a large, public university in the United States. Student data were derived from an end-of-semester perception survey (46% response rate) and university records. Drawing from various instruments, the survey collected data on students’ perceptions of their learning climate (Williams, Deci, & Geen, 1996), basic psychological needs (Levesque-Bristol, Knapp, & Fisher, 2011), and self-determined motivation (Guay, Vallerand, & Blanchard, 2000; Levesque-Bristol et al., 2011). Instructor data were collected from an online survey, which included questions concerning the frequency and type of information engagements with which they tasked students.

Data analysis included a series of standard multiple regressions performed with five information use questions (for example, posing questions that require further investigation, evaluating information sources, etc.) as the independent variables and data from course grades, Learning Climate Questionnaire, Basic Psychological Needs Survey, and Self-Determination Index as dependent variables.

The specific ways that students engage with information may play a prominent role in student learning environments, as evidenced by measures of motivation and course-level performance. For instance, the information use questions explained 19% of the variance in course grades (p < .01) and 17% of the variance for student perceptions of the learning climate (p = .004). Results suggest that synthesizing information and communicating the results through a deliverable, as opposed to other types of engagements with information, may be particularly important for student achievement, motivation and perceptions of the learning environment. In contrast, tasking students to focus on citation and attribution practices had a negative relationship with student perceptions of their learning climate. Educators may support student achievement and create more motivating and engaging learning environments by tasking students to use information in more intentional and creative ways.

The present study investigates the effect of Team-Based Learning (TBL) on students’ engagement and learning. The study employs a Self-Determination Theory (SDT) approach to investigate the underlying motivational effects of implementing TBL among a higher education sample. Sixty-four students participated in a quasi-experimental study with a one-group pretest-posttest design. The results show that the students increased significantly from pretest to posttest on intrinsic motivation, identified regulation, external regulation, perceived competence, and perceived autonomy support, as a function of TBL. The students’ basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness increased from pretest to posttest. Further, the results show that the students decreased in amotivation from pretest to posttest. Lastly, the students’ engagement and perceived learning increased. A path-analytical model shows that increases in intrinsic motivation, perceived competence and external regulation predicts increases in engagement, which in turn predicts increases in perceived learning. The results are in line with SDT. A teaching method that encourages active learning, as opposed to passive learning, facilitates autonomous motivation (i.e., intrinsic motivation and identified regulation) and decreases unintentionality (i.e., amotivation). In TBL, the teacher is a facilitator of learning, as opposed to a transmitter of information, which might account for the increases in autonomy support. Moreover, functions within TBL might enhance student engagement and perceived learning. However, TBL has several requirements that might be perceived as controlling, which might explain the increase in external regulation. Based on the results, we encourage teachers to consider the motivational pulls within TBL when implementing in courses.

Co-creation of the curriculum is one form of learning and teaching in which students and staff are engaged to work in partnership so that each has a voice and a stake in curriculum development in higher education (Bovill, 2013; Bovill & Bulley, 2011; Cook-Sather, Bovill, & Felten, 2014) and ‘work collaboratively with one another to create components of curricula and/or pedagogical approaches’ (Bovill et al., 2016, p. 196). The massification of higher education is affecting the learning and teaching experience for both students and staff (Merriam & Caffarella, 1991) with class sizes increasing and, in some cases, focusing on teaching content knowledge rather than incorporating the skills and attributes that students need to deal with supercomplexity and an unknown future (Barnett, 2004). However, co-creation of the curriculum can create bridges between traditional ‘student’ and ‘teacher’ roles both within and across disciplines by facilitating open dialogue about best practices in learning and teaching, whilst also redistributing power in the classroom and challenging the status quo so that both students and staff learn from each other (Cook-Sather et al., 2014; Lubicz-Nawrocka, 2017).

Qualitative research has been conducted about co-creation of the curriculum at five Scottish universities, including twenty interviews and five focus group discussions with both students and staff. These participants have been active in student engagement initiatives including co-creation of the curriculum, student representation, and reflection on effective engagement practices in teaching and learning. The qualitative data were analysed using aspects of constructivist grounded theory, using an inductive approach and constant comparison methods.

This paper presents findings of the benefits of co-creation of the curriculum across disciplines in Scottish universities. It explores findings of how students and staff a) facilitate an inclusive learning culture, b) gain confidence with new learning and teaching methods, c) learn from diverse perspectives to improve curricula, and d) develop both personally and professionally. The paper explores theoretical work on the development of ‘critical being’ in higher education to help individuals deal with supercomplexity (Barnett & Coate, 2004) and how co-creation of the curriculum can benefit both students and staff as they learn to deal with risk and uncertainty in learning and teaching. It concludes by discussing with the audience the implications for facilitating student and staff voice, negotiating power dynamics, and challenging the status quo in higher education.

Engaging public health students to connect with health inequalities and the social determinants of health (SDH), can be difficult, and in an era of political uncertainty and rising inequalities the need to facilitate a culture of learning that prepares future public health leaders has never been greater. Yet, we continue to witness student liminality (Land et. al., 2005), linked to individualised understandings of health and tensions embedded within students’ socio-cultural and professional contexts.

Addressing these challenges, we investigated the SDH as a threshold concept. Threshold concepts are embedded within a transformed understanding of a discipline, where learning involves traversing a conceptual gateway (Land et. al., 2005). Through this learning journey students may encounter ‘troublesome knowledge’. Felten (2016) suggests the emotional terrain is the most challenging, but ultimately transformation is linked to changes in ways of knowing. Yet despite the centrality of students’ in this learning journey, their voices are a notable omission from research informing teaching (Felten, 2016).

Methods

Across one semester we worked with ten student partners in two public health courses (undergraduate and postgraduate) to map their learning journey in relation to the SDH. Our project integrated multiple methods including: baseline and end of semester class surveys, fortnightly meetings with student partners, and weekly student journals.

Findings

Across the undergraduate and postgraduate cohorts distinct points of progression, recursion and digression demonstrated affective spaces of learning and the importance of understanding preliminal variation within and across cohorts. Observation of these distinct points and affective spaces lead to the establishment of an open dialogue with students that encouraged us to move to a living curricula, which transformed as the semester progressed. Through this dialogue students pinpointed the places they became ‘stuck’ - where learning was troublesome, and where they became unstuck. This provided opportunities to collectively explore the emotional terrain of learning, along with discomfort and uncertainty. Traversing uncertainty was most evident for some postgraduate students, who began to question: ‘how do I use and apply this learning?’

Outcomes

Through the project students saw into the teaching ‘black box’ and were keen to work with us to change teaching practices. For us, the opportunity to work with students to establish safe and transparent channels of communication and invigorate a living curriculum was transformative. Collectively we redesigned curricula around the SDH and embarked on a more democratic culture of learning and teaching with students and colleagues.

College and university efforts to improve undergraduate teaching and learning require support and reward for faculty use of teaching practices that are known to support student learning. Despite decades of scholarship to re-envision faculty roles and to develop rich, multisource systems for representing teaching, these methods have not been broadly implemented into practice (Bernstein, 2008; Bernstein & Huber, 2006; Glassick, Huber, & Maeroff, 1997; Hutchings, 1996; Hutchings, Huber, & Ciccone, 2011). In recognition of the importance of this lever for change, departments, colleges and institutions are now developing innovative efforts to support the implementation of higher quality approaches to teaching evaluation.

Evidence shows that stated policies alone do not reflect practices, much less evolve culture to more highly value teaching. A richer, more complete assessment of teaching quality and effectiveness for tenure, promotion, and merit is necessary for systemic improvement of undergraduate education (Fairweather, 2002; Huber, 2002).

In this interactive panel moderated by the Association of American Universities, we will explore the various strategies institutions are using to create an environment where the continuous improvement of teaching is valued, assessed, and rewarded at various stages of a faculty member’s career and aligned across the department, college, and university levels. We will showcase an emerging matrix to map the landscape of efforts that are working to improve policy and practices related to the evaluation of faculty work and showcase three illustrative projects in this space. Panelists will identify shared goals being addressed by these new policies and practices. Participants will explore strategies to implement these new tools and address the common barriers to implementation.

The University of Kansas, Center for Teaching Excellence: Benchmarks for Teaching Effectiveness Rubric

The University of Kansas Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE) has developed a framework to provide a more comprehensive view of faculty teaching. It is designed as a rubric to structure department evaluation of faculty members’ teaching, with defined expectations for seven dimensions of teaching practice. CTE is working with departments to adapt and use the rubric as part of a multi-institutional National Science Foundation study.

Royal Academy of Engineering: Career Framework for University Teaching

The Framework is designed for application across all university disciplines for all faculty members whose role involves any teaching. The initial Framework was adopted and piloted by nine universities across the world and after an implementation evaluation a finalized Framework is being launched in April 2018.

Cottrell Scholars Collaborative: Aligning Practice to Policies – Changing the Culture to Recognize and Reward Teaching at Research Universities

Association of American Universities (AAU) in partnership with Research Corporation for Science Advancement’s Cottrell Scholars has worked on two Cottrell Scholars Collaborative projects focused on understanding more effective ways to evaluate teaching at research universities. Most recently the collaborative published Aligning Practice to Policies. This document provides specific guidance to departments and institutions on how to implement new methods for evaluating, recognizing, and rewarding teaching at research universities, particularly relating to how teaching is judged for purposes of promotion, tenure, and annual reviews.

This panel addresses the central conference theme by highlighting the importance of evaluating and rewarding faculty members' contributions to fulfilling the educational mission of higher education institutions and creating cultures where continuous improvement to teaching and learning is expected and valued.

Fieldwork is an integral part of most higher education Earth Science curricula. Field mapping combines many of the field skills taught in various sub-disciplines such as sedimentology, structural geology, petrology etc. That is, identifying, measuring, documenting and interpreting field evidence in the rocks and in the landscape. Field mapping is therefore taught as a capstone course for the bachelor program in geology and physical geography at Oslo University, Norway. Until now, we have regarded it as a given that field skills such as measuring structures, sketching, finding geographical locations on maps, and recording data are best learnt using traditional analogue field methods, even though digital tools are becoming more and more prevalent in professional Earth Science fieldwork. In the spring of 2018 we implemented field teaching using the program Fieldmove run on Ipad pros in our capstone field mapping course. In this study we report the students’ experiences of this trial. The students were observed in the field, and answered questionnaires during and after the course. Using this data, along with the maps the students produced as part of the course, we examine how the students use their limited time in the field on different tasks as they work with or without digital tools, how they perceive the digital tools to affect their learning, the relevance of the field course and their overall experience of the field work, and the effect the digital tools had on the final products of the mapping projects.

This paper investigates the educational benefit of 3D Virtual Field Guides (VFG) to enhance and aid student learning. Over the last decade there has been increasing interest in the use of web-based and mobile technologies to support the fieldwork of professional geoscientists and to alleviate issues of inclusivity for disabled students (Stewart et al., 2010). Geoscience has often been under represented by students with a disability due to the many active outdoor field trips (Rose, 1993; Hall, Healey & Harrison, 2004).

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV), popularly called ‘drones’, are an emerging mobile technology that show potential for use in geoscience fieldwork and teaching. A small structured VFG was created from UAV data and used to facilitate learning on two university geoscience programmes across all levels of undergraduate teaching. This model was developed in partnership with practitioners and students to facilitate their inclusive and accessible learning needs. This project covers the conference theme of a Culture for and of learning along with the development of inclusive learning.

Undergraduate geoscience students (n = 91) from two North West of England Universities completed a questionnaire assessing attitude to fieldwork, technology use, and experience with UAV technology. Students (n = 14) were then approached to participate in focus groups and practitioner and student interviews (n = 10) were conducted to assess the impact that the VFG had on their learning.

Preliminary findings indicate the VFG technology enhances the field trip learning experience for students. The VFG reduces time pressure of teaching key points on the fieldtrip by spending more time in the Virtual landscape and prepares students for their time in the field, thus maximising their learning. Early findings have identified that the model and subsequent data outputs can be a positive educational tool for geoscience students and has further benefits in allowing fieldwork to be more inclusive for disabled students or for those who cannot go on the fieldtrip for access reasons. In conclusion, this project has identified the potential for VFG technology to enhance student learning and contributes new understanding to practical applications of such technologies within Higher Education.

The last two ISSOTL conferences have featured plenary sessions that explore how we talk and write about the SoTL we do. In 2016, Karen Manarin urged the ISSOTL community to “name our assumptions” so we can see learning and teaching from perspectives that sometimes are obscured by the genres and conventions of SoTL (2017, p. 7). Last year, Helen Sword demonstrated that by bringing individual perspectives, identities, and emotions into our SoTL writing, we are not abandoning rigor but rather effectively representing our experiences and connecting with our readers.

In this workshop, we will extend these ideas to explore what makes a SoTL story “true.” We take a playful approach to how we communicate our SoTL, drawing inspiration from author Tim O’Brien’s “How to Tell a True War Story” (1990 – the same year Boyer coined the term “the scholarship of teaching”). O’Brien’s writing about U.S. soldiers during the Vietnam War emphasizes how the human tendency to tell stories that are clear, coherent, meaningful, and generalizable may obscure the truth of what happened. Of course, gaps always exist – and must exist – between what happened and the stories we tell about what happened. As O’Brien reminds us, echoing Juan Luis Borges’s story “On the Exactitude of Science” (1946), every story is only a simplified replica of what happened. We could tell multiple “true” (or not so true) stories about each experience. How do we choose which stories to tell, what are the implications of our choices, and, ultimately, what makes a particular story “true”?

In this workshop, we will invite participants to ask these questions about how we communicate our SoTL work. The practice of SoTL – or any form of scholarship – necessarily involves simplifying complex, messy, and personal experiences into a presentation, article, or other genre that appears conclusive, tidy, and comprehensible. In this session, we will co-create with participants examples of a new SoTL genre: true stories.

Four years ago, Newman University, Birmingham, UK first introduced a ‘students as partners’ project scheme as its key means of promoting SoTL within a broader inclusive learning culture. It aims to foster ongoing collaboration between a diverse student body and staff across multi-disciplinary and multi-professional teams. The funded projects are designed to enhance engagement, generate scholarly enquiry (GuildHE, 2015:23), and help drive the learning culture of the institution. The programme draws upon the work of Paulo Freire, in the hope of sustaining a commitment to a meaningful, and genuinely transformative, pedagogy of partnership. We hold to a view of the University as a place where ‘people think together and keep questions open’ (Readings, 1996) based upon ‘collaborative, co-operative pedagogies’ (Tinto, 1999). A formal evaluation of the first four years of the programme informs this session.

In the same period, student partnership working has been taken-up across Western HE to the extent that Healey can argue: ‘Engaging students and staff effectively as partners in learning and teaching is arguably one of the most important issues facing HE in the twenty-first century.’ (Healey et al, 2014, 7) Work on ‘students as partners’ has quickly generated its own canon, including a special edition of the International Journal for Academic Development and its own dedicated international journal (NUS, 2012, Nygaard et al., 2013, Cook-Sather et al., 2014, Bovill and Felten, 2016). However, the possibility that partnership working may be delivered through primarily technocratic, or domesticated, means can lead to the authenticity of such practices being challenged (Peters, 2016). It is timely, therefore, to consider the theoretical underpinnings of partnership working and whether particular partnership practices deliver on the claims made for them.

This workshop will explore the principles and purposes of student partnership working. It will examine the opportunities partnership working affords for collaborative, co-operative pedagogies, and consider the challenges of embedding the cultural shifts required. Participants will be invited to consider whether this particular model of student partnership has the capacity to challenge traditional power hierarchies and promote democratic models of practice (Levy et al., 2011; NUS, 2012) that, in turn, can sustain a meaningful culture for learners and learning.

In many countries (including the US and Norway), women who enter college in any of the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) disciplines exhibit greater attrition than do their male peers, a gap that continues throughout most STEM professions. Some explanations for this phenomenon relate to student preparation or academic abilities, which is collectively known as the student deficit model. We have proposed the course deficit model, whereby instructional decisions exacerbate or minimize gaps in performance and retention. We offer evidence—from our own work and that of others—in support of the course deficit model, in our discussion.

Among the factors proposed to explain the attrition of women in science is the lower performance of women in introductory courses. Thus, we will focus on the “introductory course problem,” whereby introductory courses effectively “weed out” students—disproportionately women. We hypothesized that mixed methods of assessment would benefit women by reducing gender gaps in performance on a number of low-stakes assessments rather than a few high-stakes exams. Specifically, we analyzed gender-based performance trends in nine large (N ~ 1000 students) introductory biology courses. Females underperformed on exams compared to their male counterparts, a difference that does not exist with other methods of assessment. Next, we analyzed three case studies of courses that shifted grading schemes to either de-emphasize or emphasize exams as a proportion of total course grade. We found that the shift away from an exam emphasis benefits female students, closing gaps in overall performance. These data confirm our previous findings, which revealed the negative impact of test anxiety on female—and not male—performance in introductory biology. We conclude by challenging the student deficit model, and suggest the course deficit model as explanatory of these performance gaps, whereby the microclimate of the classroom can either raise or lower barriers to success.

Student engagement and learning can improve with active learning approaches. We have previously developed an extensive suite of resources to support students in active learning physics courses. The “Five-Minute Physics” online modules (see teaching.smp.uq.edu.au/fiveminutephysics) significantly improved student preparation for classes. The modules contain interactive simulations, designed to aid development of conceptual understanding. However, engagement with these components varied widely. The proven advantages of simulations for learning abstract concepts motivated us to further develop such resources, with particular consideration for the instructional support that guides students to use simulations – through the mental effort to understand.

We have developed, implemented and evaluated a range of original physics simulations, and associated learning activities based on their use, for both introductory and advanced undergraduate levels. The simulations enable students to manipulate variables and observe the effects, in order to build and refine conceptual frameworks. The visual displays include multiple representations, and students can make measurements of relevant parameters.

We have embedded simulations in the routines of learning, with students actively engaged in activities involving simulations before, during and after class. In preparation for class, guided exploration of simulations provides initial exposure to concepts and their interrelationships. During class discussions, students are asked to make predictions, which can be checked with the simulation. In assessment after class, students are prompted to apply, generalise or transfer knowledge gained from using simulation.

Data to evaluate these strategies has been gathered via online access analytics, student responses to assessment tasks, and surveys of student perceptions. Students think that they are learning with the simulation-based activities, and do demonstrate understanding of the relevant concepts. They generally agree that simulation-based activities helped them to understand concepts, and to feel more confident answering questions on the targeted material. Overall, student feedback is positive. Students generally enjoy the experience of using simulations for learning, and recommend further use of simulation activities. Students particularly value visualisation of abstract ideas. This assists development of a ‘mental picture’ of a physical model, which in the past was expected to be developed via diagrams and equations. Students also nominate interactivity as an important aspect of their learning.

Together, the sequence of simulation-based activities enhance the learning experience and contribute to an active learning environment.

This project also illustrates a learning culture in that some development and evaluation was done by advanced undergraduate research students.